South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
Hyde: Does Grier use Tunsil’s potential?
Can GM Chris Grier turn trade of the Pro Bowl lineman into multiple Pro Bowlers?
This column is about Dolphins general manager Chris Grier and the potential he’s created with the Laremy Tunsil trade. It’s about how he’s expanded the trade’s initial value. It’s about how he needs to turn Tunsil, a Pro Bowl player, into at least two Pro Bowl players for this reconstruction to work.
But let start here: Dallas Cowboys coach Jimmy Johnson entered offensive coordinator Dave Shula’s office in October of 1989 with good and bad news.
“I made a trade that sets up the franchise for the next 10 years,” Johnson said.
The bad news?
“I traded Herschel Walker,” Johnson said.
Shula immediately took the Cowboys’ run-game playbook and tore it in half. Johnson was right. It set the franchise up for a decade — a dynastic run of three Super Bowl titles that re-made the franchise. But as Johnson always says that gold-standard trade that brought three first-round and three-second round picks from Minnesota was only part of the success: “Turning those draft picks into players was the other part.”
Beyond some nominal starters, Johnson turned Walker into: Hall-of-Fame running back Emmitt Smith, All-Pros in safety Darren Woodson and cornerback Kevin
Smith and Pro Bowl defensive tackle Russell Maryland.
Grier’s trade of Tunsil in 2019 wasn’t the massive Walker deal. The Dolphins got nice draft picks in the trade — two firsts and second-rounder from Houston. The Dolphins also didn’t trade an over-used running back like Walker. They, again, traded a Pro Bowl talent in Tunsil.
Still, Grier did something more than get those picks. He expanded them. He also moved the Dolphins in position to get lucky — and they got historically lucky in a way Johnson didn’t. Houston nose-dived from a playoff team with the 26th pick in last year’s draft to an awful team picking third this draft. That’s only happened four previous times that a team picking 26th or lower one year moved to the top three in the following draft.
Here’s the question: Can Grier similarly turn this opportunity into on-field reality? If so — and if his bet right on quarterback Tua Tagovailoa — he’s written his ticket to executive greatness and turned the Dolphins into a contender. If not, he’ll have wasted four or five years of this franchise and an opportunity to rebuild few executives are afforded.
By now, you need a flow chart to update the Tunsil trade. The initial first-round pick from Houston, for instance, was traded to Green Bay, who took quarterback Jordan Love with that 26th pick.
The Dolphins got the 30th pick and a fourth-rounder from Green Bay. Grier used the 30th pick on cornerback Noah Igbinoghene, who was largely absent his rookie season and struggled in his cameos. Grier also packaged that fourthrounder with the Dolphins’ own fourth-rounder to trade higher into the fourth round and draft guard Solomon Kindley, who started 13 games as a rookie.
Grier then traded the third pick this year essentially for the No. 6 pick and San Francisco’s first-round pick in 2023 (the deal also included trading a fourthrounder this year and receiving a fifth-rounder and a thirdrounder in 2022.) I felt underwhelmed by the return on that trade given historical parallels. That’s the small picture.
The big picture is what happens next. The question isn’t just about specific players. It’s team-building philosophy. The Dolphins, for instance, could build a top offensive line by taking Oregon tackle Penei Sewell, if he’s available at No. 6.
Do great lines translate into Super Bowl runs? Dallas had the best line for years, full of firstround investments, and has two wild-card playoff wins over the past decade to show for it. That’s it.
So do contending teams typically just need good lines and great playmakers? That’s the case I’d make for investing in one of the draft’s top receivers. It’s why if LSU’s Ja’Marr Chase or Florida’s Kyle Pitts are gone it’s an added cost to that tradedown from No. 3. That’s not to say Alabama’s DeVonta Smith and Jaylen Waddle won’t work. They’re top talents.
Grier has hit big and missed big as a general manager thus far. He’s drafted three Pro Bowlers in the past five drafts — but only cornerback Xavien Howard remains a Dolphin. Tunsil is in Houston and Minkah Fitzpatrick is a two-time All-Pro safety in Pittsburgh.
Those trades set up this reconstruction. The Dolphins need double the Pro Bowl talent coming back for these trades to work. Is that feasible? None of the rookies last year were great, though left tackle Austin Jackson showed signs he could be. And the picks deserve time to marinate.
The good news: The Dolphins planned reconstruction has four picks in the top 50 this year. That’s what you get for going this route.
Grier’s Tunsil deal could become the greatest in Dolphins history. For now, that trade was made by GM Joe Thomas in 1969. It was either: Larry Little from San Diego for his highschool teammate, Mack Lamb, who didn’t make the Chargers roster; or Nick Buoniconti, the anchor of the Dolphins’ No-Name Defense, came from New England for three no-name players.
Little and Buoniconti became Hall of Famers on a dynastic team. That’s why those were great trades. The Tunsil trade has the draft potential to be up there. But again, the formula is you need two or three Pro Bowlers to replace Tunsil. You need four Pro Bowlers to make the Fitzpatrick and Tunsil deals work — and a great quarterback.
Potential is a dangerous word. How many of us reach our potential? But the Dolphins future is all about Grier reaching his. The plan isn’t just for Tua to be Bob Griese. It’s for Grier to be Joe Thomas.