What is true: Players have legit concerns

DAVIE — Let us address this

“Miami Mutiny” head on.

There is no “mutiny” facing the

Miami Dolphins.

Players are disappointed, discouraged, frustrated and — most importantly — confused.

But they’ve been that way for weeks, if not months, and despite getting dismantled, 59-10, in the season-opening loss to the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday, nothing has changed for the Dolphins.

The Dolphins are tanking the 2019 season to secure the No. 1 pick in the 2020 NFL draft to land an elite college quarterback, and the players know this.

Agents talk; they gossip like little schoolchildren, and the national media will keep taking shots at the Dolphins.

This is nothing new, and right now it’s open season on South Florida’s NFL franchise, which explains the ProFootball Talk report about multiple Dolphins players requesting trades.

But no player who hasn’t already stated his disappointment with the franchise’s direction has flat out asked — or had his representatives ask — to be traded following Sunday’s debacle.

“I can’t really speak to the accuracy of that one,” coach Brian Flores said on Monday. “We haven’t received any information like that.”

This doesn’t mean there aren’t a handful of players inside Miami’s locker room who don’t want to follow the lead of Laremy Tunsil, Kenny Stills and Kiko Alonso and play somewhere else.

And some might get that opportunity. The Dolphins’ front office is still holding a yard sale. If an NFL team wants anyone on the roster — and I do mean anyone, including Pro Bowl cornerback Xavien Howard — make general manager Chris Grier a serious offer, and he’ll consider it.

This has been the state of the Dolphins since the spring, according to league insiders.

The purge will continue as the framework of this franchise gets stripped down to the studs.

“That’s something you think about when you take a job like this,” Flores said of the extensive roster overhaul. “My thought process is we’re going to coach the guys we have.”

Expect more churning this week, following last week’s addition of 13 newcomers. And expect more the week after that.

The fluidity of Miami’s ever-changing roster will be a theme all season — just like it was in Bill Parcells’ early years running the front office in 2008 and 2009. And this churn-the-bottom-of-the-roster approach is designed to make just about everyone on the team uncomfortable and keep them on edge.

However, the real source of this team’s discomfort is the locker room’s concerns about the team’s leaders, as there should be.

Most of the roster moves made before the season started didn’t align with what Flores and his staff had been preaching to the players all offseason.

It’s one thing to say to 53 grown men you’re not tanking. But when your actions completely contradict your denial, you’re going to have a problem keeping the team’s trust.

I’ve spoken about this for weeks, if not months, warning that Flores couldn’t afford to lose the locker room in the same fashion Cam Cameron lost it in 2007, in the early stages of Miami’s 1-15 season, and how Adam Gase lost it in the second half of 2018.

Players have to believe in the team’s leadership — the vision of the general manager, the game plan from the coaches — and when they don’t, it can become a toxic environment. Continuing to purge the roster further addresses this, but it doesn’t fix the problem.

It doesn’t make doubt disappear. Veterans know what’s acceptable, and what isn’t. They know how NFL teams are supposed to be run, and that’s why the Dolphins have so few veterans on the roster right now.

Veterans know when an organization is doing fraudulent maneuvers, and some have privately expressed concern about the franchise’s behavior the past few weeks.

However, those concerns have fallen on deaf ears, and speaking out about it comes with consequences.

This is a long season, and one you should expect to be painful because this roster isn’t equipped to field a competitive team, and that’s intentional.

The only way to turn the tide, and win over some of the many skeptics inside the locker room, is to make roster moves to patch the glaring holes, and to create game plans that put the team in position to win.

If Grier isn’t willing to patch the holes and Flores and his staff can’t create respectable game plans this talent-deprived team can execute, expect 15 more embarrassing performances like what we saw Sunday and more talk about players jumping ship.

Omar Kelly