Health behind Pouncey’s exit
Dolphins play the odds in parting ways, not just the salary-cap game.
Mike Pouncey, suddenly headed elsewhere like so many other former starters, was the rare Miami Dolphins first-rounder who did first-rate work, and from the very start.
An immediate starter at center. Three times a Pro Bowler, beginning at the age of 24. Regularly acknowledged through the years as a locker room leader, by teammates voting for a captain and by Joe Philbin’s staff in the selection of “Leadership Council” members.
There were things about Pouncey, too, that made you hold your nose.
Being photographed at a 2013 party in a baseball cap with the words “Free Hernandez” shortly after Pouncey’s former Florida teammate, Aaron Hernandez, was arrested for murder. Being identified that same year as one of the prime culprits in an NFL investigation of bullying in the Miami locker room. Through it all Pouncey’s talent and tough-
ness reserved for him a spot on the Dolphins’ offensive line, and earned him a meaty contract extension that for a time made him the highest-paid center in the league.
“I always had faith that I’d be a Miami Dolphin for life,” Pouncey said on the day in 2015 when he signed that deal.
Thursday morning changed all that, with a phone call informing Pouncey that the team had another center in mind and wanted to restructure his contract. That was more than Pouncey’s sense of self-worth could stand, but it was all that Adam Gase and the Dolphins’ front office were willing to offer.
And so, with the latest reminder that football isn’t forever for any player, the Dolphins turned the page on another big-name star, granting Pouncey his request for a release to pursue the kind of long-term deal he feels is deserving.
It’s the story of this offloading offseason, a story of recasting various leading roles on the Miami roster, but this might be the first one that actually makes the team a little better.
Daniel Kilgore, the center Miami picked up Thursday in a painless swap of seventh-round picks with San Francisco, is less of a health risk than Pouncey. He’ll come to the Dolphins a little fired up, too, a little eager to establish his credentials and find his own forever home.
Just last month the
49ers were giving Kilgore every indication that they wanted him around for a long time as a trusted teammate and protector for $137 million quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo.
There was nothing else for Kilgore to think while San Francisco general manager John Lynch was handing him a contract extension through 2020 and saying things like “He (Kilgore) is very much a leader on this team” and “When you come across players who love the game like Dan you do your best to keep them in your building.”
Will Kilgore be better than Pouncey in 2018?
A lot of that depends on how much the Miami offense is improved as a whole with the addition of Josh Sitton. He’s the four-time Pro Bowl guard who worked for new Dolphins offensive coordinator Dowell Loggains when both were in Chicago, and who started for Green Bay in a Super Bowl win seven years ago.
For now, it’s a relief to be free of the constant worry about Pouncey’s bad hips. Both have been operated on and doctors have said some kind of a hip replacement will be needed in the next 10 years. To Pouncey’s undying credit, he never missed a start in 2017 but something’s not right in there and getting pounded regularly along the line of scrimmage surely won’t make it right.
Center is a particularly brutal position. People get jumbled up in a pile of bodies and rolled over and stepped on just about every snap. That’s life in the interior of the line, and no amount of conditioning can change it.
Think of Dwight Stephenson, one of two Miami centers in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He lasted eight seasons, and didn’t even start full-time in the first two.
The other, Jim Langer, spoke to the Miami Herald last year about the six leg and knee operations he has undergone and how he walks around every day with bone rubbing against bone.
“A doctor told me when I was 32 that I had the skeletal structure of an 85-year-old,” Langer said. “I said, ‘Yeah, I suppose. A lot of miles.’”
The only thing different about Pouncey is that he’s been better compensated for all those rugged miles.
Here’s hoping he gets picked up by a good team and gets overpaid like all free agents. This one doesn’t bother me like cutting ties with Jarvis Landry and Ndamukong Suh. This one is about playing the odds instead of just playing the salary-cap game.