The Miami Dolphins were one of the most entertaining teams in the league in 2022, thanks to their offensive explosion. In 2023, Miami looks to take the next step as Super Bowl contenders. We’re diving into how the Dolphins’ roster was built, including how they’ve used the draft, free agency, and trades.

How the Miami Dolphins Were Built Through the Draft

The Dolphins entered a rebuilding process after the 2018 season, hoping to revamp a roster that had relied primarily on free agent stars and draft busts. With only one season with 10+ wins from 2009 until 2020, the Dolphins had to change their ways. General manager Chris Grier, who has been with the franchise for more than 20 years, admitted in 2016 the team had “to build through the draft.”

Miami’s rebuild was hastened after hiring Brian Flores as the head coach, as Flores helped build a quality defense that allowed the Dolphins to be surprisingly competitive. But the roster wasn’t quite as good as its 10-6 record in 2020 or 9-8 record in 2021 due to its immense flaws along the offensive line and coaching issues on that side of the ball.

The Dolphins’ draft results have varied over the years, with the vast majority of their hits coming on defense.

Of their 11 starters and top backups at running back and wide receiver, only quarterback Tua Tagovailoa and wide receiver Jaylen Waddle are stars.

Left guard Liam Eichenberg, right tackle Austin Jackson, right guard Robert Hunt, and tight end Durham Smythe are each average to below-average starters. Tagovailoa, Waddle, and Jackson were first-round picks, while Hunt and Eichenberg were second-rounders. Third-string running back Devon Achane was a third-round pick in the 2023 NFL Draft.

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The defense has been built through the draft with more success. Star defensive tackle Christian Wilkins, cornerback Xavien Howard, safeties Jevon Holland and Brandon Jones, linebacker Jerome Baker, and edge rusher Jaelan Phillips headline an extremely talented unit. DT Raekwon Davis and EDGE Andrew Van Ginkel have proven to be useful role players as well.

Miami has almost exclusively found their contributors in the first two rounds of the draft. Waddle and Phillips were first-round picks in 2021 after Grier made several trades and proclaimed, “We’re not afraid to use our picks.” Wilkins was the team’s 2019 first-rounder.

Day 2 has brought a swarm of solid defenders. Howard is the longest-tenured Dolphin after joining the team as a second-rounder in 2016. Davis and Holland were also second-rounders, while Baker and Jones were third-round picks in 2018 and 2020, respectively.

How the Dolphins Were Built Through Free Agency/Waivers

The Dolphins are certainly no stranger to being aggressive in free agency. Their willingness to swing big under owner Stephen Ross began in 2013. Between then and 2020, Miami earned the title of free agent winners after signing big-ticket stars like wide receiver Mike Wallace, tackle Branden Albert, defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh, and cornerback Byron Jones.

Each of those deals had varying levels of results, and the Dolphins have largely learned to steer clear of aging, expensive free agents. Miami’s been a hot spot for players to target due to their willingness to meet contract demands, the beautiful location, and the state’s lack of income tax. But this Dolphins’ roster hasn’t heavily relied on free agency.

The biggest free agent to join the Dolphins is left tackle Terron Armstead, who the team inked to a five-year, $75 million deal. They’ve also added center Connor Williams, slot receiver Cedrick Wilson Jr., edge rusher Emmanuel Ogbah, running back Raheem Mostert, and linebacker David Long Jr. from free agency. Slot CB Kader Kohou was an undrafted free agent, so he qualifies into being a free agent as well.

How the Miami Dolphins Were Built Through Trades

Grier has built a unique résumé that has become more trade-centric in recent years. As teams now look to trade their stars before they depart for nothing in free agency, Grier has shown no fear in moving premium draft equity for proven veterans. Like with free agents, it’s helped Miami that Tyreek Hill and Jalen Ramsey both wanted to join the franchise.

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In 2022, Hill was acquired for five draft picks and a four-year, $120 million extension. Ramsey cost the Dolphins a third-round pick in 2023 and tight end Hunter Long, and Miami guaranteed two years on his three-year contract. Miami also traded its 2023 first-round pick and RB Chase Edmonds for EDGE Bradley Chubb, then signed him to a five-year, $110 million deal.

Grier was also quick to acquire backup RB Jeff Wilson Jr. from the San Francisco 49ers after the 49ers acquired Christian McCaffrey. We could potentially see another deal later this year, as Grier admitted the team has taken calls on Cedrick Wilson after he failed to make an impact in his first year with the team.

New York Jets QB Aaron Rodgers delved into a lot of intimate, previously undiscussed details of his sometimes-messy split from the Green Bay Packers during a recent interview with The Athletic’s Matt Schneidman.

There’s a lot to unpack (pun unintended, but appreciated after the fact) in Schneidman’s fantastic effort, but the headline is probably just how long this breakup had been brewing for.

Aaron Rodgers vs. Brian Gutekunst: A 3-Year Long Staring Contest

Rodgers was traded to the Jets on April 24. Almost three years to the day (April 23, 2020) that Green Bay drafted — and traded up for — his successor, Jordan Love. That move signified the beginning of the end for Rodgers in Titletown.

Rodgers being miffed by the Love selection is understandable. He was coming off a career-best, MVP-winning 2020 season. In fact, he set career highs in passing touchdowns (48) and completion percentage (70.7%).

His Packers came up just short of the Super Bowl in a 31-26 NFC Conference Championship loss to the eventual champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Rodgers doubtlessly thought that a first-round draft pick could be better spent elsewhere.

Team brass, anticipating their quarterback’s disappointment, told him the Love selection was all on general manager Brian Gutekunst in an effort to salvage his relationship with head coach Matt LaFleur.

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Nonetheless, when Rodgers speaks on it now he sounds disenchanted with every member of Green Bay’s decision-makers that had a hand in the Love selection.

“I had friends who said, ‘Hey, Matt looked super excited when they made the draft pick,’” Rodgers said. “And I said, ‘I don’t care, honestly.’ Like, they made the pick. They all signed off on it.”

Rodgers stewed on the Love pick for quite a while. Reportedly, he even had his agent, David Dunn, deliver an ultimatum to the Packers: trade Rodgers or fire Gutekunst.

But when the team reconvened for training camp in 2021, he had a Festivus in July, extrapolating on some of his numerous grievances with Green Bay brass (per another Schneidman piece).

Rodgers Wanted More of a Say in Green Bay’s Personnel Decisions

Rodgers wanted team brass to consider his input on personnel matters. He specifically lamented their decision to cut a receiver (Jake Kumerow), who he’d taken a liking to. Rodgers also spoke of numerous instances where he felt the team had maybe disrespected a prominent outgoing veteran, mentioning beloved Packers like Charles Woodson, Clay Matthews, and Jordy Nelson by name.

Rodgers expressed an unmet request to be more involved in personnel matters, specifically as it pertained to incoming free agents.

“People come here to play with me, to play with our team and know they can win a championship here,” Rodgers said. “The fact I haven’t been used in those discussions is something I wanted to change moving forward.”

(Sidebar: The Jets have definitely catered to Rodgers in free agency, landing two of his favorite former targets in Randall Cobb and Allen Lazard.)

As it pertained to his relationship with the aforementioned Gutekunst, Rodgers called it “professional.” An assessment the GM would later echo.

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This song and dance continued until football season rolled around and, predictably, Rodgers went scorched Earth. The future first-ballot Hall of Famer locked up another MVP award for the 2021 season, his fourth overall, while leading Green Bay to a 13-3 finish.

Rodgers was rewarded for his efforts with a three-year, $150 million extension. That’s the headline anyway.

Packers Trade Davante Adams

A $50 million/per year headline is eye-catching no matter who you are. But the reality is it was essentially a one-year extension with maneuverability in Years 2 and 3.

The Packers soon traded Rodgers’ favorite target away — Davante Adams. And then Rodgers no-showed (voluntary) OTAs in 2022, something the team reportedly took exception to. And we’re back to square one.

“I won MVP without doing offseason workouts,” Rodgers said. “Like, was my commitment any less then? I’d say not at all.”

And yet, through all this thinly veiled animosity, both sides said everything was right as rain. Gutekunst said he expected Rodgers under center in Green Bay through the life of his contract. Rodgers envisioned himself retiring as a Packer.

Rodgers and Gutekunst Were Ready To Part Ways

The offseason was relatively quiet. So too, was 2022 for the Packers. After three consecutive 13-win seasons, Green Bay fell off and finished under .500 in 2022. The team reportedly encouraged Rodgers, then contemplating retirement, to take whatever time he needed to mull over his future in the offseason.

Rodgers and Gutekunst had supposedly planned on a meetup while the latter was out west on a scouting expedition. It’d never come to fruition. Call it a missed connection, if you will, but the introverts among us can read through Rodgers’ explanation.

“It was like, ‘Hey, I’m coming out west. I’m driving, whatever, you wanna get together?,’ Rodgers explained. “I said, ‘Yeah, I got a busy schedule. I’m working out, I got things going on, I got appearances, but I’d like to make it work, too.’”

Not much later, Rodgers was traded to the Jets. At his request. Gutekunst told reporters at the NFL’s annual league meetings that, despite his efforts to smooth things over with his QB, Rodgers was a difficult man to reach. Rodgers found his version of events inauthentic.

“Just tell the truth, you wanted to move on,” Rodgers said. “You didn’t like the fact that we didn’t communicate all the time. Like, listen, I talk to the people that I like.”

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If it’s not readily apparent by now, both sides of this melodrama were ready to break up. Rodgers had his fill of (perceived) disrespect. Gutekunst was tired of catering to his malcontent (not to mention handsomely compensated) quarterback.

And there’s no shame in that. Most relationships don’t make it the 18 years that this one did. Perhaps the most noteworthy thing to emerge from this whole saga is how life has come full circle for Rodgers.

Rodgers was once the highly touted first-rounder looking to succeed a beloved and accomplished (albeit mercurial) veteran in Brett Favre. Much, of course, has been made of their dynamic over the years.

Now Rodgers will quarterback the same team his Green Bay predecessor wound up getting shipped off to. Time will tell how that unfolds, but to Rodgers’s credit, he expressed unabashed support and even a kind of kinship for his successor.

“(Love) gets a chance to blaze his own trails, be his own man and lead in the way he best sees fit,” Rodgers said. “Take the good things he learned from me; things he would do differently, do ’em differently. That’s what I did when I took over.”

The New Orleans Saints wasted little time in addressing the major weakness of a team that finished 7-10 in 2022. After signing quarterback Derek Carr this offseason, the Saints are hoping they can get back to the playoffs after a two-year drought. Let’s dive into the best and worst-case scenarios for the Saints’ 2023 season.

Predicting the Best-Case Scenario for the Saints’ 2023 NFL Season

The Saints hope to be this year’s version of the Philadelphia Eagles. The Saints, like the Eagles a year ago, have an elite defense and a strong surrounding cast around their quarterback but face questions about their coaching staff and QB. The Eagles responded resoundingly last year, reaching the Super Bowl after a dominant regular season.

New Orleans’ win total at DraftKings Sportsbook is 9.5, and they’re -180 to make the playoffs. It should help that the Saints have the easiest schedule in the league. The question is, how far can they go? There’s not that same optimism around the upside of the Saints despite this being a team adding a quality veteran quarterback in Derek Carr.

Carr is coming off a down season where the Las Vegas Raiders inexplicably lost nine one-score games. His completion rate, yards per game, and interception rate were either the worst or second-worst marks of his career. However, it’s possible that Josh McDaniels simply misused Carr and is a bad head coach in general.

Carr ranked fifth in deep-ball attempts and second in air yards per attempt last year despite the Raiders dealing with injuries to Hunter Renfrow and Darren Waller throughout the season.

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Despite having a strong arm, Carr is at his best as a short and intermediate passer who takes care of the ball. Here is where Carr ranks among the 55 quarterbacks with at least 1,000 pass attempts since his 2014 rookie year (playoffs included):

• 64.4% pass completions (24th)
• 7.1 yards per pass attempt (32nd)
• 4.3% touchdown pass rate (31st)
• 2.0% interception rate (17th lowest)
• 91.5 passer rating (27th)
• 5.06% sack rate (13th lowest)
• 6.39 adjusted net yards per pass attempt (23rd)

Carr has been durable with a minimal injury history. He has above-average accuracy and ball security, and he can get the ball out on time better than most. But finishing drives in the end zone and with more touchdown passes has often been an issue, so his overall stats are close to average in this sample of quarterbacks.

In many ways, Carr has been atop the “average” range of quarterback rankings for the better part of his career despite impressive physical tools. Sure enough, Carr finished 2022 ranked No. 14 in ESPN’s QBR metric for the second year in a row. Even getting that production from Carr is a big jump from what Jameis Winston and Andy Dalton gave the Saints last year.

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New Orleans also brought in Jon Gruden to help get the most out of Carr this season. At best, Carr will lead a more dynamic offense that has a healthy Michael Thomas, Chris Olave, Juwan Johnson, and Alvin Kamara. Role players like Rashid Shaheed, Kendre Miller, and Jamaal Williams can help the offense survive any time missed by their stars.

Kamara may be suspended for six games if the NFL’s history proves predictive, but the Saints have enough weapons to endure his absence. Thomas has played in only 10 games since 2019 but was electric in the three contests he played in 2022. Few teams have the high-end talent around their quarterback as the Saints do.

They also have a very good offensive line, and their defense ranked ninth in points allowed and fifth in yards allowed despite their offense’s inability to help them throughout the year. New Orleans can be a deep playoff contender in the NFC, with only Dallas, San Francisco, and Philadelphia sitting as teams clearly ahead of their upside right now.

Predicting the Worst-Case Scenario for the Saints’ 2023 NFL Season

The Saints have been banking on some high-risk, high-reward players with varying levels of success. Thomas and Kamara are at the forefront of that discussion entering this year, and even Carr isn’t a lock to be anything more than a younger version of Dalton.

Thomas was “still going through some of the rehab process” in mid-May, per head coach Dennis Allen. Another setback could easily knock Thomas out for the season, considering how his last three years have quickly become irrelevant. And with Kamara all but certain to be suspended, the Saints could go from a feared offense to one overly reliant on Olave and Carr to produce if others can’t fill the gaps.

Carr’s own performance will be under the microscope. If his decline was more of a result of physical decay than the Raiders’ issues, then the Saints’ upside is similar to their 2022 season. Like Dalton last year, Carr’s numbers can be more of an empty-calorie situation than any bit substantive. The Saints’ defense can’t afford a slide back either.

It’s a physical and fast unit that wisely added help along the front four with first-round defensive tackle Bryan Bresee and edge rusher Isaiah Foskey. The unit ranked dead last in pass-rush win rate last year, so both players and 2021 first-rounder Payton Turner can’t be no-shows in 2023. Internal growth from those three players and from linebacker Pete Werner and cornerbacks Paulson Adebo and Alontae Taylor will be huge storylines for what this defense can become.

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They have scary potential with their speed and athleticism, but their youth was detrimental throughout 2022 as they gained experience. Allen has to get the defense to create more havoc more often. This team’s worst-case scenario includes suffering through another season of a benign offense and stepping back from the defense we saw in 2022.

While the youth movement was needed, it was a risky transition. New Orleans could again fail to make the playoffs and would then face an offseason with major changes likely coming throughout the organization.