Miami Dolphins: Options for fixing the offensive line

The Miami Dolphins are in a tail-spin and blame is being thrown everywhere. The biggest weakness is on the offensive line, but what’s the solution?

The Miami Dolphins, and their fans, entered the 2017 season filled with legitimate hope for the first time in nearly a decade. The team was coming off their first playoff appearance in eight seasons. Adam Gase had seemingly established himself as the coach of the future. Perhaps most important, Ryan Tannehill was coming back healthy to pick up where he left off in 2017 before his knee injury. Things were finally starting to look up in South Beach after years of mediocrity.

But before the season even began the wheels started to come off. Tannehill aggravated his knee injury and had to be placed on injured reserve. Left scrambling to fill his shoes, Gase called on his old Chicago Bears quarterback Jay Cutler. To say that the experiment has been a failure would be an understatement. A lot of the blame for the failed season has been placed at the feet of Cutler — and rightly so. Quarterback is the most important position in football, perhaps in all of team sports. They get the lion’s share of the credit when things go well, and are perhaps unfairly blamed when things don’t.

Cutler has not played well this season, at all. But to say that he’s the sole reason the Dolphins are in the midst of a five-game losing streak and circling the drain would be short-sighted. There are plenty of holes in this offense, many of which contribute to Cutler’s poor performance. The biggest hole among them being along the interior of the offensive line. It’s a problem that has plagued the team for years. A problem that has been somewhat masked by Tannehill’s quick release and athleticism, but a problem nonetheless.

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If ever there was a time to fix it, it would be now. Before RT17 comes back and is put at increased risk of a potentially career-ending injury. The question becomes “What are the Dolphins’ options?”

The Dolphins are likely to finish with a pick inside the top 15 of the 2018 NFL Draft. Conventional NFL wisdom says that’s too high to select an interior lineman. Picks that high are generally reserved for blue-chip left tackles. There are two of those guys available in this draft class, Connor Williams from Texas and Mike McGlinchey from Notre Dame. The Dolphins certainly could entertain the idea of selecting one of those two and sliding current left tackle Laremy Tunsil back to guard. But that’s probably a long-shot, and likely some wishful thinking.

An intriguing possibility for the Dolphins could be to trade down a few spots to a spot “more appropriate” for someone manning the middle of the line. The most likely trade partners would likely be a team in the middle of the first round who’s hungry for a quarterback. Unfortunately, that scenario is unlikely. Though there are potentially four quarterbacks worthy of a first round selection — Josh Rosen, Baker Mayfield, Lamar Jackson, and Sam Darnold — there are just as many teams ahead of Miami in the draft order in need of a quarterback.

If the Dolphins were to take an interior offensive lineman in this year’s draft, it will likely happen late Day 2 or sometime in Day 3. The problem with that is two-fold: First, there’s a dramatic drop in talent at the guard position after McGlinchey’s Notre Dame teammate Quenton Nelson. Secondly, the Dolphins have a startlingly poor track-record of developing mid-round offensive linemen. What, then, is the answer to the Dolphins woes inside? Perhaps a guard in free agency, but that’s going to come at a hefty price.

Last year’s free agency period was somewhat of a feeding frenzy when it came to the offensive line. Especially, surprisingly, at the interior positions. There were five big-name free agents who hit the market last off-season, and each of them got lucrative deals to join new teams. The guy who cashed in the most was former Cincinnati Bengals guard Kevin Zeitler, who was the crown jewel of the offensive line class. He was signed away by the Cleveland Browns to the tune of a 5-year contract worth $60 million. Each of the other four top-flight guards (Ronald Leary, Larry Warford, T.J. Lang, and Luke Joekel) signed contracts worth at least $8 million per year.

It’s hard to imagine the Dolphins going out on a limb next off-season and spending that kind of money. They had ample cap space last off-season. The only spending they did on the offensive line? Bringing in former Bears guard Ted Larsen on a deal for 3 years and just shy of $6 million. Next year’s crop of potential free agent guards isn’t anywhere near the caliber of last year’s group, either. That makes spending big bucks even more unlikely. Someone like Luke Joekel or D.J. Fluker might be worth kicking the tires on, but it’s hard to get excited about either option.

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So what, then, are the Dolphins going to do to fix their offensive line woes? The short answer is that they’re likely going to have to compromise. There really isn’t an option that is both affordable and a long-term solution. The Dolphins front office is going to have to decide where their priorities lie. Are they willing to swallow their pride and really make an investment on the interior with a first-round pick?

Are they willing to shell out the money in free agency needed to bring in better talent? Or do they bank on the athleticism of Ryan Tannehill being able to mask some of the woes that we’ve seen this year? For the sake of the team, the fans, and the prolonged health of Ryan Tannehill, I certainly hope it’s not the latter.

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