The Miami Dolphins need to start having success and they need to do it rather quickly. General manager Chris Grier has been in his current position since 2016 with not much to show for it. The team hasn’t won a playoff game since 2000, although that’s obviously some 16 years that aren’t on him.
Jon Conahan of Athlon Sports is a little shocked that Grier is still the general manager of the Dolphins considering his lack of winning.
“It’s a bit surprising that Chris Grier still has a job with the Miami Dolphins,” Conahan writes. “Over the past few years, Grier has made many of the wrong decisions, and as a result, the Dolphins find themselves in one of the more interesting positions around the NFL.
“Heading into the NFL draft, there’s no excuse for him not to make the right moves. The Dolphins have many needs, whether it’s on the offensive line, defensive line, wide receiver room, or anywhere else; Miami has many questions.”
Grier is heading into his 10th season as the team’s GM and there aren’t many people in his position around the NFL that get that long of a leash with that poor of a track record.
Grier says he isn’t perfect
In an interview this month with reporters, Grier acknowledged the obvious. Of course, no one is perfect, but he doesn’t even seem to be in the ballpark of perfect.
“Would I say I’m perfect?” Grier said. “No, I’m not. There’s no GM that’s perfect, but working with our scouts and our coaching staff and what we do in the scheme that they believe in and finding the fits for players is always important and it’s been a pretty smooth process the last couple years.”
It’s safe to say that Grier needs to knock the upcoming NFL Draft out of the park. With the team potentially parting ways with stars like Tyreek Hill and Jalen Ramsey, he has even more holes to fill than previously thought.
The Dolphins just need good players
One of the areas of need is on the interior defensive line. Grier hit on Christian Wilkins with the 13th-overall draft pick in 2019, but that’s of little consequence now because he’s currently on the Las Vegas Raiders‘ roster.
But, Grier acknowledges that Wilkins was his best draft pick at defensive tackle.
“I think Christian [Wilkins] is probably the biggest one,” the Dolphins general manager said. “The last time we went early on a guy. I think we’ve drafted a few guys mid or late that have been OK. But Christian is probably the biggest one.”
“We’re going to need NFL-ready players,” Grier said. “There’s no like, ‘Hey, let’s hope this guy is ready.’ These guys are going to be forced into play, and that’s a good thing. So we just have to be right on the person and the character of the guys that we bring in here, that they’re going to do that.”
“Outside of him, the Dolphins had not drafted heavily along the interior defensive line during Grier’s tenure,” C. Isaiah Smalls II of the Miami Herald writes. “Three other defensive tackles — Vincent Taylor (2017), Davon Godchaux (2017) and Raekwon Davis (2020) — were taken. Based off that alone, Grier can find starters, a good sign ahead of this week’s NFL Draft.”
The clock is ticking on Grier as the Dolphins general manager. He needs to knock this draft out of the park if he hopes to keep his job.
