1 of 5 | Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa is entering his sixth season. File Photo by Larry Marano/UPI | License Photo
General manager Chris Grier said he didn’t talk to Tua Tagovailoa and other Miami Dolphins players about what they want their locker room to look like ahead of a major personnel shift.
Grier made the comments Wednesday, a day after NFL teams were required to trim rosters to 53 players.
The Dolphins, who made the playoffs in 2022 and 2023, are coming off their first sub-.500 campaign since 2019. Their active off-season included trading away veteran cornerback Jalen Ramsey and tight end Jonnu Smith, while watching other team leaders depart through free agency or retirement.
Grier said previous leaders sometimes lacked accountability, even when the Dolphins had winning records, prompting the personnel shift. Coach Mike McDaniel previously spoke about player tardiness impacting team culture. The team reset also was somewhat necessary to allocate finances for a younger and deeper roster.
“When you bring in so many new players who have been stars who played other places and you kind of work through it, you have your expectations, but you’re winning,” Grier said. “But you look at it and you’re like, hey, I don’t know if we’re winning the right way. You know what I mean? That’s kind of what it was.
“We had a lot of good guys in that locker room, as you know, some of the guys that are leaders were here before, as well. They were held accountable, but at times guys, it didn’t matter to them.
“Moving on from those people with the right guys here and focusing on that, because when you have a year like we did last year, we had gone to the playoffs the two previous years, and at some point you say, OK. All right, enough is enough.”
Grier said Tagovailoa and other Dolphins players aren’t consulted after he works with McDaniel to make such changes, despite the quarterback’s status as a captain of the last three seasons and the $212.4 million extension he signed last off-season.
“We don’t really talk to players about what we want the locker room to look like,” Grier said. “When Mike and I talk, this is what it’s going to be.
“Obviously when that’s laid out, we talk to the leaders of the team and say ‘This is how it’s going to be,’ and we do take input from them, but at the end of day, it falls on Mike and I for the locker room and how things are handled in there.”
The Dolphins signed McDaniel to a three-year contract extension last August. Grier’s contract details are undisclosed. McDaniel, who has a 28-23 over three seasons, is the third coach to work under Grier since 2018. The results of an attempted cultural facelift, paired with a financial reset, are to be determined. But Grier credited several players for strong leadership amid the makeover.
That list included Tagovailoa, who recently voiced his displeasure with star wide receiver Tyreek Hill’s request to leave the team at the end of last season.
“I would say two players who have stuck out have been Jordyn Brooks and Aaron Brewer, have been phenomenal in the locker room handling stuff,” Grier said. “Having Bradley Chubb back this year has been great. He’s been fantastic. Alec Ingold — you guys have been around. There’s a lot of quality people in there, Tua included.
“Tua has been outspoken on things with people and handling it and that was a huge step for him from – you guys have been around him for years. It’s been good the message is being carried on and those guys believe it 100%, which makes watching this team together has been pretty cool.”
Tagovailoa — who has been praised in recent years for his evolving leadership — said last month that Hill needed to rebuild his relationship with teammates to regain their trust. He called the matter “a work in progress.” Hill said this off-season that he didn’t feel like he “deserves to be a captain” this year based on his behavior. He also said he is more involved in church and going to therapy to aid his efforts.
Grier said in April that the Dolphins were not pursuing a potential trade for Hill, but the team might consider it if offered multiple first-round picks. On Wednesday, Grier said Hill has been around the facility every day and “worked tirelessly with his team.”
“I think he’s closer with a lot of his teammates than he’s ever been, and that’s just me personally watching his interactions,” Grier said. “You’ve seen him at the joint practices on the sidelines, during games, he is 100% invested. He’s in the joint practices over there talking smack to the other team in the middle when things are happening.
“It’s been fun to watch, and his teammates are all 100% behind him. I know everyone is making comments about him and Tua, but those two have been closer than I’ve seen them ever before. So it’s been really good watching him embrace his teammates, them embrace him. It’s been really cool.”
Hill, who underwent off-season wrist surgery, was the first player in NFL history to total at least 1,700 receiving yards in consecutive seasons in 2022 and 2023. He totaled just 959 yards and six scores on 81 catches in 17 starts last season.
Hill remains one of the highest-paid and most accomplished players still on the Dolphins’ roster. His contract, paired with Tagovailoa’s deal, takes up a large portion of the Dolphins’ salary cap, which somewhat restricts Miami’s ability to chase many more high-priced stars.
Grier said the roster changes allowed the team to not only get younger and faster, but “closer.” In another effort to bond the group, the Dolphins brought in Florida Panthers general manager Bill Zito and star forward Matthew Tkachuk to show off their latest Stanley Cup and talk about the importance of a unique and close locker room.
Ramsey and retired offensive tackle Terron Armstead were among the Top-5 most-impactful Dolphins players against the salary cap last season. Those five players, which also included Hill, Tagovailoa and Jaylen Waddle, accounted for more than 20% of the salary cap. This year, Tagovailoa and Hill alone account for nearly a quarter (23.9%) of their salary cap.
Grier said Dolphins owner Stephen Ross has not issued any directives about how to spend on personnel, but the group is “very happy” with the franchise’s outlook.
“Steve has never given us a directive on how to do it,” Grier said. “We meet with him — [senior vice president] Brandon Shore and I — spend time with him and [CEO] Tom Garfinkel and obviously Mike [McDaniel] and we talk through our plan. Every year is different. We’ve had years here where it’s been all draft focus for a couple of years and then at some point you have to reset.
“When you go and you make aggressive moves like we had made for a few years, you have to reset again and start it over because it’s just not sustainable the way the contracts are with players and what they’re making now.
“So, in terms of directive, no; for us, it was just good business sense working through it and trying to find value, but we also had to get younger so we added younger players — like a year ago, we were one of a couple of teams with all the one-year vet contracts, so we’re in a different spot now adding the young players.
“That’s the direction we’re going right now and we’ve been very happy so far.”
