Dolphins O-Line Issues Not for Lack of Trying

The Miami Dolphins have made a lot of moves to try to beef up the offensive line in recent years

Dolphins general manager Chris Grier discusses the upcoming draft on Tuesday, April 16, 2024. / HAL HABIB / The Palm Beach Post / USA TODAY NETWORK

Chris Grier has taken a lot of shots in the past year or so over his infamous "you're a lot more worried about it" comment to Miami Dolphins beat writers when talking about the offensive line, and he clarified his stance during his 2024 post-mortem press conference.

But actions speak louder than words, and the fact is that maybe Grier's comment was too nonchalant, but it's not like he hasn't tried to make moves to help the offensive line.

Because he has.

Ever since he became GM in 2019.

That first year he used one of the team's first two picks on an offensive lineman, center/guard Michael Deiter from Wisconsin. Last offseason, there was the second-round selection of tackle Patrick Paul from the University of Houston and the signing of free agent Aaron Brewer to become the new starting center.

Sure, maybe there were more moves to be made that weren't made, but to suggest Grier hasn't tried to build a good offensive line simply is silly.

The problem is that a lot of the moves that were made didn't pan out, some not at all and some not as much as they should have.

DOLPHINS TAKING OFFENSIVE LINEMEN IN THE DRAFT

2019 — Along with taking Deiter in his first draft as real GM (because he was more GM in title from 2016-18), Grier also selected tackle Isaiah Prince in the sixth round. Prince keeps bouncing from roster to roster, while Deiter is in the NFC Championship Game in his first season as a backup with the Washington Commanders. Deiter made 23 starts in four seasons in Miami, but never was a front-line player.

2020 — The Dolphins drafted tackle Austin Jackson in the first round, guard Robert Hunt in the second and guard Solomon Kindley in the fourth, so if that's not addressing the offensive line, we don't know what is. Only problem there is that Jackson took some time to develop and now has missed good chunks of the season two of the past three years, Hunt left after giving the Dolphins four good years, while Kindley was a bust. Again here, good effort, not great results.

2021 — Forget about taking tackle Larnel Coleman in the seventh round because seventh-rounders always are long shots, but this is the epitome of what we're talking about in this story. The Dolphins wanted Liam Eichenberg out of Notre Dame and wanted him enough that they surrendered a 2022 third-round pick to move up from 50th to 42nd overall to select him in the second round. Eichenberg has started a lot of games for Miami, but he's also been moved around the offensive line and frankly never really flourished at any spot. He's now a free agent and probably is more likely than not to seek a fresh start elsewhere.

2024 — After having only four picks in the 2022 and 2023 drafts, and using only a seventh-round choice on tackle Ryan Hayes, the Dolphins selected Paul in the second round last year with the idea he'll be the eventual long-term starter at left tackle. Paul started three games as a rookie and showed enough to be excited about his future but also not enough to be certain he'll pan out.

VETERAN FREE AGENT ACQUISITIONS ON THE OFFENSIVE LINE

2020 — The Dolphins signed two veterans who were starters on the team that finished 10-6 with a chance to make the playoffs on the final day of the regular season, Ereck Flowers and Ted Karras. Both were solid players, while certainly not Pro Bowlers, but they were kept for only one season. Karras just finished his third season as the starting center for the Cincinnati Bengals.

2021 — The Dolphins signed two veterans in free agency, D.J. Fluker and Matt Skura, but went 0-for-2 when both failed to make the 53-man roster.

2022 — This was the best offseason for the offensive line, with Miami signing both Terron Armstead and Connor Williams. Complain all you want about Armstead's injury issues, but he's a Pro Bowl player and he made a major difference on the O-line for the past three seasons. As for Williams, he was easily a top 10 NFL center, if not top 5, before he blew out his knee in the 2023 December Monday night loss against Tennessee. The Dolphins added veteran Brandon Shell after the season started and he turned a solid performance, even though he never was going to be a long-term solution. In the final weeks of the season, the Dolphins added Kendall Lamm as a solid veteran backup.

2023 — OK, this was forgettable, although the Dolphins were able to land a late-round draft pick for center Dan Feeney after they signed him in the offseason and then decided to trade him to the Chicago Bears because he wasn't showing much in training camp.

2024 — With Williams a question mark because of his knee injury, the Dolphins signed Brewer and he overall had a very good season, even if he didn't help the team's short-yardage problems. The Dolphins also signed versatile guard/tackle Jack Driscoll but decided to waive him to instead keep rookie free agent Andrew Meyer, whose 2024 season was spent on the inactive list.

THE ONES WHO GOT AWAY

Adding it up, the Dolphins selected five offensive linemen in the first three rounds in the past six drafts, Deiter, Jackson, Hunt, Eichenberg and Paul, but not one of them has become a Pro Bowl player. The closest is Hunt, but he's now playing for Carolina because the Dolphins (probably rightly so) didn't want to pay huge dollars for a guard.

The argument certainly could be made that the Dolphins missed two great opportunities to beef up the offensive line in recent years.

The first is one we've discussed before, and that's deciding to take Jaylen Waddle with the sixth overall pick instead of Penei Sewell, who's now the foundational piece of a Detroit Lions offensive line that's among the best in the NFL.

The other one, less obvious, was bypassing guard O'Cyrus Torrence in the second round of the 2023 draft and instead taking Cam Smith. While Smith is on his way to bustville, Torrence is a second-year starter for the Bills, who have another one of the elite offensive lines in the NFL.

For those looking to throw Laremy Tunsil into this discussion because of Houston having won two playoff games since he was traded to the Texans while the Dolphins are still waiting, it still says here the Dolphins had no choice but to make that trade.

And, it should be said, the sixth pick the Dolphins used on Waddle in 2021 was one they got from the Tunsil trade. It's probably as simple as the Dolphins not having used the pick properly because even though Waddle is a good player, he's probably not as good a wide receiver as Sewell is as an offensive lineman.

And that, right there, is just one of the pieces when we discuss the shortcomings on the offensive line.