Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Ross and Dolphins got their Man in Suh, but at what cost?

Ndamukong Suh will sign a $114M contract with the Miami Dolphins probably today or tomorrow that is for 6 years with the first 3 years and $60M in guaranteed monies. It will make him the highest paid Defensive Player in the NFL and probably be the benchmark of all future contracts for non QB's. Egomaniac and free spending owner of the Dolphins, Stephen Ross in the recent weeks leading up to the free agency signing period cut and gutted some pretty good players on the Dolphins to free up cap space to sign Suh. Ross got his man but one has to ask, at what price? Suh's $20M cap hit for this year is approximately 15% of the entire teams salary cap! When you start to add in a QB, a RB, aWR and a couple of other top players, it doesn't give the Dolphins enough money to put a good team on the field. There is no doubt that Suh is arguably the 2nd best defensive player in the NFL, only behind JJ Watts and if you look at the Houston Texans, paying Watts all the money He got, didn't leave a whole lot of money left to field a real good team behind him. The Texans are average at best and it looks like the Dolphins will be an 8-8 team that has one great DT and a decent at best core around him.  Suh will be like a man left all alone on an island at times this year when teams double or triple team him and the defense will not be able to get to the QB or stop the running game. Let,s be fair to Suh,  Suh's intentions where made very clear early last year when He told everyone that He wanted and would be the richest Defensive Player in the NFL this year.  The Lions tried and tried to negotiate what they thought was a very fair deal right up to the end. And last week after numerous failed attempts to reach a deal with Suh, the Lions could of put their Franchise Tag on him that would of given them a year to reach a long term deal but it would of also cost them $26M+ this year which would of literally busted their salary cap and the Lions wouldn't have had money to sign other FA's and rookies to help them address other needs. The Lions made one last ditch attempt to sign Suh but it wasn't as much as what Miami offered and the Lions chose not to pursue Suh any further.  Lets be clear on one fact, this deal for Ndamukong Suh was all about money and nothing else!!! Other teams that were interested in him, had allot of salary cap space room to sign him but they were also teams that were mediocre at best, and wanted a marque player on their team , no matter what the cost.  No doubt that most teams couldn't sign Suh even if they wanted to for the monies needed to sign him would of busted almost every teams salary cap space and that is with an increase of almost $10M over the previous years salary cap. So, today the Dolphins and their fans are cheering the signing on Suh  to lets call it what it is, a 3year deal worth $60M that lands them the premiere DT this year at a huge cost and risk to see if they can put enough talented players around him to be a playoff team year in and year out. In Detroit, the Lions now have a glaring hole in the middle of their DL but also allot of money freed up to go after other in Free Agency and to add depth and talent on both sides of the ball. Time will tell which GM from the Lions or the Dolphins will be successful in putting together an excellent team this year and beyond. One GM has allot of money to go after Free Agents and the other allot less! We can revisit this discussion each year of Suh's contract and see if a free spending owner who got the man he wanted was worth it or the team that let Suh go continues to get better and improve on their playoff team of last season. Ndamukong Suh is one very rich man now, which was his intention all along but at what price did it cost the Stephen Ross and the Dolphins to sign him?   @cupofjoeinthed

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