Latest news with #MiamiDolphins'
USA Today
11 hours ago
- Sport
- USA Today
New Steelers CB Jalen Ramsey takes subtle parting shot at Dolphins
The Miami Dolphins' suddenly messy divorce with cornerback Jalen Ramsey was finalized at the end of June with a trade that sent the seven-time Pro Bowler to the Pittsburgh Steelers. On Wednesday, Ramsey spoke to Pittsburgh media for the first time and took a subtle shot at the Dolphins. "I can't necessarily say that I've played for a storied franchise like this yet," Ramsey told reporters, via the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. While there's no arguing that the Steelers, a team with six Super Bowl titles and nearly a century of seasons, isn't a storied team, the Dolphins have made their mark on football history too. Miami's 55.3 win percentage is fifth all-time (five spots ahead of Pittsburgh's 53.8 percentage) and the Dolphins have two Super Bowl titles, including one that capped the NFL's one and only undefeated season. Ramsey also had a more than three-year stint with the Los Angeles Rams, another team with a pair of Lombardi Trophies. Perhaps Ramsey has a lofty bar for his definition of a "storied franchise"? But his high praise of the Steelers inherently comes off as a dig at his prior stops.
USA Today
12 hours ago
- Sport
- USA Today
Tyreek Hill rebuilding relationships with Tua Tagovailoa, Dolphins
Tyreek Hill has been putting in the work to repair his relationships within the Miami Dolphins' building. Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa told reporters Wednesday that his relationship with Hill is a "work in progress." Hill made headlines at the end of the 2024 season when he declared "I'm out" following the season finale. "I'm out, bruh," Hill said after the loss to the Jets. "It was great playing here, but at the end of the day, I have to do what's best for my career." Even after he explained later that it was an outburst of frustration, the comment still raised questions about his future in Miami. Evidently, it also fractured some of his relationships with Dolphins teammates. "When you say something like that you don't just come back with 'My bad,'" Tagovailoa said. "You gotta work that relationship up. He is working on himself." Tua Tagovailoa says Tyreek Hill rebuilding relationship with him & team is a 'work in progress' after Tyreek WK18 'I'm out' 'When you say something like that you don't just come back with 'My bad.' You gotta work that relationship up. He is working on himself.' TYREEK HILL Dolphins WR is tired of narratives: 'Time to change who we are' Tagovailoa also credited Hill with being "more vulnerable with his teammates about his personal life," according to NFL Network's Cameron Wolfe. However, "work needs to be done to show what he says." Hill's Week 18 outburst came at the tail-end of a disappointing follow-up season to his excellent outing in 2023. After leading the league in receiving yards (1,799) and receiving touchdowns (13) two years ago, the Dolphins' star wideout finished the 2024 season with 959 receiving yards and a career-low six touchdowns. It was the first year of Hill's career without a Pro Bowl nod and his first season in Miami without All-Pro recognition. Other issues likely contributed to a drop in production. There was the wrist injury Hill suffered in the preseason that he attempted to gut out without surgery, and there were the various injuries to Tagovailoa, resulting in six starts by other quarterbacks. The Dolphins also missed the playoffs for the first time since Hill's arrival in Miami and had their first losing season since 2019. "I've been winning my whole life," Hill said in a January video game livestream. "Y'all just want me to say, 'Oh well, get 'em next year?' Nah, (expletive) that. We've got to come back." As Dolphins training camp begins, Hill remains on the roster and projects to be Tagovailoa's lead receiver, provided he's rebuilt that trust.
USA Today
15 hours ago
- Sport
- USA Today
Dolphins UDFA Profile: TE Jalin Conyers
The Miami Dolphins' tight end room will look a lot different than it did in 2024. With the recent addition of veteran Darren Waller via a trade with the New York Giants and the signing of free agent Pharoah Brown, undrafted rookie Jalin Conyers will compete to be another new face at the position on the initial 53-man roster. Waller is beginning training camp on the physically unable to perform (PUP) list and is expected to ease into the 2025 season following a one-year sabbatical in retirement. That means opportunity for Conyers, who joins a trio of other undrafted players signed by Miami in the past few seasons. He joins Julian Hill, entering his third year, Tanner Conner, and Hayden Rucci, who made a mark last preseason and spent time on the practice squad. Conyers is a versatile tight end who could emerge as a viable offensive weapon in a room currently compromised with more blocking-focused players than bona fide offensive threats outside of Waller. In three years at Arizona State and a final collegiate season at Texas Tech, Conyers showed he can be dangerous with the ball in his hands. In high school, Conyers was a multi-sport athlete who played basketball, baseball, track and field, and golf alongside his football achievements. As a senior, he recorded 61 receptions for 1,225 yards, an impressive 20.1 yards per catch, and scored 19 touchdowns. Over his four collegiate seasons, Conyers recorded 11 receiving touchdowns and three rushing scores. In 2024 at Texas Tech, he caught 30 passes for 320 yards and five touchdowns, and also added eight carries for 31 yards and two more scores on the ground. His efforts earned him 2nd-Team All-Big 12 honors, though he went undrafted in April's NFL Draft. At the 2025 NFL Scouting Combine, Conyers recorded the best three-cone drill and shuttle times for tight ends and was third at his position in the vertical leap. Conyers possesses solid ball skills, good speed, and the ability to create mismatches against linebackers downfield. He also excels in gaining yards after the catch and can generate coveted separation on deeper routes. Though a willing blocker in space, he still has room to improve as an inline blocker. With his size (265 pounds) and versatility, he could fill a slot-type receiving role or function as an H-back or formation adjuster, building on his Wildcat experience. With tutelage from Dolphins tight ends coach Jon Embree, and limited sure-fire roster locks at tight end, Conyers is a strong candidate to sneak onto the roster.
Miami Herald
14-07-2025
- Business
- Miami Herald
Kelly: Jonah Savaiinaea and other second-round picks can create NFL necessary change
Jonah Savaiinaea's football conditioning, mastery of the offense, playbook and his technique are critical to the Miami Dolphins' success in 2025. Dolphins management traded a significant amount of resources to move up 11 spots in the 2025 NFL Draft to select the University of Arizona offensive lineman early in the second round with the intent of making him one of the team's two starting guards. His development is a major story line of training camp, which technically begins Tuesday when the rookies report. But unfortunately for the team, a healthy Savaiinaea might be forced to sit out days, if not weeks of training camp because the versatile and athletic lineman plays an important role when it comes to the NFL's future, and its workforce's multidecade push for contracts to become fully guaranteed. First-round picks are typically the only players in the NFL who have their entire contracts fully guaranteed at the initial signing. That has been the case since 2011 when the Collective Bargaining Agreement changed, and subsequently drastically reduced the rookie salary scale. However, two of the 32 second-round picks had their entire rookie deals guaranteed this year, and agents around the league (and the NFLPA if they smarten up) intend to create a domino effect that possibly changes how the NFL does business. If each 2025 second-round pick holds out until his four-year deal (which is worth $7.1 million for the last pick (64), and $11.8 million for the 33rd pick) is fully guaranteed then that becomes two of the seven rounds of the draft that have their rookie deals guaranteed. And maybe in the next year or two it will become the third-rounders, and the year or two after that the fourth rounders, and so on and so on. Football is the most popular profitable, and brutal American professional sport, and ironically it's the only one where the contracts players sign aren't guaranteed. But what most people don't know is that there isn't any Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) language that makes NBA, NHL and MLB contracts guaranteed, it's just the way those sports have done business over time, and it eventually became the culture of those leagues. That's what needs to happen to football, and there's no better time than now considering collegiate NIL contracts are steadily soaring (SEC starters reportedly earn at least $800,000 based on agent sources). We will soon get to the point where college football teams might be offering a player projected as a second or third-round pick more money than the NFL, which pays rookies a signing bonus based on the round they are selected in, and a $840,000 base salary this season. Coincidentally, that base salary goes up based on playing-time incentives for young players not drafted in the first or second round because they aren't eligible. That might explain why former tight end Durham Smythe was nearly making double what Mike Gesicki was earning in the fourth year of their rookie deals when they came from the same draft. The difference was Smythe was a fourth-round pick, selected two round behind Gesicki. The prevalence of guaranteed contracts in the NBA, MLB and NHL are largely produced by the demand for these top athletes, rather than a specific mandate in CBA language. But NFL owners, and the people who work for them on behalf of the team, are dead set against this, especially since the NFL has the largest workforce. The league was actually caught colluding against that workforce to prevent guaranteed salaries based on an independent investigation recently done. This past decade only two quarterbacks received full guaranteed contracts. Minnesota gave Kirk Cousins one in 2018, and Cleveland gave Deshaun Watson the second in the five-year, $230 million renegotiated deal he got after the Browns traded for him in 2022. An independent investigation found that NFL owners and management colluded to ensure that nobody followed Watson during the offseason Lamar Jackson, a two-time MVP, because a free agent in 2023, and nobody but the Ravens bid on his services. And what was the NFL's punishment for these collusion findings? A slap on the wrist, maybe. Nothing will ever change until a select group of NFL players and their agents take a stand, and this might be that time. Maybe missing the team's starting guard for the first month of training camp will force the Dolphins to eventually cave on their collusive efforts. After all, we're haggling over guaranteeing $2.4 million more of the $11.3 million Savaiinaea is expected to earn during the next four years. Keep in mind that NFL owners haven't taken a financial loss in decades, and the salary cap has nearly doubled from a decade ago when the cap was $143.3 million. It has risen by $135.9 million in a decade, to $279.2 million which means each team's profits have doubled as well since the cap is based on profit sharing. And that's annually. We're at the point where Dolphins owner Steve Ross has reportedly turned down a $10 billion offer to sell his franchise, and sports holdings, which he initially paid $1.1 billion for in 2009. Talk about a return on an investment! So crying poverty isn't the right approach, especially to player advocates like myself, who can name two dozen players I've covered since 2007 struggling with endless medical issues they developed from playing this brutal sport. At some point something has to give if the NFLPA wants to create change, inching toward guaranteed contracts for its workforce. This is up to the teams and agents to figure out, but at some point the NFL has to negotiate in good faith, which would be a complete about-face of how they've done business for 50-plus years. Hopefully Savaiinaea and these 28 other second-round picks are willing to become the 32 players who create the necessary change by sidelining themselves, holding out.
Miami Herald
09-07-2025
- Sport
- Miami Herald
From 36 to 91: Tua Tagovailoa's Top 100 NFL ranking sparks debate
The Miami Dolphins' starting quarterback has taken a tumble down the NFL's annual Top 100 players list. Some are saying it isn't far enough. In 2024, Tua Tagovailoa earned the No. 36 spot on the NFL's Top 100 list, setting high expectations for a breakout season. But after missing 6.5 games due to concussions and a hip injury, he slid to No. 91 on this year's list, voted on annually by NFL players, as announced by the league over the weekend. Of the 15 spots on the list that have been revealed so far, Tagovailoa is the only quarterback to appear. 'Unless there are going to be 15 or 16 quarterbacks in the top 90, then this is too high,' TV personality for Fox Sports' First Things First Nick Wright said on Tagovailoa's ranking. Despite an injury-plagued year, Tagovailoa posted strong numbers for the Dolphins when active. In the 11 games he started, Tagovailoa completed 291 of 399 passes (72.9%) for 2,867 yards, with 19 touchdowns and just seven interceptions. His regular-season passer rating was an impressive 101.4, and he averaged approximately 260.6 yards per game. In games Tagovailoa missed, the Dolphins averaged just 13.3 points and went 2–4, compared to the stronger 6–5 mark and 24.1 points per game when he was under center. But critics argue that despite the numbers, Tagovailoa's production hasn't translated when it matters most. 'Tua has a losing record against teams that have a winning record. They come up short in the postseason because, guess what, all you play are teams that have good records,' Super Bowl champion and 11-year NFL pro Chris Canty said on ESPN's Unsportsmanlike show Wednesday morning. 'So I guess the question then becomes, well if he's not healthy, and he can't beat good teams, what is the long-term value of staying with this quarterback?' However, those who know him best say the obstacles have only made him stronger. Perhaps the fall to No. 91 will give the former University of Alabama star quarterback something to prove. 'For Tua, I think there were a lot of lessons learned, last year in particular, on and off the field — when he was playing, when he wasn't— [on] how to do his job,' head coach Mike McDaniel said earlier this summer at Dolphins OTA practices. Or perhaps the No. 91 spot is really just another offseason talking point — a conversation-starter with little merit or translation to on-field performance. Many around the league have even called the list a 'joke' or 'content filler,' questioning its overall value. After all, players already have enough to focus on studying their own film and that of their opponents. Making a holistic evaluation of every player across all 32 rosters isn't exactly in the job description. Tagovailoa's path back up the rankings will likely depend on two things: health and signature wins. He has yet to complete a full season without missing time and remains winless in the postseason with the Dolphins. If he can stay on the field and lead Miami to victories over top-tier opponents in the playoffs, he won't just silence critics—he'll force his way back into the league's top tier.
