Omar Kelly: Are Dolphins being delusional about a rebuild?

MIAMI — How is this not a rebuild?

Anyone who looks at the moves the Miami Dolphins have made since Valentine’s Day, when the roster remodeling started with the release of a couple veterans, shouldn’t even question this.

The Dolphins’ decision-makers run and hide at the mention of the R words — rebuild, remodel, a reset, whatever you want to call this redirection — but that’s just ignorance, or denial speaking.

“That word has not been brought up at all,” general manager Chris Grier said when asked if the Dolphins were rebuilding last week. “We have a lot of really good football players on this roster still at some places that impact games, so that word has not been used at all.

“Our goal is to win, win this year and keep winning for sustained success in the future.”

We need to check on Grier’s definition of “sustained success,” because it has been 10 years since he has been in power and Miami has produced five winning season, and zero playoff wins.

Grier and coach Mike McDaniel need to stop lying to the fan base, and more importantly their players, because the evidence of a rebuild is all over this roster.

Miami’s offensive line has been stripped down to the studs, and it needed to be.

Only three of last year’s starters — Austin Jackson, Liam Eichenberg and Aaron Brewer — return, and Jackson is five months into rehabbing a serious knee injury he sustained last November.

Eichenberg, a 52-game starter who was re-signed for a one-year, fully-guaranteed $2.2 million deal, is probably the franchise’s biggest underachiever of the last decade. So claiming he’s an NFL starter is a delusional.

The Dolphins defensive line needs to be rebuilt, again too.

Zach Sieler returns as the anchor, but everyone else in the unit — Benito Jones, Neil Farrell and Matt Dickerson — is a back-of-the-roster journeyman. Miami needs to add five to six defensive linemen before training camp even starts.

And let’s not forget that the entire secondary needs to be overhauled.

Starting safeties Jevon Holland and Jordan Poyer didn’t produce one interception last season, and were shown the door.

And Jalen Ramsey and the Dolphins have decided the marriage isn’t salvageable, and a divorce is necessary.

It doesn’t even matter who said “this isn’t working,” at this point because Ramsey, who is arguably the defense’s best player, wants to play elsewhere.

Who can blame him considering he’s a Hall of Fame talent who doesn’t want the tail end of his career wasted away in Miami.

The team’s best offensive player [Tyreek Hill] shares those same sentiments, but the Dolphins are insistent they won’t trade him. It doesn’t help that Hill’s off-field antics likely tanked his trade value either.

Whether Miami trades Hill now or dumps him next year is splitting hairs considering Hill’s slated to make $40 million in 2026, which virtually guarantees he will become a free agent, or be traded after this season (or by the trade deadline). So we can view Hill as a one-year rental.

The same could be said about tight end Jonnu Smith, a Pro Bowler in 2024, considering he’s entering the final year of his deal, which pays him $4.1 million.

Yet this isn’t the start of a rebuild?

What are we doing here?

The team’s culture has come into question, whether Grier or McDaniel want to admit it.

The franchise has wisely dialed back spending, and reversed course on their “F-those picks” approach, leaning heavily on draft picks and young and inexperienced talent to prop up the roster.

No matter how well the Dolphins perform in this week’s NFL draft, unless there’s some blockbuster trade that awaits, the 2025 team as constructed will struggle to produce 10 wins.

That means, if everything goes perfect, Miami’s likely competing for a AFC wild-card spot unless Buffalo’s MVP quarterback, Josh Allen, suffers some tragic injury, or retires in the coming months.

It also means the previous decade has been a waste, just like the one before that.

Miami has tanked, built through the draft, and even tried buying a good team, which was the latest approach. Still no breakthrough.

Unless Tua Tagovailoa puts on a cape and becomes Super Quarterback, we’re right back where we started.

The Dolphins tried to do what the Los Angeles Rams did during their “F-them picks” era, which featured Los Angeles trading picks for players consistently, and that led to a Super Bowl win and six playoff berths in eight years.

Miami wasn’t that fortunate.

Why? Because the people in charge didn’t pick the right players, and didn’t draft well enough with the leftover picks to fortify the roster.

Whether they want to hear it or not, that’s on Grier and his staff because shelling out massive deals — to Bradley Chubb, Jaylen Waddle, Ramsey, Tagovailoa and Hill — didn’t produce mutually beneficial return.

The organization can look back on all those extensions with regret since they got the franchise nowhere.

“The key is to learn from our mistakes and keep stacking up good decisions,” Rams coach Sean McVay said of his nine seasons at the helm, working with general manager Les Snead. “What does it look like to build a team, not just a collection of talent?”

Gathering a collection of talent should be viewed as the starting point for this latest rebuild.