Veteran Dolphins left tackle Terron Armstead wasn’t ready to talk about playing in 2024 after the end of the team’s season, but it doesn’t look like the Dolphins are going to have to worry about filling that spot on their offensive line. Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald reports that “the full expectation” is that Armstead will play his 12th NFL season. Any doubts about Armstead’s plans are related to his health. He was on the injury report most weeks this season as he dealt with knee, ankle, back and quad issues that cost him seven games in the regular season. Armstead also missed four games in 2022 and nine games during his final season with the Saints. Those injury issues didn’t keep the Dolphins from signing Armstead to a five-year contract as a free agent and he already has $5 million of his 2024 compensation guaranteed, so it seems unlikely that the team would be moving on from him if he plans to continue playing. The remaining $8.25 million of his base salary becomes guaranteed in mid-March and those numbers make it easy to understand why Armstead is likely to be back in Miami for another season.
Let’s hope he now gets a chance to strengthen his body in an off-season instead of rehab. Let’s also hope he’s smarter this year and doesn’t delay any surgeries to July again
No surprise as the Dolphins could have claimed over $7M back from him in signing bonus plus he was also giving up his guaranteed salary for 2024. It would have cost him over $20M if he retired.
Yeah, the big money from his contract doesn't actually kick in until this year. It would be foolish of him to walk away. Even if he can't play well, he gets paid if he shows up.
His construct should be restructured with a lot of incentive based clauses. I like Armstead, I really do. The man is a mountain to get through…when he plays, but he’s only playing half a season it seems. I say give him a base equal to last season the a bonus for each game he plays. Whether or not he gets paid will be up to him.
Yeahhh...hip hip hooray, we get to depend on the same undependable player AGAIN on the oline? Do we really expect different results? Every season Grier has us depending on guys like this playing a full season so that we can be competitive. This is a player who should be like an extra you bring on for great depth when you already have a good oline.
You can say that, but the contract is what it is. The team structured it the way that they did to maximize cap space in 2022 and 2023, and now the part that eats up the room kicks in. He's set to count over 20m against the cap each of the next three years, and cutting him this year would have resulted in a bigger hit than keeping him. A year from now, they'll be faced with a choice of taking a 12.7m hit to make him go away or the 20m to stay. I guess we'll see how this season goes and then move from there. But he's not getting any cheaper.
But that in turn pushes money into the future, on an injured player who contemplated retirement. Which basically screws over the 2025 or 2026 Dolphins.
In terms of trying to play? He could have had surgery on his toe in week 1 of 2022. Say what you want about him but I don't doubt his desire to play through injuries.
Not if he is cut in said future scenario. Take Howard for example. If we keep him, as is he’ll have a $25 million hit against the cap, or we can restructure his contract. If we cut him right now, we’ll save $3 million dollars against the cap. If we designate him a post June 1st cut, it’s an $18 million dollar savings. Same can be done with Armstead. We keep him now as is, restructure his contract, cut him now and save a little or designate him a post June 1st cut and save a bundle. I don’t know his cap hit/savings off the top of my head. There’s numerous ways to manipulate the cap.
That is in no way what I wrote. You simply can't just engage in honest conversation. I'm upset that once again, we will be depending on a guy to stay healthy, that hasn't stayed healthy in how many seasons now? We're lining up for another season of disappointment. All these guys who are always injured will be injured again, you guys will continue to argue that the team is fine, we just got derailed by injuries. You all want to extend Tua, while at the same time keeping the same guys who torpedo seasons, while also paying Tua more. I said in my post, Armstead is great to have, as depth or someone you're not depending on lasting an entire season.. But yeah, it's that I don't want the Dolphins to have high level talent.
he treated us fans like we were dumb from a media perspective..he was always talking during the week like we were just little puppy dogs, joking around, laughing, doing social media poscast interviews, alluding that he would play on sunday. and then bam, hes declared out.. like just stop lying to the fans.
This coaching staff is getting notorious for keeping players out who were teetering on the edge of playing all season. I don't doubt that Armstead was healthy enough to play in some of those games but was held out over an abundance of caution by this coaching staff.
It was a terrible signing to begin with.At the time we paid this guy the highest contract at his postion without him ever playing a full season. Not his fault but his body is not durable enough to demand that type of money no matter how good he is when he is out there.
The June first cuts still require you to eat the dead money. It never goes away, its just spread out, further hampering the efforts to build a better team later on. Just kicking the can down the road.
See, it’s posts like this that make me laugh. Armstead isn’t some iron man, but he’s not being paid anything close to the highest LT contract now or ever. He’s missed 10 games these past two seasons, which sucks, and his contract is prohibitive, but it’s not something outrageous for an oft injured LT of his caliber. Trent Williams signed a 6 yr $140m contract in 2021 and Armstead signed a 5 yr $75m contract in 2022. Williams missed 7 games over the last two years and has played 2 full seasons his entire career. If Armstead plays 13 games this year that would be great. 18 would be better, but we will see.
Yea I guess I remember that wrong but either way bad signing.He is not even worth that money when he can't stay on the field.Dude has missed 19 games in last 3 years.And at his age its only going to get worse.We signed him because we can't draft them.
IMO, the risk was worth it. Basically half pay for a part time All Pro LT. And if we get 10+ games this year, he can retire for only about $12m in dead cap space next year.
Can't is the appropo term, sadly. The last time that the Dolphins drafted an OL after pick #40 who became a starter was Rex Hadnot, in the 6th round, back in 2004. He wasn't a great player, just an adequate starter, and left as a free agent when his rookie deal was up. But its been twenty years since we've even accomplished that mediocre feat! The last guy that we drafted after the high second round who actually stuck around as a starter was Tim Ruddy, at #65, back in 1994, when Shula was still the HC! And you have to go back to the 80s to find guys the team drafted after the second round and stuck past their third or fourth year with the team, and most of those were ones who were in and out of the starting lineup their entire career. The last guy who the team drafted after the second round who truly became a regular starter for an extended period with the team was Ed Newman, taken at pick #156 in 1973, and he didn't become a full time starter until his seventh year in the league. At the end of the day, basically every single good OL the Dolphins have ever had in their franchise history was a very high draft pick by Miami, was drafted by someone else, or aquired via trade or free agency. You can make the argument that they've never once taken someone later on, developed him, and made him into a long term solution, even as just an acceptable starter.
You won’t get any argument from me Grier doesn’t place value on drafting OL high in the draft. It’s driven me NUTS for years!! The last GREAT OL the Dolphins drafted was Jake Long, which Parcells used the 1st pick for. Anchored our OL during his tenure here. If Grier would place as much importance on OL as he does skill positions, we’d be unstoppable. Either he doesn’t, he can’t or he won’t spend high draft picks on solid OL.
Dudes knees and back are shot. Hopefully the NFL is inclusive and allows walkers on the field next year to facilitate him.
If the goal is winning a Super Bowl, then it wasn't worth it. I've been told repeatedly that injuries are what tanked the season.
And how many playoff wins after the fact? I don't understand how everything I s golden to you?All those draft picks from Tunsil and the the Texans have the playoff win.
Well Res, I would argue when, in a 17 game season, you have 12 different starting rotations on the offensive line due to injuries it plays a lot in the overall offensive performance.
Yes, and I agree. So then, I don't think it's arguing in good faith to say that the risk was worth it, while that same person is also excusing Grier of responsibility because you can't control injuries. If injuries were truly the problem (they were), then clearly the risk was not worth it, and continuing to depend on the players who were injured, moving forward, is a bad idea.
Exactly. We didn't do anything worthwhile with that treasure trove of picks. Our team should have been loaded for about a decade.
