Dolphins confident: ‘This year is going to be a special year.’ And contract decisions loom

A six-pack of Dolphins notes on a Friday:

▪ There is supreme confidence inside this Dolphins team, and it was expressed succinctly by cornerback Xavien Howard on Seth Levit’s and O.J. McDuffie’s Fish Tank podcast this week.

“This year is going to be a special year,” Howard said. “You can see from everything we are going to win now.”

Howard made the point that “you look at every team that’s been built” and the Dolphins have followed the formula of successful roster construction.

On the podcast, Howard said he has enjoyed counseling young defensive backs Kader Kohou, Noah Igbinoghene and Jevon Holland.

“I had to get in early and talk to them and let them know about how this league works,” Howard said. “It was a cool experience. We’re looking forward to them doing even bigger and better things this year.”

Howard — who has 28 career interceptions and two touchdowns — said: “Deep down, I’m an offensive player I feel like. I still want to score touchdowns. If I’m on the defensive side, I’ve got to score touchdowns. That’s been my whole mind-set. Get to the end zone.”

Howard will hold a celebrity softball game on Saturday at The Ballpark of the Palm Beaches in West Palm Beach, in conjunction with Playmaker. Proceeds will go to the United Way.

Tua Tagovailoa, Tyreek Hill, Jaden Waddle, Pat Surtain and Duke Johnson will be among others in attendance as well.

Tickets — ranging from $18 to $68 — are on sale at xavienhowardsoftball.com and ballparkpalmbeaches.com. Ticket prices range from $18 to $68. Gates will open at noon with the Home Run Derby starting at 2 p.m. and the game at 3 p.m.

▪ It will be fascinating to see what becomes of the contractual situations with Christian Wilkins, Zach Sieler and Connor Williams.

Wilkins’ representation (David Mulugheta) has been speaking to the team for months about terms on an extension. Both sides want to get one done but seemingly haven’t arrived at a number palatable to both sides.

There is one path the Dolphins could take that probably wouldn’t please Wilkins: Paying him the $10.7 million he’s guaranteed this season, and then applying the franchise tag on him in 2024. Overthecap.com projects the defensive tackle franchise tag to be $20.8 million in 2024.

If the Dolphins strike a long-term deal with a large signing bonus, the cap hit can be allocated equally over several years. But it’s still going to be a big cap hit.

For perspective, here are the cap hits for the next five years for Wilkins’ Clemson teammate, Giants defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence, who signed a four-year, $90 million extension with $60 million guaranteed: $6.6 million in 2023, $21.9 million in 2024, and then $21.4 million, $24.4 million and $26.4 million.

▪ As for Sieler and Williams, agent Drew Rosenhaus said on his WSVN-Fox segment last week that he wouldn’t be discussing the contractual situations of either client, who both have a year left on their contracts.

The Dolphins have typically taken care of Rosenhaus clients, and both were very good last season, but there are several tough calls for Grier involving both players:

1). Whether to extend Sieler before finalizing a Wilkins extension and how much Grier feels comfortable spending at defensive tackle. (Both Wilkins and Sieler are listed as tackles).

Sieler assuredly warrants a sizable raise from his $2.5 million 2023 salary.

But the Dolphins are $31.7 million over the 2024 cap, and that could factor into this.

▪ With Williams, the question is whether the team should be more or less motivated to rework his contract after he sat out mandatory minicamp. Keep in mind that the Dolphins reworked Howard’s contract after he sat out mandatory minicamp in 2021.

Williams is due $6.5 million with $2 million guaranteed this season. He can make the case that he selflessly and cheerfully moved from guard (with the Cowboys) to center with the Dolphins, even though he has said he was informed of the position switch only after he signed.

He can make the case that he played very well at center; Pro Football Focus rated him fourth best among all centers last season.

The three ahead of him: Kansas City’s Creed Humphrey (still on a cheap rookie deal), Philadelphia’s Jason Kelce (who, in March, signed a one-year deal that could be worth as much as $14.25 million this season) and Cleveland’s Ethan Pocic (who signed a three year, $18 million deal in Marc).

In exchange for agreeing to pay Williams slightly more this year, the Dolphins likely would ask him to sign an extension with an annual value between Pocic’s and Kelce’s (and that’s a wide gap).

Even if Williams doesn’t report to training camp, cutting him isn’t a sensible option. There’s no particularly good replacement on the roster, even though Dan Feeney can play the position and Liam Eichenberg took snaps there in the offseason program.

And the notion of Williams sitting out parts of the regular season seems unthinkable. Who’s going to give up $6.5 million in salary?

Grier, over his time here, has worked to find compromises. He did it with Howard. Whether he can do it with Wilkins, Sieler and Williams remains one of the big remaining story lines of the summer.

▪ ESPN’s analytics department — the one that gave the Heat just a 3 percent chance to beat the Celtics in the Eastern Conference finals — gives Miami a 48 percent chance to make the playoffs and a 3.2 percent chance to win the Super Bowl.

Meanwhile, ESPN’s Herm Edwards predicted the Dolphins will win the AFC East and identified the Dolphins as the biggest threat to Kansas City, if Tua Tagovailoa can stay healthy. “This offense is electric…. I don’t know how you defend these guys.”

▪ Linebacker Jerome Baker, who takes his job as seriously and losses as hard as anyone in the team’s locker room (from my perception), tweeted “I let y’all down last year. This year I will not.”

His overall metrics weren’t bad. PFF rated him 18th among 84 linebackers (not including edge players) and 31st against the run.He finished 56th in the NFL with 100 tackles. He had 126, 112 and 92 during the three previous seasons.

I didn’t agree with former coordinator Josh Boyer’s decision to blitz him less than previous years. He had four sacks and 14 hurries on 112 pass rushing snaps and a sack on a blitz in the playoff game.

When he had seven sacks in 2020, he rushed 135 times.

Baker finished with a 107.8 passer rating in his coverage area — 53 for 67 for 421 yards and three touchdowns allowed. The good news is receptions against him averaged just 7.9 yards, which was among the best in the league.

Baker’s $8.4 million salary for 2023 is guaranteed; his $10.4 million for 2024 is not. He’ll need a big year for Miami to bring him back at that number in 2024.

▪ Next Gen Stats noted this week that Tagovailoa threw for a league-high 1,664 passing yards targeting vertical routes last season, over 250 more than any other quarterback. Josh Allen was second at 1392.