Dolphins confident they can land Suh
Welcome to the Miami Dolphins offseason. Welcome to the remaking of a defense.
Welcome to a looming $102 million (or so) contract offer to Ndamukong Suh.
We are one day away (Saturday at noon) before the Dolphins, and a every other NFL team, is able to officially contact pending NFL free agent players. No visits are allowed until Tuesday but contact with agents is allowed as this is the official tampering window.
The Dolphins will be calling agent Jimmy Sexton to discuss their interest in signing the Detroit Lions defensive tackle who is hitting free agency. The Dolphins will definitely be in the Suh chase, according to multiple sources.
(Most team sources have dried up on this topic. But the walls have ears at the Davie facility).
I'm told the Dolphins are confident they're going to put a great offer on the table for Suh. They are confident they can get him. They are not certain because, obviously, this is a still a competition.
Teams that are expected to also show interest include Oakland, Indianapolis, Jacksonville, and perhaps Tennessee. Detroit remains a remote possibility for a return.
The discussions between Suh's agent and the Dolphins will include a repeat of the message the team has already heard unofficially: Suh wants to be the NFL's highest-paid player (negotiable) but definitely its highest-paid non-quarterback (not negotiable).
And then the sides can begin laying parameters for a what it is going to take. It is going to take a deal in the vicinity of $102 million over six years. The final deal will average out near $17 million per season but that isn't the important number.
The important numbers are that the deal will have to include about $30-32 million that is fully guaranteed with another $20-$25 million in additional guarantees.
Of that $100-plus million, Suh is going to want a huge chunk in the first three years. That will mean approximately $55 million in the first three years which will be the actual and true money on this coming deal.
And someone will give Suh what he wants. Simply, he is the most dominant defensive free agent to come along in a long time.
“He’s obviously a dominant player," former Detroit teammate Jason Fox said Thursday after re-signing with the Dolphins. "He’s one of the best defensive tackles, if not the best defensive tackle in the whole NFL. He’s a game-changing type of player. In the locker room, he’s not the ‘rah-rah’ guy and he speaks up when he feels like it’s necessary. He’s one of the guys that leads by example. He’s a hard-worker and obviously that shows."
I would say Jacksonville is Miami's biggest rival because it is in the same state and that means the Suh camp will be able to compare financial apples to apples in that there is no state tax in Florida. An offer from Oakland, in liberal-leaning California where there is a 13.3 state tax (highest in the nation), means the Raiders would have to make up between $8-$10 million that Suh would lose to taxes to merely match an offer from Miami or Jacksonville.
That's not politics. That's simply the math imposed on California residents by legislators.
The Dolphins are obviously aware of their advantage over Oakland and, indeed, any team in a state with a state tax. But, again, there is no such advantage over Jacksonville.
If the Dolphins get Suh, I'd say there is very little chance they re-sign Jared Odrick or keep Randy Starks. Suh plays nearly 80 percent of the downs on defense. He's a moose that way. So the Dolphins can easily get by with Suh and Earl Mitchell starting and lesser, younger, cheaper backups getting 20-25 percent of the snaps while one or the other rests.