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Analysis: NFL, NFLPA Agrees to CBA Amendments for the 2020 Season
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The Miami Dolphins continued to do some summer cleanups on their roster on Sunday, following in the footsteps of club catcher Ricardo Lewis and quarterback Jake Rudock on Saturday. This time, it was a pair of defensive players who got the ax when the team announced that it was giving up defensive end Avery Moss and linebacker Trent Harris.
Moving on from Moss and Harris are of particular interest because of their contributions to the club last season. In his 11 games played in 2019, Moss received the initial go-ahead in eight. He finished with 25 total tackles and a forced fumble. Harris started in three of his 11 games played and ended his season with 22 tackles, a forced fumble and 1.5 sacks. Both players played less than 35% of the defensive snapshots of the season, making them true rotation pieces, but they were nonetheless given a handful of starts.
The decision to resign these two could be in part because Miami, like any other club, needs to narrow its roster to 80 players before the newly agreed deadline of August 16. Teams can start training camp with traditional 90-man rosters, but must get them to that number or less in mid-August. It appears that the Dolphins are simply trying to get ahead of the curve. With these moves, Miami currently has 83 players on the roster, which does not include lineman Durval Queiroz Neto, for whom the team has a roster exemption.
That means three more shoes must drop before reaching the magic number 80, but the Dolphins, who are currently looking at nine undrafted rookies coming to camp, have plenty of time to make those decisions.
As for who will likely take Harris and Moss’s place, the Dolphins spent a ton of money and a capital project on the defensive end of the ball and will likely improve a lot with a unit that died last in the NFL at DVOA in 2019. As for Moss, Miami signed linebacker Kyle Van Noy to a $ 51 million deal early in free agency, which will likely push him to the limit. The Dolphins also selected Curtis Weaver in the fifth round of the Boise State NFL 2020 Draft, which could endorse Van Noy. Harris saw most of his start time towards the end of the year and will likely be replaced quite easily by the Miami defense’s reorganization, especially with the addition of linebacker Elandon Roberts.
