Memo to the Miami Dolphins: Matt Flynn Is More Than a Consolation Prize

After spending yesterday with the Seattle Seahawks, free-agent quarterback Matt Flynn is reportedly set to make a visit to the Miami Dolphins today or tomorrow. The Dolphins appear to be in hurry-up mode with Flynn due to reports that another free-agent quarterback, future Hall of Famer Peyton Manning, has eliminated Miami as his next possible team.

Flynn landing with the Dolphins, where his former Packers offensive coordinator, Joe Philbin, is now the head coach, seemed a foregone conclusion—before Dolphins owner Stephen Ross got it in his head that he needed to swing for the fences with Manning.

As my good friend Andrew Brandt is fond of saying, sometimes the best deals are the ones you don’t end up making. That’s not to say that having Peyton Manning on your team (provided he’s healthy) wouldn’t be fantastic—of course it would be...but for how long?

The picture history paints of older, veteran quarterbacks who have switched teams late in their careers is not exactly a pretty one. Manning may give his new team one or two more good years. And then what? The Dolphins would be right back where they were prior to their dalliance with Manning: in need of a starting quarterback.

Which brings us to Matt Flynn.

If Philbin runs an offense even somewhat similar to what Mike McCarthy runs in Green Bay, Flynn will be able to step off the plane, walk into the meeting room and begin their day one install during the interview. Philbin and Flynn would be able to grow together, with Flynn likely becoming an extension of his head coach on the field.

All the best coach-quarterback tandems have had this type of relationship, whether it was Vince Lombardi and Bart Starr, Bill Walsh and Joe Montana, Mike Shanahan and John Elway, Bill Belichick and Tom Brady, Sean Payton and Drew Brees, Mike McCarthy and Aaron Rodgers...you get the idea.

Now, I hear you already: “Slow down, Nagler. It’s Matt Flynn.”

Yes, I understand he isn’t any of those quarterbacks. I understand he has accomplished very little in his NFL career. However, I also know that, especially with Philbin as his coach, Flynn can be a very good NFL quarterback. He can lead a team to a championship, and that’s what it's all about.

Some scouts have questioned Flynn’s arm strength, and that is a legit concern. He is never going to turn field position with an 80-yard bomb the way Matthew Stafford can. However, his arm is more than strong enough that if the offense is manipulated correctly by the play-caller, it won’t matter one bit.

What Flynn has that even many current starting quarterbacks lack is the intangible leadership qualities that all the great ones have had. He is a gamer who, when a play breaks down, never gets flustered and can make something out of nothing. That’s who I want at quarterback—not some pretty boy with all the physical tools who has zero pocket presence and freezes like a deer in headlights when things break down.

You know what else I like about him? The killer instinct he displayed on this play here. It’s third-and-four, a little over a minute remaining, and Flynn takes his shot. Some might say the fact the Packers had the playoffs locked up going into the game somehow alleviated the pressure on Flynn to perform, but I couldn’t disagree more.

This was his audition for the rest of the league. His team was down late in the fourth quarter to a team it had not lost to at home since 1992. Trust me, the pressure was on Matt Flynn—and he delivered a perfect ball to James Jones like it was nothing.

One area where he must improve—and this is true of all young quarterbacks who have not played a lot—is in his tendency to give away his reads and lock in on his primary receiver.

Take a look at two of the interceptions he’s thrown in his two starts and you see almost identical plays. On both plays (the first one is actually a called running play), Flynn is trying to throw a slant to the wide side of the field. Couple the lack of a killer arm with the fact that on both plays he never takes his eyes off the receiver, and you get interceptions.

Matt Flynn is a young quarterback who is ready to play. His time on the bench is over and he needs to see the field. If that field is in Miami, I am fully confident he and Philbin will work through these issues to make Flynn one of the better quarterbacks in the game.

It won’t happen overnight, but when it does, Miami will have a 10-year starter at quarterback who will give them a consistently high level of play at the game's most important position.