Dolphins Would Be Making Major Mistake by Breaking Bank for Ndamukong Suh

On Saturday, the floodgates opened across the National Football League.

Well, sort of.

Teams can't yet sign on the dotted line with players, but with the "legal tampering" period open, NFL clubs are free to start talking turkey with this year's free agents.

In at least one respect, it's a blessing that the Miami Dolphins can only talk to players at this point.

It gives them at least a few days to talk themselves out of the major mistake that would be making defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh the team's highest-paid player.

Talk of Suh landing in South Florida has heated up considerably as the week has worn on. As Andrew Abramson of The Palm Beach Post reported a few days ago, ESPN's Mark Dominik thinks that speculation has some legs, partly because with no state taxes in Florida more of the cash from Suh's mega-deal will wind up in his wallet.

“When you’re talking about state taxes and you’re in Tennessee, Texas or Florida and you’ve got that up your sleeve, any one of those teams has a real shot,” Dominik said.

Omar Kelly of The South Florida Sun-Sentinel went one better. As Kelly tweeted Wednesday, not only are the Dolphins prepared to break the bank to bring Suh to Miami but some around the league consider it a fait accompli:

And Kelly isn't alone in that assessment:

On many levels, this is just the kind of "splash" free-agent signing that gets fans high-fiving and fist-pumping:

Suh is the No. 1 free agent available in 2015 on most lists, including that of Greg Bedard of The MMQB. The five-year veteran tallied 53 tackles and 8.5 sacks last year en route to ranking third among all 4-3 defensive tackles at Pro Football Focus.

Bedard wrote that Suh "could be the best defensive free agent to hit market since Reggie White in 1993." Gregg Rosenthal and Chris Wesseling of NFL.com, who also ranked Suh as this year's top free agent, echoed those praises:

"

Outside of quarterbacks and the two unanimous All-Pros (J.J. Watt, Rob Gronkowski), Suh and Odell Beckham are the two unique talents around whom we would most like to build a franchise. A double-team defeater against the run as well as the pass, Suh is on a Hall-of-Fame career path.

"

Suh's a game-changer on defense, arguably the best player in the NFL at his position and in the prime of his career. Those sorts of players don't hit the open market every year. Or even every five years.

Year	Games	Tackles	Sacks	INT	FF	PFF Rank*
2010	12	66	10.0	1	1	32
2011	15	36	4.0	0	0	43
2012	16	35	8.0	0	0	4
2013	16	49	5.5	0	1	2
2014	16	53	8.5	0	0	3

So what's the problem? Pay the man!

Actually, it's paying the man where the problems come in.

Millions of problems.

According to Dave Birkett of The Detroit Free Press, Suh is looking for a contract that will make him the NFL's highest-paid defensive player, both in terms of annual salary and guaranteed money.

That would put Suh north of the six-year, $100 million deal signed by Watt last year. A deal that included nearly $52 million in guarantees.

In fact, Jason La Canfora of CBS Sports tweeted that the Dolphins are prepared to sail past Watt's deal with their offer to Suh:

That's a lot of cheese.

Granted, there are those, including Greg Cosell of Yahoo Sports, who feel that Suh could be worth every penny:

"

Suh is a good pass rusher from the inside, and he really impacts a running game. Let’s put aside one-on-one blocks, because Suh and other great players can beat those. What do you have to do when you’re a defensive lineman and you’re double teamed? You have to create a stalemate because you don’t want the offense getting a push and creating a new line of scrimmage. Then you want to prevent the lineman whose job it is to get to the second level from getting there, because that disrupts the timing of the play. Suh can do both things – and sometimes he can just beat a double team and make a play himself too – because he can’t be moved. Double teams don’t move him, the second lineman can’t get to the second level, the timing of the play is thrown off and the linebacker isn’t blocked and can fill the hole. That’s what you see when you watch Suh.

"

Still, $17 million per season is an enormous amount of money to commit to a non-quarterback. And while Suh is undoubtedly a great player he isn't light-years better than every other three-technique tackle in the NFL, as Watt is at defensive end.

Suh didn't lead all defensive tackles in sacks in 2014 (that would be Marcell Dareus of the Buffalo Bills with 10). He didn't lead defensive tackles in that regard in 2013 (Jason Hatcher of the Cowboys). Or 2012 (Cincinnati's Geno Atkins).

Also, while Suh has finished as a top-five defensive tackle in each of the past three years, not once has Suh topped the rankings at his position at Pro Football Focus. Not once.

That's the player who the Dolphins would be making the highest-paid player on their entire team. As Chris Perkins of The South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported, shelling out that kind of money could create problems down the line:

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By signing Suh, which is a possibility according to the Sun Sentinel, the Dolphins might wreck their whole salary structure, wiping out the middle-class player, guys who earn maybe $4-7 million per year, because their payroll would be incredibly top heavy.

In a doomsday scenario in 2016 you could have Suh (counting, say, $18 million against the cap), quarterback Ryan Tannehill (maybe $16 million), Mike Wallace ($13.7 million), Branden Albert ($10.1 million), Cameron Wake ($9.1 million), Mike Pouncey (maybe $8 million), and tight end Charles Clay (maybe $7 million) taking up more than $80 million against the cap.

"

It's a scenario that we've seen play out in Detroit in recent years, where the Lions were hamstrung in free agency because so much of their cap was tied up in Suh, wide receiver Calvin Johnson and quarterback Matthew Stafford.

And last I checked, that strategy landed the Lions a grand total of zero playoff wins.

Sinking huge money into any position can be a risky proposition for a team, so the payoff had better be substantial.

And while Suh is a great player, the payoff just isn't worth it for Miami.

It's no knock on Suh as a player. It's just that as problems go, defensive line isn't exactly at the top of Miami's list.

In ends Cameron Wake and Olivier Vernon, and tackles Randy Starks and (impending free agent) Jared Odrick, the Dolphins already have a talented front four. Football Outsiders ranked the Miami line in the top half of the NFL against both the run and pass in 2014, including a top-10 ranking at getting after the quarterback.

Would Suh make that Miami front four better? Absolutely. There's no denying that.

However, there's also no denying that the Dolphins have bigger fish to fry (so-to-speak). The offensive line remains a work in progress. The team freed up cap space by taking a buzzsaw to their wideouts, and with Mike Wallace's future in Miami unclear they may not be done in that regard. The linebackers, outside youngster Jelani Jenkins, are a mess.

Good luck fixing those holes (or any others) in free agency, either in 2015 or moving forward. A mega-deal for Suh would relegate the Dolphins to the bargain bin in that regard for the foreseeable future.

And that's without even touching Suh's numerous run-ins with the NFL, or the possibility that the next one will cost Suh more than just money.

The problem with Suh isn't Suh. No one is questioning his ability to wreak havoc on a football field.

However, in making Suh the league's richest defender, all the Dolphins will be accomplishing is solving one problem (that isn't even really a problem) by creating several more.

And all that's going to do is keep the Dolphins mired in the same spiral of mediocrity that's been giving fans of the team vertigo for years.

Gary Davenport is an NFL Analyst at Bleacher Report and a member of the Fantasy Sports Writers Association and the Pro Football Writers of America. You can follow Gary on Twitter at @IDPManor.