MALIK WILLIS, YOU ARE (GOING TO BE) A MIAMI DOLPHIN!

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Malik Willis, you sir, are going to be Miley Dolphin.

You are Lockdown Dolphins, your daily Miami Dolphins podcast, part of the Lockdown Podcast

Network, your team every day.

All right, Miami.

Welcome to another emergency episode podcast of Lockdown Dolphins.

This is how you know it's the start of the league year and the legal pampering period.

I'm your host, comrades.

Lightlog Miami Dolphins fan host of Lockdown Dolphins co-host of Lockdown.

I feel scouting.

Author of Touchdown Miami on Substake and I feel staff writer for A to Z Sports want to

give a special welcome and shout out to our everydayers because it is your team every

day.

We don't just say it.

Here on the Lockdown Network today on this episode of today's show, the Dolphins agreeing

to terms on a three year contract with quarterback Malik Willis.

The quarterback wilderness lasted a few hours.

And this isn't to say that Malik Willis is the unquestioned, uncontested, franchise quarterback

of this regime, right?

I think that's an important note.

And we try, we talked about that at the end of the last podcast today, but we'll talk

about it again.

I want to talk about the terms, I want to talk about the offer that I made in the offseason

blueprint last year that had some parallels in the way of money.

I didn't think that deal was going to get it done.

I think that's the first thing that stands out to me is this literally became the salary

cap adjusted version of what Justin Fields got last year from the New York Chats.

And we heard all the hubbub up through the NFL combine about how hot the market was

from Malik Willis.

And then the combine came and went and everybody to combine kind of shrugged their shoulders.

And then the reporting kind of, it fizzled back down to like 25.

Now it's a three year 67 and a half million dollar contract with $45 million in guarantees.

I would assume, and I don't assume that that's 45 guaranteed it's signing, right?

I think that has a chance to maybe be some, some tolling guarantees that kind of go year

over year.

But I see the parallels to the field's contract and that was always the cost effective move,

right?

It's not small money.

It's small money for a quarterback contract when Daniel Jones is asking the cults for

$50 million a season and Daniel Jones played half a year good football, kind of struggling

and played her for a bit and then is on the transition tag for 37.

So Malik, I am assuming there will probably be void years on the back end of this contract

because they'll, and they'll probably have an option bonus for money.

And it's like the money that was in the two of contract, but a fraction of the dollar

amount.

And you can wean it out where like even if Malik Willis is not good after the first year

and we need to see the full terms on the contract and know all this for certain, but keeping

them around at $20 million, if you draft a quarterback in 2027, that was the short that

I just did for the channel was like, where's the downside here?

They're spending money.

Do we want to talk about the cash spend?

The situation of the dolphins payroll this year?

Because they've offloaded Tyree Kill who was owed 36 and Bradley Chubb who was owed 20.23.

James Daniels and Nick Westbrook, you know, those guys were owed $10 million.

They're trading Mink of Fitzpatrick.

That's another 15 six off the books.

They moved on from Jason Sanders and Alec Engel.

Those guys were over $8 million in cash.

They're getting rid of 90.6 million dollars in cash payroll.

They're 27 in the NFL and cash spending before the Mink of Fitzpatrick transaction.

And that's another 15 off the books.

They're going to be in the bottom four, three in the NFL as far as cash spending this year.

And half of the cap is going to be committed to dead cap, right?

We are going to get on the other side of this.

And this is why we did the whole offseason group, that blueprint last year.

And we're talking about the blueprint and the contract offer in just a sec.

They are not converting any of their cash into debt moving forward, right?

Maybe they'll do it with Jordan Brooks and maybe they'll do it with Aaron Brewer

and maybe if they extend them on H&B because they have to reconcile all the dead cap this year.

But their cash spend is going to be dramatically less than what the cap is.

And that includes the Maliquilus contract.

So all things considered, I don't see the downside because they've told us now

if they just signed Maliquilus and they throw their hands up and say,

yeah, we're going to quarterback for four years when I can do anything.

I'll be disappointed.

I don't expect that to be the case, right?

I would suspect that all when it's all said and done, there will be a quarterback

drafted this year to go with Maliquilus.

And depending on how next year goes, they'll be in position to draft a quarterback early

because you're going to have two years left with one year of guarantees on Maliquilus's contract.

And that's why for me, it was always the messaging about the philosophy as long as you back that up.

And Sully used in a sit down interview with Cam Wolf.

He talked about the Seahawks with the Matt Flynn contract as an example of a good process

that led to Russell Wilson.

So as long as you embody that and there's no reason to think that they won't

because of everywhere that they've been all the other packer Ron Wolf disciples across the league.

They've all gone to their other places and they've they've all embodied this and done this.

I don't see the downside because if you're worried about the cap, there's no ramifications for the cap.

And frankly, after this year, you're not really paying anybody other than Jalen Waddle and Zach Seeler.

And now Maliquilus.

And if you choose to pay Jordan Brooks and Aaron Brewer and Devon H. Ann, they can join the club.

You're not paying anybody after this year.

You're really not paying anybody as of this year anyway.

If the Dolphin stay at pick 11 before the Maliquilus contract, the 11th overall pick was going to be number one in the on the team in cash spending for 26.

He was getting a more cash this year than anybody else on the roster barring a contract extension for somebody else.

They are through the hard part.

They just have to take the medicine and doing that with a cost effective swing that came in lower than what everybody said.

The cost was going to be, I don't see the downside, I don't.

As long as you're frame of mind and you keep the right perspective moving into the future.

Now, I want to talk about where these dollars came in and I want to talk about the blueprint offer that we had last week from Maliquilus.

And we're going to compare those two that's on the other side of the break.

Make sure you guys stick with us.

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Okay.

Raven Center Tyler Linnebaum reached reach agreement with the Raiders three years 81 file that away for the Aaron Brewer negotiations down the road that is a hefty hefty hefty hefty hefty number wow.

Okay, let's talk about Malik and the contract that I put together for the 2026 Miami dolphins off season blueprint that ran all last week on the show it's the full simulated off season every step along the way it had trading make it fits Patrick I don't like to trade value they got versus what the make it's Patrick deal actually wasn't real life versus what I thought that they maybe could get on my assessment and make it the league obviously didn't agree is what it is one thing that's pretty close.

Was the valuation the dolphins gave Malik will us ignore the cap coverage stuff if you're watching on YouTube that is you could make 8.9 million dollars in cash space by converting doing a base salary conversion for Jordan Brooks and Aaron Brewer and that would presumably hold the cap space that you need to accommodate Malik wills if you wanted to do that but this was what I hypothetically had laid out for Malik wills it was two years.

45 million dollar total somebody do that math for me I'm not a math guy I know the answer here I'm just being funny 45 divided by two 22 and a half what he signed for three for 67 and a half what's that math 22 and a half got it cool with a 21 million dollar signing bonus 32 million guaranteed it's signing was what I had proposed.

The raw average of the proposal that I had on the blueprint is the same Malik gets more guaranteed money and he gets an extra here on the back end of the contract so that value I think is right in line with like where my line in the sand was to say hey I'm cool with this I'm not going to get into a you know what contest with the Arizona Cardinals and the Atlanta Falcons and the Minnesota Vikings and the Pittsburgh Steelers and whoever else.

Here's the line here's what I'm comfortable with and it's cool to see that that number in reality comes in exactly where it did the other highlighting part that I would say for this proposed deal was the cap charge for what I had laid out and I put one boy gear on the back end of the contract the cap charge was less than six and a half million dollars.

Will they put more boy years on it it's a three year deal so you get that same amount of probation as is if you give them a 20 something million dollar signing bonus right I would expect the cap charge for this to be under six and a half.

Depends on how much of the cash flow you get up front right maybe say hey we're 28th and cash spending we're going to be more the cash up front it's going to be lower cash due in 2027 maybe I don't know like what and i'm really fascinated to see what that does come out to be.

The other thing that stands out to me is is this shoe dropping within like an hour or so of the legal tampering period ending.

Makes that mink of fits the timeliness of that mink of fits Patrick move make a lot more sense right that was kind of one of the observations when that came through is it's like oh they.

They took that was there maybe a better offer that they could have got could they have waited this out to the draft well if you want to have the wiggle room to sign a player here and a role player there and then go out and be in a position to do something like this.

You need the cap space now.

And the dolphins did that so that the mink of move clearing 5.8 million dollars in cap space and we just said we expect the cap charge for Willis on the first year of a three year contract based off of the time.

Two year contract that I have put together proposal last week on the blueprint.

I kind of inclined to think that that that's going to be close probably to a one for one.

When it's all said and done.

So the dolphins will have no problem being salary cap compliant once all this stuff gets finalized they'll probably finalize the trade with mink and then they'll.

Bring Malik in the next day and I'll do the contract signing and they'll they'll do the probably I assume do the dog and pony show right.

It kind of reminds me of any given Sunday when Al Pacino at the end he does the press conference and he's leaving the Miami sharks and he's like that's why I just took that.

Hey coach and Java the new Albuquerque franchise and I signed Willie Beeman to be my starting quarterback Jeff happily coming down from Green Bay brings Malik Willis with him.

The migration is on and even we really haven't talked to any of the X's and O's elements of this it's so much of the focus has just been about the money and the cap.

But when you really stop to sit down thing my buddy Ben saw like I know I know Ben's not a super popular dolphins Twitter guy.

But he put the post out that caught my attention HM plus Malik Willis is so so so cool.

And this is really the first time I've stopped to think about it.

What you can do with some quarterback run game and boot action like all that speed in the backfield instead of overall team speed.

And the way that you can create think about what the Ravens because I know everybody's can hear the names or the words speed and they're going to get shaky right they're going to get uncomfortable because the last offense teams built off a speed.

I get it we don't want to be a speed team.

But when you can seamlessly combine speed and power speed and size up front I think about what the Baltimore Ravens did with the Greg Roman stuff and I know Greg kind of.

Hit a ceiling with Lamar and they had to go to.

I'd munk into it to kind of revitalize the passing game and that was a whole the can of worms right.

But the Greg Roman stuff with the 13 personnel and with the 21 personnel with Lamar Jackson.

And what they had with their backs and the zone read stuff even if you don't intend on calling a bunch of quarterback run stuff but you can play action off of it you can RPO with it you can boot game off of it.

You can do true quarterback run game off of it what that allows you to do if you have that ability to seamlessly blend that size up front which Baltimore did really well.

That first Lamar MVP season I'm not saying this is all going to come together in 2026 right like please don't mistake that is what I'm saying.

Just the direction if it works.

To be able to streamline all that together with hey we're automatically to be plus one gaps in the box because we can leave the MN online scrimmage.

Unblocked and we can do quarterback run game stuff.

So the stress you're putting on the front side of the play with HN and then the backside of the play with Willis.

I think that can be really cool.

I think that has the potential to be very, very cool. I hope they lean in and go big bodies.

Get some athletic pass catchers a tight and whether it's Greg Dolce or anybody else and and start to assemble it to look and feel like that.

They had Patrick or card out there is a 310 pound fullback and he's mowing dudes down and they're running downhill between the tackles and then Lamar will pull the ball and scoot out the back door.

You can do a lot of that stuff but the back in this case is Devon HN who we all know how good he is.

It's really interesting and I think the other person all moves like what do they do with the rest of the skill group that the tight end room is is bear but naked right now.

Family friendly program was not going to be a first choice words.

We're going to get a feel for it and it might take a little while but man I stylistically what this has the potential to feel like is is going to be really.

I think something neat to see how it comes together and it's chemistry experiment and it might not work full disclosure might not work. I don't know if it is or not.

But I think it's a cost effective opportunity to find out and that's what it's always been about cost effective swings.

The Pat McAfee interview will have stopped in and checked it with Pat McAfee and like I played or anything but there's something about that really stood out to me.

I thought it was pretty cool. We're going to talk about it next here on locked on dolphins. Make sure you guys stick with us.

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Obviously a very fascinating time for the Miami dolphins and everybody's got opinions all over the board on what was the right kind of way to handle this what's the wrong kind of way to handle this my only rule is this do not rest until you have an unquestion starter at quarterback whether that's Malik or somebody else.

So Malik speaking of Malik he came on the Pat McAfee show and talked about him agreeing to terms with the Miami dolphins and you know what he was doing that I thought was says a lot about me I've had a chance to meet Malik I met Malik and when he came out of the NFL draft.

We did a series called draft legends I was a draft network at the time we partner with legends who's a LA based clothing company and they had like five pillars of their business standard like what they want their business to be known for.

And we partnered with him that year and we did a player in that years draft process that we felt embodied each of those five pillars for legends and we did a partnership like that and there was custom stuff that we gave the players.

And I can make one who was the left tackle that was drafted six overall by the panthers was one of those guys boy Mafe with the Minnesota vicar with the out of Minnesota just draft by Seattle was another one Jesse Lucqueta just signed in New England and Malik was one of the other ones.

So he came by our draft stuff the day before the draft and we had a chance to meet with him and talk to him and then you just knew that he was a guy that was.

Will and a put in the work right is very down the earth with the way that he carried himself and that always struck me from the time that I met Malik and he does his interview with McAfee and he's on his phone and he's just walking off the field getting a workout in.

So Mulligan and athletes first are finalizing the deal and it's announced that they've agreed to terms on a contract with the dolphins and Malik Willis via athletes first and Malik hops on with Pat McAfee and he's drenched in sweat because he's just walking off the practice field.

Guys work in March 9th I love it I dig it a lot and I think dolphins fans are going to get to know this guy and I think you'll want to root for him and I know there's a lot of scar tissue with the fan base and apprehension about any decision and any investment in quarterback being one that's going to work or not work and I know it's been talked about that he's the same height and weight is to a tongue of a low but you could watch and play for I think five reps and I think it becomes abundantly clear that they're very different stylistic players.

And I would say all of the things that made to a tick and made to a not tick fundamentally a lot of the other end of the spectrum is what exists with Malik very powerful or very dynamic athlete very good outside of structure.

As the ability to create when the play breaks down maybe doesn't have the precision within the footwork and the rhythm and the timing to hit the guy on the body on the break balls on the face mask and stride you see flashes of it but he's grossly under ripped.

He needs time on task and the dolphins are going to give him that to see what it looks like.

I'm gassed up man if you told me it was for 30 32 35 million I'd probably not be gassed up but I think it's an appropriate value bet the plays from the people in the league minus Matt Laflur who know invest.

Calcrab's locked on dolphins that's it for us here on the show appreciate all of you who tuned in to talk a little Malik Willis hit subscribe on the channel wherever you're listening with your podcast make sure you subscribe to the show we're here for you every day every step of the way talking dolphins football hopes to you all again soon.

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