The Green Bay Packers are one of the NFL’s oldest and most historic teams. I have admired them in my years following football. I especially admire how they have handled their business in the last 30 years. They have built teams in the draft, developed players, and aren’t afraid to take a quarterback no matter what. I think the Miami Dolphins should look at what the Packers have done over the past three decades.
It started when they traded for a young quarterback named Brett Favre in 1992. They had a new regime with general manager Ron Wolf and head coach Mike Holmgren. Holmgren developed Favre and turned him into a franchise quarterback and one of the best in the NFL in the 1990s. Having a quarterback like Favre didn’t stop Wolf from taking quarterbacks for years to come.
In the early 90s, Wolf drafted other quarterbacks like Ty Detmer and Mark Brunnell. Both of these quarterbacks backed up Favre for years, and they developed. The Packers played both at times when Favre got hurt and played well to the point where the Packers traded them to other teams to get a high draft pick or, in Brunnell’s case, was put in the 1995 expansion draft, where the Jacksonville Jaguars took him and he became their franchise quarterback for years.
In the mid 90’s, Wolf drafted a quarterback named Matt Hasselbeck and, like Detmer and Brunnell, was developed under the Packers. The Packers ended up trading him with the Seattle Seahawks for a 1st round pick, where Holmgren coached him ironically and became the Seahawks franchise quarterback for a decade. At that same time, Wolf drafted Aaron Brooks, and he developed with the Packers and got traded to the New Orleans Saints for a 3rd round pick, where he started and won the franchise’s first playoff game in the team’s history. Brooks went on to start for the next few years.
The Packers then got lucky in 2005 when a young quarterback named Aaron Rodgers slipped to them at 24 and, with Favre getting older, drafted them to be his heir apparent. Then, the Packers’ general manager, Ted Thompson, decided to trade Favre as he couldn’t decide if he wanted to keep playing, so Thompson decided to move on and go with Rodgers. Thompson took a lot of heat for the decision, but it was the correct move. It’s hard to move on from a legend like Favre, but Rodgers was in the middle of his rookie contract, and the Packers had to find out what they had in him. Well, in 2010, the Packers won the Super Bowl with Rodgers leading the way, and he was the franchise quarterback for the next decade.
The Packers drafted another quarterback during Rodgers’s time, Matt Flynn. Flynn developed behind Rodgers and threw 6 touchdown passes in the season finale in a meaningless game in 2011. Flynn’s contract was up, and with Rodgers in the prime of his career, he wasn’t going to resign with the Packers, so he hit the market and got a big contract from the Seahawks.
Ironically, the Packers traded up in the back end of the first round with the Dolphins in the 2020 draft to take quarterback Jordan Love. Of course, the move drew criticism, but Rodgers was getting into his mid-to-late 30s, so the Packers drafted the quarterback to be his heir apparent, just like they did in 2005. The Packers traded Rodgers a year ago, and Love took over. The Packers made a run in the playoffs last year and now have their franchise quarterback for the foreseeable future.
This offseason, the Packers traded with the Tennessee Titans for quarterback Malik Willis to back up Love. Love got hurt earlier this year, and Willis filled in for him and did a good job leading them to a few wins.
Why do I bring all of this up? It’s because the Dolphins have done terribly for the past two decades, going after a young quarterback to develop as a backup in case the starting quarterback went down. The last quarterback I can say the Dolphins drafted and developed well was Scott Mitchell, and that was 30 years ago when he sat behind Dan Marino. When he tore his Achilles Tendon, Mitchell played well to earn a free-agent contract with the Detroit Lions. The Dolphins drafted Skylar Thompson a couple of years ago, but he has regressed over the last two years, and the Dolphins have turned a blind eye to it. The Dolphins didn’t draft a quarterback to develop when Marino retired.
They passed on chances to take a lot of quarterbacks over the years, like Rodgers, Russell Wilson, Josh Allen, and others. The Dolphins should look at the Packers as an example, taking a quarterback every few years and trying to develop one because you can’t have enough quarterbacks. If you develop one properly, you can use it in a trade for a high draft pick or eventually replace your starter who isn’t getting it done. That’s not to say that current starter Tua Tagovailoa isn’t getting it done, but the Dolphins need to address quarterbacks in the draft more to develop, just like the Packers do.
This year, the Dolphins went into the season without a competent backup quarterback, and it came back to bite them when Tagovailoa went down. It didn’t bite the Packers earlier this year because they had the foresight to trade for Willis, and he won a few games. If the Dolphins had that foresight, maybe they would have dug themselves a big hole when Tua went down and had someone who could hold the fort down. The Dolphins need to look at the Packers model moving forward.
