'I don't know if we're winning the right way' — Dolphins' Chris Grier on why now was the time for Miami's team-building strategy to pivot amid pressure to win

There's some lessons in life that you simply need to learn the hard way. It seems like the Miami Dolphins and their general manager, Chris Grier, are applying what they've learned from one such lesson to the 2025 NFL season.

Grier, who has served as Miami's general manager by title since 2016 and assumed full control over football operations in 2019, spoke to the media on Wednesday after 53-man cuts. It marks one of just a few times a year that Grier shows face to the media, he's not a front facing personality amid the Dolphins' power structure but thanks to his long tenure in Miami and some of the Dolphins' big picture struggles, Grier has become a lightning rod of criticism.

Part of the concern many Dolphins fans hold now is if Grier is the right man to head up Miami's future — the Dolphins are recalibrating and transitioning from one core of talent to another and have begun to swing the spending pendulum and focus back to the draft. The wins and losses is a part of the calculus, but so to is the perceived "culture" that has been such a prominent focus of 2025 to date. Grier shared on Wednesday his perspective on how the culture got to where it was and why it's different in 2025 (and will be moving forward).

Dolphins general manager Chris Grier dishes on applying lessons they've learned the hard way in recent years

"We saw it from day one in OTAs, the offensive and defensive groups would stay out on the field on their own, which I've never seen here in years, for like an hour afterwards, as a group, by themselves, on their own time, walking through stuff. Going through, holding each other accountable, the stuff you saw in the joint practices of our guys getting on each other about competing, that hadn't happened here in years. So it's a it's a different mindset, you know, led by Mike that we talked about right from that last team meeting at the end of last season, when he told them what it was going to be...when you bring in so many new players that have been star players at other places, and you work through it — you have your expectations, but you're winning. But you look at it and say 'Hey, I don't know if we're winning the right way.' ...that's kind of what it was.

At times, (some) guys, it didn't matter to them. And so moving on from those people with the right guys here and focusing on that..the whole goal was to win a lot more games than we did last year. This is our time now in terms of doing everything moving forward."

— Miami Dolphins general manager Chris Grier on the perceived culture shift moving forward

I, for one, appreciate the candidness of Chris in this passage. I also recognize that as the general manager, the problems that Grier is discussing ultimately start and end with him, too — you can't give someone too much credit for cleaning up their own mess. But the first step to fixing a problem is admitting you have one. The Dolphins did that in 2025. The question of whether or not it is too little too late for the long-term stability of this football braintrust and for the vision of an annual contender to be realized or not is a different story. We can't pretend to know. But the Dolphins themselves will give us that answer for themselves starting next week.

The standard is the standard. And for too long, we know now that Miami had been compromising theirs to the whims of the talent. And when the winning stopped, it served as the Dolphins' motivation to change. Players either shipped up (Tyreek Hill) or were shipped out (Jalen Ramsey).

It's always better to be proactive as compared to reactive and that appears to be where the sin lies for Grier and the Dolphins here. Especially when considering Miami conceded to both players on their asks for new contracts just 12 months ago — what kind of message does that send the players that you feel is setting the wrong example? That if you're talented enough, it's worth tolerating. Miami presumably feels differently in the here and now of 2025. Good. They should.

Chris Grier is right about one thing: there is a right way to win. This is a healthy change, but one that should not have needed a nuclear season in more ways than one in 2024 to spur on. Grier must be more proactive with whatever other warts and flaws he sees with his football team moving forward — or else it won't be his to run much longer.

window.addEventListener('message', function (event) {if (event.data.totalpoll && event.data.totalpoll.action === 'resizeHeight') {document.querySelector('#totalpoll-iframe-426').height = event.data.totalpoll.value;}}, false);document.querySelector('#totalpoll-iframe-426').contentWindow.postMessage({totalpoll: {action: 'requestHeight'}}, '*');