What the Contracts for Minkah and Sieler Mean

What the Contracts for Minkah and Sieler Mean

A bit of breaking news here on DolphinsTalk as star defensive tackle Zach Sieler gets his payday from the Miami Dolphins. It is a three-year extension worth up to $67.75 million, with $44 million in guaranteed money. That was not the only move they made; they also signed Minkah Fitzpatrick to an extension, which was a revised contract adding a $16.25 million signing bonus.

Like always, I have three reasons as to what these two contracts mean for the team moving forward. So, for the first time in a few weeks, let us take a Deep End Dive this time into the recent contracts of Minkah Fitzpatrick and, as of today, Zach Sieler.

A Well-Deserved Extension

Zach Sieler, as we have now established, got his money from the Dolphins, but how he got here is an incredible story—going from basically not a well-known player with the Baltimore Ravens to now the highest-paid defensive player on the Miami Dolphins roster. Did it relieve them with any additional cap space you may ask that is a wait and see as there are no details on that currently, though I would imagine that that info will come out in the coming days.

Throughout his tenure with the Miami Dolphins, Zach Sieler has made some crucial plays, including a pick-six on Will Levis on Monday Night Football in 2023, which, for a moment that night, got the crowd into it. He has also had ten sacks in the 2023 and 2024 seasons, so the Dolphins need to take advantage of this and give Sieler a capable defense that can compete for wins on the field.

He has thirty sacks in his career, twenty of those, like I said in the past, in the past two seasons. There is no reason to think that Sieler has not reached his peak yet, and he is twenty-nine years old, who will be thirty when the season starts.

So, that is how I feel Sieler deserved his contract from Brandon Shore, who, although not the general manager, has a say in contracts.

Minkah Staying Put

Minkah Fitzpatrick, who was traded to the Miami Dolphins in June for Jalen Ramsey and Jonnu Smith has been making impact plays already in training camp if you have been paying attention either on social media or if you are like me who are physically there to watch training camp as of last Saturday not yesterday but the previous Saturday July twenty sixth. About six days before Sieler got his payday, and deservingly so, it was Minkah Fitzpatrick who got his contract, which was a revised contract that added a signing bonus that I described in detail earlier in the intro to the article.

This restructured deal brings Minkah closer to securing his long-term contract with the Dolphins, according to his new agent, Drew Rosenhaus, who you may have heard of by now, and who also represents Tyreek Hill. He also said he is “extremely excited to be a Dolphin”.

Now he will have a bigger role, along with newly acquired cornerback Jack Jones, to fill the void left behind by Kader Kohou, who is out for the season with a knee injury. So it will be interesting to see how Minkah is used in that defensive scheme led by defensive coordinator Anthony Weaver. But that is how I view the Minkah Fitzpatrick contract situation and how it can impact the Miami Dolphins moving forward.

No Need To Worry About Future Contracts and A Little on Culture

With these two contracts now done and dusted, the futures of these two players with the Dolphins are now set. It is now up to Chris Grier to fill out the rest of the roster with players who can be both good on the field and good for the team’s culture. Because if you really want to change your culture, like the Dolphins have been saying a lot recently, go show me that you want to change. Staying after practice doing push-ups is a really good thing for me to see the team do, as well as some other guys on the roster staying after practice to run some drills.

That’s what I want to see them do more of, rather than just stopping when practice is done and not going back until the next session as long as we are not losing key players to injuries when they are doing this that is fine because we do not want to have a Kader Kohou or an almost injury with Jaelan Phillips. Thank god that Phillips is okay, though.

However, that is my take on why the Miami Dolphins don’t need to worry about their future contracts, and I am discussing how the team is at least trying to change its culture.

The Sieler and Minkah Contracts: In Conclusion

Zach Sieler and Minkah Fitzpatrick got their money and they should have, in conclusion I discussed first the Zach Sieler contract and how it impacts the Miami Dolphins moving forward. Then I discussed the same with Minkah Fitzpatrick, but at his position.

Finally, I talked briefly about how the two of them in particular do not need to worry about their futures with the Dolphins, the same as the other core players on the team, before I went in depth on the supposed culture change with the Dolphins and what they are doing to try and change that. In short, both contracts should help the Miami Dolphins both in the long term and the short term.

It is just a matter of whether they can build a team that can compete for not just division titles but eventually for Super Bowls down the line. That is something that has always shown me rather than told me.