Dolphins general manager Jeff Ireland finally met with the agent for nose tackle Paul Soliai at the NFL Combine, but the two sides left the meeting far apart on contract negotiations. Soliai, entering his sixth NFL season, wants to cash in on a long-term contract after earning $12.476 million last year as the Dolphins’ Franchise Player. But the Dolphins are transitioning away from the traditional 3-4 defense to more of a 4-3 base defense, and don’t want to invest significant resources in a player who didn’t have a sack last year and played in just 450 of 1,126 defensive snaps (39.96 percent), according to Pro Football Focus. The Dolphins, who currently have about $13 million in salary cap space, would like to bring him back on a relatively cheap, short-term contract, but all indications are that Soliai will instead walk away in free agency when it begins on March 13. The Dolphins likely won’t use the Franchise Tag again, which would give him a salary of $14.97 million in 2012. Source: Palm Beach Post
Sign Langford and resign Starks and draft a NT. Soliai is not known for conditioning. In fact he reminds me a bit of Haynesworth in that his best years have been contract years.
even mentioning franchise tag and soliai in the same article is bad journalism ............ this kid is still relatively young and a lot of times these NT's don't blossom until their 30's but if they are looking for some huge signing bonus and a massive long-term deal, there's no way i would give it to this guy
