Smith was brought in as a kick return specialist to help try and revamp the Dolphins normally poor return game. He was the perfect candidate for the Dolphins return spot, and it made sense when Miami picked him up.
What doesn't make sense , though, is the Miami Dolphins decision to release him. He didn't do much in the way of returning for two games, so they decided to release him? It seems a bit premature to me to release Smith after such a short period of time.
It isn't like he has been consistently bad for weeks and weeks. All he had was two bad games and they pulled the plug on him.
I wish they would have given him more time. It can take a little while to gel with your special teams unit, and I am pretty sure two games is not enough time.
Smith was a great returner who averaged 29.1 return yards on kickoffs last season with the Buccaneers. Why not take a chance and keep a guy like that around? If 30 return yards is just the average then he had a lot of returns that were longer than that. Imagine having that kind of return guy in.
He could have consistently shortened the Dolphins drives on offense significantly, and with a slow moving offense like we have right now he is the perfect guy to return in Miami.
Also, it wasn't he was taking up a lot of money from the team either. His contract (according to rotoworld.com) is $1.615 million for two years. To most people that is a lot of money, but for a player as talented at returning as Smith is it is nothing.
I would argue that he is worth twice that much. Big time kick returners are hard to come by, so you need to be sure to keep them if at all possible.
Let me know what you think about releasing Smith. Do you agree or disagree with the move?
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