John Reiger-US PRESSWIRE
@craigballard77
The 2012 Miami Dolphins season has come to a close, and they have a massively important off-season ahead of them. The fans of this team are avoiding games like crazy. Sun Life Stadium had more empty seats in 2012 than any other stadium in the NFL. Over the next little while we will look at some of the crucial in-house talent decisions they need to make (Reggie Bush free-agency article is HERE). Today we will look at Randy Starks.
2013 will be Starks’ 10th NFL season. He was drafted in the 3rd round of the 2004 draft by the Tennessee Titans, and he spent four seasons there before becoming a Dolphin in 2008.
Starks averages 4.5 sacks per season for Miami, and he made a fantastic nose tackle partner this season with Paul Soliai as Kevin Coyle switched the Dolphins from a 3-4 base defense to a 4-3 base defense. Starks is a guy that can blow-up a pocket and get pressure on a quarterback. He can get sacks, and he is very disruptive to opposing teams passing games.
Starks has become strong vs the run too. He and Soliai are huge reasons why the Dolphins only allowed a pair of 100+ running backs in 2012 despite facing on a dozen times.
The contract that landed Starks in Miami was 5 years, $21 million. $7 million was guaranteed. The Dolphins re-upped with Soliai on a 2 year, $12 million contract with $6 million guaranteed. Miami has money to spend this off-season, and run defense was a certain strength of this team so I would anticipate if they can get Starks at a price-tag very similar to Soliai they would be pleased with that.
Both Soliai and Starks are 29, and both have multiple years of great play left so I do hope Miami can reach an agreement with Starks to keep him in aqua and orange.
Thank you for reading my work! CLICK HERE for all of my Miami Dolphins articles (and 2013 NFL Playoffs articles as I am the NFL Playoffs Insider for Rant Sports).
