It wasn’t hard for Dolphins cornerback Brent Grimes to choose to stay in Miami. (Then again, they gave him a four-year, $32 million with $16 million that is, per a league source, fully and completely guaranteed.)
At a time when the Dolphins are deemed to be dysfunctional and undesirable, Grimes has a simple pitch for guys throughout the NFL who are about to have options.
“It’s Miami,” Grimes recently explained on PFT Live. “There really isn’t much else to say. Outside of being in Miami and being able to go to the beach throughout the year, in January and February, if you just look at our roster, it’s a lot of talent on this roster. We went 8-8 last year but we were in a lot of close games. And we’re right there. And if just look at the talent on the roster from top to bottom, you’ll see that there’s a lot of people that can play. There’s a lot of opportunities to become an even better team and win a few more games and get in the playoffs.”
One guy who may not want to come back is tackle Jonathan Martin. And it’s unclear whether he’s wanted back.
“That’s not something I really want to talk about,” Grimes said. “I don’t really have a say in it. I’m not the General Manager, I’m not [owner] Stephen Ross. I really can’t decide what’s they’re going to do. If they decide to bring him back then as a football player on the Miami Dolphins, he’s my teammate and we’re going to go out on Sundays and play football together. That’s just what it is.”
So what happens if he returns?
“It would be different, it would be weird because he was gone and a lot of stuff happened, he was gone and then to just show back up it would be weird,” Grimes said.
Regardless, Grimes thinks all is well with the Dolphins.
“Everybody that’s not around has so much bad stuff to say about the Dolphins organization and all this, how the locker room is fractured and all that type of stuff,” Grimes said. “But me being in the locker room and also being in other locker rooms, it’s a tight-knit locker room. Everybody’s cool, it’s a cool locker room to me.”
It’s also a locker room where Grimes will be for the next few years, thanks to a $6 million signing bonus, a $2.475 million fully-guaranteed base salary in 2014, and $7.525 million in fully-guaranteed base salary in 2015.