One reason why the Dolphins should use the franchise tag on Jevon Holland — and one why they shouldn’t

The Miami Dolphins, for the second straight offseason, have a serious question to ask themselves about one of their home-grown players.

Last offseason, former draft picks Christian Wilkins and Robert Hunt ended up making it to the open market, where they garnered contracts of $100+ million each.  They were players that Miami surely would have loved to keep, but ultimately, salary cap issues proved to be too burdensome on the team.

Miami could have presented one or the other of them leaving town by using either the franchise or transition tag, but ultimately general manager Chris Grier declined to do so.

Now, he has to decide whether he wants to pull the trigger on the tag this year with his 2021 second-round pick in safety Jevon Holland.  The window for placing the tag on players opened up on Tuesday and runs until March 4.  The Dolphins have during that time frame to use it on Holland.

But should they? Let’s take a look at both sides of the coin for that argument.

For: the replacement options for Holland simply aren’t as good on the market

Does Miami really want to be down two starters in their secondary in March?  The oft-injured Kendall Fuller was a cap casualty last week, and losing Holland would be a double whammy to the unit.

Holland also has been considered by most experts as the top safety available on the market. His numbers weren’t elite in 2024, but his body of work is good enough to command a ton of interest.

However, the options to replace him for Miami pretty much won’t be as good.  As such, just about any option they could find would be some form of a step back, and that’s obviously not ideal, particularly when Miami’s defense carried them for stretches last season.