Former Dolphins Players on PFF All-2010s Team
The Miami Dolphins didn't experience a lot of team success in the 2010s, but they did have their share of successful players.
Four of those players have made Pro Football Focus' list of the 101 most productive players in the 2010s.
And anybody who watched the Dolphins during those 10 years shouldn't be surprised that the player with the highest grade was defensive end/outside linebacker Cameron Wake.
The one-time Canadian Football League star, Wake spent nine of those 10 years in the 2010s with the Dolphins before he joined the Tennessee Titans in 2019.
In those 10 years, Wake recorded 92.5 sacks, and he got over the 100-sack mark for his career with the Titans last year.
Wake made the Pro Bowl five times during the 2010s — in 2010, 2012-14 and in 2016 when he helped the Dolphins earn a wild-card berth after the team rebounded from a 1-4 start.
Wake came in at number 41 on PFF's top 101 list.
This is what PFF wrote about him: "Cameron Wake’s NFL beginnings seem hard to believe, given what he became — one of the top pure pass-rushers of his generation. Only Von Miller has a higher PFF pass-rush grade than Wake among edge rushers over the past decade, and only Miller surpassed the 600 total pressures that Wake amassed to go with his incredibly impressive 16.5% pressure rate. Wake was one of the most devastating speed-rushers the league has ever seen, and because his NFL career took some time to get going, the decade captured pretty much the entirety of his elite-level play."
Wake was released by Tennessee this offseason, but still wants to continue playing despite turning 38 in January.
The other former Dolphins players on the list didn't stick around nearly as long.
Coming in at number 53 was cornerback Brent Grimes, whose three-year stint was nothing short of brilliant.
After signing as a free agent a year removed from sustaining a torn Achilles tendon, Grimes proceeded to earn a Pro Bow invitation in all three of his seasons with the Dolphins.
Grimes had two pick-sixes for Miami, one at Cincinnati in the "Wake-Off" game on Halloween night in 2013 and one at Jacksonville the following year.
Grimes' stay in Miami ended unceremoniously when the Dolphins released him in part because of salary considerations and also because the organization had grown weary of his controversial wife.
This is what PFF wrote about Grimes: "He doesn’t get remembered among the game’s greats, but Brent Grimes was one of the best zone-coverage cornerbacks of the past decade and spent a career overcoming size disparities to the best receivers in the league. Grimes had four seasons in the decade with at least 11 pass breakups, and he allowed a passer rating of just 78.5 over the decade until he retired. Despite regularly having to deal with being physically outmatched, Grimes never resorted to penalties and was flagged only 24 times in his 12-year career."
Another player with a controversial stint with the Dolphins was wide receiver Brandon Marshall, though he topped 1,000 receiving yards in his two seasons and made the Pro Bowl in the second, in 2013.
After acquiring him from Denver for a pair of second-round picks, the Dolphins traded him to Chicago for a pair of third-round picks after two seasons. He came in at number 61 on PFF's All-2010s team.
Then there was Ndamukong Suh, whose gigantic free agent contract brought about unrealistic expectations.
Though he made the Pro Bowl only once in his three seasons (2015-17) with the Dolphins, Suh was a lot more productive during his time in Miami than he was given credit for.
His overall body of work in the 2010s put him at number 71 on PFF's list.
"One spot ahead of Gerald McCoy in the 2010 draft and one spot ahead of him in the All-Decade Top 101 list, Ndamukong Suh may never have quite become the player his pre-draft hype predicted, but he came pretty close," PFF wrote. "One of only two interior defenders to post 500-plus total pressures over the decade, Suh was a consistently disruptive force and one who transitioned into more of a run defender as his career progressed and his physical gifts began to decline. Still trucking as a useful member of a defensive rotation, Suh may not have been a truly generational talent, but has been a phenomenal NFL player."
Finally, there were two players on the list who were members of the Dolphins at one point in the 2010s, though not really.
Guard Josh Sitton was number 68 on PFF's list, but his stint with the Dolphins last all of one game because he was knocked out in the 2018 season opener with a rotator cuff injury that ended his career.
And then there was cornerback Aqib Talib, who came in at 85. He was a member of the Dolphins for the second half of last season after being acquired in a trade from the Rams, but he was on injured reserve at the time of the trade and the Dolphins never activated him.
He remains a free agent to this day.
The top five players on PFF's All-2010s team were longtime Pats quarterback Tom Brady, Rams defensive tackle Aaron Donald, Saints quarterback Drew Brees, 49ers cornerback Richard Sherman and longtime Pats tight end Rob Gronkowski, who is now teammates with Brady again in Tampa.
