What's next for the Dolphins — and Landry — after Friday’s big trade

Preston Brust is one half of the country duo LoCash.

Not surprisingly, he has a way with words.

“This ended up being a going-away party,” Brust mused Friday night at the Dolphins’ Miami Gardens stadium.

LoCash was the entertainment at Jarvis Landry’s blowout fundraiser for cystic fibrosis research — a cause long close to his heart.

It was an awkward coincidence that the party started just a few hours after news broke that Landry had been dealt to the Browns.

So yeah, the timing wasn’t great. But the cause was. Some $100,000 was raised on the last night Landry will likely enter that building as a member of the Miami Dolphins.

“I think it's appropriate,” Landry said. “Even in the midst of all this, we raised close to $100,000. That's damn good.”

“I'm excited about the next chapter of my life,” Landry continued. “Most of all, I'm excited about tonight, creating this moment and these memories. This is a hell of last memory right here.”

The party was an emotional sendoff, we hear, and a fitting tribute for a player that meant — and still means — a lot to the fan base.

But that chapter is over. The Dolphins are moving on, with more than a little push-back.

So let’s tell you why they decided to move on from their record-breaking receiver, and what’s next for both team and player.

The trade, which is for a fourth-rounder this year and a seventh-rounder next, needs to be seen through this lens:

The Dolphins got the compensatory pick they otherwise would have lost out on — and did so a year early.

Exactly how free agency plays out next week remains to be seen, but the Dolphins could sign as many as three impact players Wednesday, which would all but doom their chances to get a high comp pick if Landry had simply walked.

The formula for compensatory picks is a bit of a mystery, but the Dolphins did not expect to get a significant one next year.

Of course, the best-case scenario was re-signing Landry to a team-friendly contract, and the Dolphins certainly tried, but they also had a value for Landry and stuck to it.

As Mike Tannenbaum said in January, you cannot keep them all. And finances precluded the Dolphins from keeping Landry.

Now the bad news: There’s a hole at slot receiver. We know it. And the Dolphins know it. They might be players in free agency, but there are a bunch of good ones in the draft (heck, maybe Braxton Berrios won’t have to move).

And that’s the point. If you view Friday’s move in a vacuum, the Dolphins got worse. But that’s not the right way to look at it. They essentially got Robert Quinn, a fourth and a seventh for Jay Ajayi and Jarvis Landry — two players who wanted more than the Dolphins thought were worth, and two players who might not have even been on the team in 2018.

Now it is up to the Browns to pay Landry. The sense is the two sides will get a long-term deal done.

But the Dolphins have a couple of assets, but more importantly, $16 million in cap space to improve their roster.

Your move, Tannenbaum.

This story was originally published March 9, 2018 at 9:42 PM with the headline "What's next for the Dolphins — and Landry — after Friday’s big trade."