*** DOLPHINS NEWS ***

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Feb 16, 1996: -- Keith Byars Waived... --

The Dolphins announced late yesterday that they have released veteran Fullback Keith Byars along with 3 other players. Byars, who was scheduled to make approximately $1.5 million dollars this year, was entering his 11th year in the league and his 4th with the Dolphins.

Last year, the former Pro-Bowl player started all 16 games at fullback for the Dolphins. Despite coming off of major knee surgery, Byars was 4th on the team in receptions, catching 51 passes for 362 yards and 2 touchdowns, including Dan Marino's record breaking 343rd touchdown pass. He also rushed 15 times for 44 yards and 1 touchdown.

Byars ranks 4th in NFL history in receptions for a running back with 532. He also has a streak of catching at least 1 pass in 128 straight games and he is the first running back in NFL history to catch a pass in 100 straight games.

Also released yesterday were offensive lineman Tom McHale, safety Chico Nelson and cornerback Frankie Smith, while Troy Vincent and Marco Coleman were officially designated as transition players for the free agency period.

Coach Jimmy Johnson has said that he would not rule out bringing some of the players back under different conditions and that these were very difficult decisions.

My Comments:

This was pretty clearly a salary cap move. As near as I can tell, this saves about $2.4 million under the salary cap and lowers the current Dolphins cap figure to about $33.8. Given that the salary cap this year will be just under $41 million dollars, that gives the Dolphins about $8 million with which to sign their current crop of free agents and new draft picks.

As far as Keith Byars is concerned, I hope that they make every effort to re-sign him to the team at a lower salary. Even though he had a rough year last year, I believe that this was mainly due to his recovery from knee surgery. He was obviously not at 100% for much of the year.

Byars was always one of the few bright spots on the team for me. He could always be counted on to struggle for a few extra yards and frequently got much more yardage out of a play than he should have. Even the touchdown pass that broke the all-time record for Dan Marino was the result of Byars breaking two tackles to get into the endzone.

He will definitely be missed.