Dolphins HC Brian Flores: We Don’t Want To Trade Xavien Howard

Dolphins HC Brian Flores told reporters on Friday that they would like to avoid trading CB Xavien Howard this offseason despite his recent demands. 

“We don’t want to trade X. Write that down. He’s a very good player. He’s a big part of the team. We don’t want to trade him,” said Flores, via Cameron Wolfe. 

Flores added that “talks are progressing” with Howard to potentially remain in Miami but there must be a level of “compromise.”

“Talks are progressing. You take from that what you want… As long as everyone is willing to compromise, we can get something done,” said Flores, via Wolfe. 

Earlier this week, Flores mentioned that they planned to continue discussions with Howard.

“I guess the plan is to continue to have discussions on our part, continue to have talks with him and his representation,” Flores said. “We love X. He’s a good player. He’s competitive. He’s here. He’s showing up.”

Howard has been interested in reworking his current five-year, $75 million deal that still has four years remaining, but the two sides have clearly not come close to an agreement.

Howard signed an extension in 2019 that at the time made him the NFL’s highest-paid cornerback at just over $15 million a year.

Since then, however, five other players have jumped past Howard, including fellow Dolphins CB Byron Jones, and the current bar is $20 million a year for Rams CB Jalen Ramsey. 

Howard has been a legitimate candidate for defensive player of the year the past two seasons and is using that performance to seek a raise. 

Howard, 28, is a former second-round pick of the Dolphins back in 2016. He was in the final year of his four-year, $6,128,038 rookie deal and set to make a base salary of $1,285,641 for the 2019 season when he agreed to a five-year, $76.5 million extension that included $46 million guaranteed with Miami.

Howard is set to make base salaries of $12.075 and $12.375 million over the next two seasons. 

In 2020, Howard appeared in all 16 games for the Dolphins and recorded 51 tackles, one forced fumble, 10 interceptions and 20 pass defenses. Pro Football Focus had him rated as the No. 2 corner out of 121 qualifying players. 

We’ll have more on Howard as the news is available.