I feel like Vegas is sleeping on the Dolphins this year, with our over/under set at 7 wins. Yes, we overperformed our talent by going 10-6 last year, but our overperformance occurred as a direct result of our excellent coaching staff with Adam Gase at the helm. We also managed to outperform our talent level despite suffering a ludicrous amount of injuries to key players throughout the year. Reshad Jones, Mike Pouncey, Brandon Albert, and ultimately even Ryan Tannehill either missed significant portions of the season or were knocked out for the year, along with nearly our entire secondary and linebacking corp, which were already deficient to begin with.
Our roster has only seen improvements this offseason. Lawrence Timmons and Reakwon McMillan are better than what we had at linebacker last year (they only need to achieve mediocrity in order to constitute an improvement), Charles Harris adds some depth and athleticism to our defensive end spot, and the return of Reshad Jones, one of the top 3 safeties in the NFL, is sure to bolster a secondary that played surprisingly well last year due to the emergence of some previously unknown and undervalued players. The only spot where our defense is ostensibly weaker is defensive tackle next to Ndamukong Suh, where we are relying on historically unreliable players such as Jordan Phillips.
On offense, the addition of Julius Thomas could be huge. We essentially played without a tight end last season, and Julius Thomas was critically undervalued in his free agency due to playing in a broken system in perennially broken Jacksonville. The receiving corp of Jarvis Landry, Kenny Stills, and Devante Parker has the potential to be one of the top 5 in the league this season, assuming Parker finally comes into his own, which is a strong possibility. Wide Receiver has perhaps the widest transition from the college level to the NFL, with most receivers not truly hitting their stride until year three (which Parker is going into), where a huge jump in production often occurs. Additionally, habits relating to his diet, fluid intake and sleeping patterns were not addressed until just before last season, so this will be Parker's first full year of good condition.
The offensive line is an enigma, with oft-injured Brandon Albert gone, and Laremy Tunsil sliding over from guard to his much more natural left tackle position. The success of the line ultimately depends on the health of center Mike Pouncey, who has been dealing with lingering hip problems that some say are potentially career threatening. The coaching staff says Pouncey will be ready, but there is ample reason to doubt their optimism. Watching the o-line with and without Pouncey last season was like watching two different teams.
Tannehill is confirmed a good, potentially great quarterback going into this year.
All that said, I'm predicting the Dolphins finish around 9-7 this year. We benefited from a lot of lucky breaks in close games last year, and it is unlikely for that luck to continue into this season. We plugged a lot of our areas of deficiency, but they were so abundant that many of those areas are still deficient. Ultimately, I think we do a much better job hanging with the elites this year, and can even envision us stealing a game off of the Patriots. There's still a gap between Miami and the likes of NE and Pitt, but it has narrowed considerably. Our record still backslides by a game because the luck we had late in games last season will not continue, and what will likely be a tougher schedule this season.
- but lost your home game against the jets!
More of a rebuilding year of sorts but as long as Tom Brady is in the AFC it really doesn't matter how good you are.