The strange way in which COVID-19 might actually help Miami Dolphins’ playoff chances
The Dolphins’ biggest roadblock to making the playoffs might not be the defending Super Bowl champs or their No. 1 division rivals.
Rather, it might be the human condition.
Five games remain, beginning Sunday against the Bengals. The schedule the last four weeks features three playoff teams and the 11-time defending AFC East champions.
The Dolphins’ form will need to be at its peak.
Unfortunately, for the 13 rookies on their roster, that’s probably not possible. They’re about to enter likely the most grueling month of their football careers.
Call it cumulative fatigue, call it the Rookie Wall. Call it being plain burned-out, if you want.
But whatever you call it, the phenomenon is real: First-year players, on average, simply don’t perform as well late in the season as they do early.
And for a team that has the league’s third-youngest roster (24.98 years) and has started nine different rookies this season — including four last week against the Jets — that’s a problem.
“Yeah, I talked to Brandon [Jones, a rookie safety] about it because I hit my wall my second year,” said Dolphins defensive back Eric Rowe. “... That’s when I hit it and I was like, ‘oh my God, this wall is real. I’m mentally and physically just out of it.’
“But I talked to Brandon about it and tried to give him a couple tips on how to keep it going because December is the most important month of the year for football because everybody is trying to make that run, make that jump,” he added.
So how exactly does the rookie wall work — and might it be different this year due to COVID-19?
Let’s tackle Question 1 first.
In normal years, rookies would be in their 17th consecutive month of football with hardly any break. They have been playing, practicing or conditioning for football since training camp of their final year in college. After the season, the calendar turned immediately to professional preparation, with all-star games and the NFL Combine and pro days leading up to the draft.
Then come minicamps and OTAs, which take them to mid-June, followed by a few weeks off before NFL training camp begins. But even that summer break is in name only. If they want to make the team, they have to show up to camp in great shape and with a firm grasp of the playbook. Neither is possible if they spend their off time goofing off.
“By the time you get near the end of a full NFL season, it feels like you’ve been playing three seasons back-to-back without a break,” former NFL defensive end Ryan Riddle wrote for Bleacher Report several years back. “ ... By the time Week 13 of the never-ending season arrived, I was so depleted that I actually stopped doing things like listening to our weekly game plans, pushing myself in the weight room, studying tape, staying awake in meetings, and trying hard in practice.”
This, in case you haven’t checked the NFL calendar, is Week 13.
But Riddle also made an interesting point that is applicable to this strangest of seasons. The 2011 season was a great one for rookies, with Cam Newton, Andy Dalton, A.J. Green, Von Miller and Patrick Peterson emerging as stars. His theory: That was a lockout year, and much like 2020, there was no real offseason program.
Rookies reported to training camp fresh.
Might the same phenomenon emerge this year — a rare silver lining of the COVID-19 crisis?
“I would say more than anything because this is a little bit unprecedented,” Dolphins coach Brian Flores said. “I think that’s kind of the time we’re in. There were no OTAs, there was a different training camp, it’s been a different year completely. That may be changing even more so. So yes, it’s something we take into consideration. It’s something we talk about.
“But the message to the young players, rookies — guys who haven’t been through an NFL season — is take care of your bodies, make sure you’re hydrating, make sure you’re eating right, make sure you’re getting your sleep, make sure you’re fueling yourself so you have enough energy to make it through the day.”
In a traditional season, Flores would rely on the team’s sports science staff, which tracks, using GPS devices, how much each player does in practice and in games. If the metrics suggest a rookie is overtaxing himself, they will have him ramp down a bit to save his body.
“It’s a totally different year,” Flores continued. “... If it was a normal year, then maybe those numbers would — I don’t want to say mean something, but maybe they would give us more of an accurate way to proceed. But in a year where everything is a little bit different, I’m not sure. Everyone’s in uncharted territory.”
Like the Cincinnati Bengals, who as of Thursday had six rookies on their roster — a list that didn’t include No. 1 draft pick Joe Burrow, who’s out for the season with a major knee injury.
During the team’s bye last month, Bengals coach Zac Taylor made a point to warn those young players that “it’s going to get much harder the last eight weeks.”
Taylor added: “And they responded the right way. It is interesting now because we’ve got guys from Clemson and Alabama, they’re playing 15 games in a season, so it’s not that far off. And they really didn’t go through the grind of June and July. So I think these guys have really handled it. I don’t know if it’s just because of the situation this year with the lack of offseason that they’ve handled it great or we just got a really mature group of rookies that have kind of embraced the grind.”
Those rookies know they season ends four weeks from Sunday. The Bengals are not going to the playoffs.
The Dolphins, however, might. So their young players have to prepare not just 16 games, put potentially 17 — if not more.
Six Dolphins rookies have played at least 350 snaps (including offense, defense and special teams): Jones, Robert Hunt, Austin Jackson, Solomon Kindley, Raekwon Davis, and Noah Igbinoghene. That’s a lot — particularly with potentially hundreds more to go.
Some, such as Miami’s three rookie linemen (Hunt, Jackson and Kindley), have shown signs of wear and tear. But others, like Jones and Davis, are just hitting their stride.
Davis had 21 tackles in November, which according to the Dolphins, ranked third among all NFL defensive linemen and 11 more than any other rookie defensive lineman.
“I don’t have time to worry about the rookie wall,” said Dolphins offensive line coach Steve Marshall. “.... That’s irrelevant. We’ve got to get better. Those young guys got to learn. Those guys got to learn to fight through it. College football now, the seasons are longer. These guys play all the time. I don’t put much stock in that stuff, but it doesn’t matter.”
The Dolphins surely hope he’s right. Their postseason hopes probably depend on it.
This story was originally published December 4, 2020 at 9:57 AM.
