Extra points: 5 things we learned and 5 unanswered questions from this Dolphins season
Another regular season is over and the Miami Dolphins are once again going to be watching the NFL playoffs from home.
The Dolphins finished their season with a meaningless 33-24 win against the New England Patriots on Sunday in Miami Gardens. They played their usual starters, tested out a young offensive lineman and mostly played a normal football game. They even managed to finish a second straight season with a winning record and sweep the season series with the rival Patriots.
Still, it wasn’t enough to end a five-year playoff drought. Ultimately, the lows outweighed the highs this year and Miami will go into the offseason still searching for how to get back to contention.
Here are 10 more thoughts on the game and the season, starting with what the Dolphins learned this year:
1. Jaylen Waddle is a future star. He’s already probably one of the 15 or 20 best wide receivers in the league and he did it in an offense mostly unable to take advantage of his speed with downfield passing plays.
Sunday was a record-breaking day for Waddle. He nabbed five catches for 27 yards and a touchdown to finish his rookie year with 104 receptions, breaking Anquan Boldin’s 18-year-old record for single-season catches by a rookie. He also finished the year with 1,015 receiving yards to become only the 25th rookie in NFL history to top 1,000 yards in a season. This year, Pro Bowl wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase, who’s likely to win the NFL Rookie of the Year Award, was the only rookie wideout with more receiving yards than Waddle.
On Tuesday, he was voted the team’s most valuable player by local media. On Sunday, he finished his rookie season by adding even more to his case.
Waddle entered the weekend with 99 catches — placing him two behind Boldin’s rookie record — and broke it on the fourth play from scrimmage. On the opening drive, Waddle caught a 9-yard out, then a 4-yard out and then a 5-yard out to break the record, and then capped the drive with a toe-tapping, 7-yard touchdown grab along the left sideline to give Miami a quick 7-0 lead.
2. Xavien Howard is worth every penny. There was actually a little bit of a debate this week about whether Waddle actually deserved to be the team MVP because of how good Howard has been for the Dolphins’ best unit.
Like Waddle, he bolstered his case Sunday, too.
On the Patriots’ third play from scrimmage, the Dolphins lined up in a zone defense and Howard baited quarterback Mac Jones into attempting a short pass to New England wide receiver Jakobi Meyers, jumped the route to intercept the Patriots rookie and ran it back 37 yards for a touchdown to give the Dolphins a 14-0 lead in the first seven minutes.
Howard was Miami’s lone Pro Bowler and he’s a deserving one. He finished the season with five interception — he leads the league with 27 since he entered the league in 2016 — and he might’ve been a real contender for the NFL Defensive Player of the Year Award if the Dolphins’ season had gone better. Miami’s nine wins mostly came because of its defense and Howard is the player who makes possible everything the defense does.
3. The Dolphins’ defense is still championship-quality. Although it allowed 379 yards to end a five-game streak of holding its opponent to less than 310, Miami’s defense scored two touchdowns, sacked Jones twice and held the opposing quarterback to fewer than 300 yards for the 10th straight game.
The Dolphins finished the year in the top half of the league in total defense and scoring defense, top five in sacks and second in defensive touchdowns. As it finished the season by winning 8 of 9, Miami found an identity, blitzing more than any other team in the league to pile up pressures and torment quarterbacks. It’s made possible by Howard and fellow cornerback Byron Jones — perhaps the two best players on the defense, who are good enough in coverage to let the Dolphins blitz their safeties freely — and it unlocked breakout performers across the board.
4. The young defenders came of age. Defensive tackle Christian Wilkins led all NFL defensive linemen in tackles. Linebacker Jaelan Phillips, who recovered a fumble Sunday, set the franchise’s rookie record with 8 1/2 sacks. Safeties Jevon Holland and Brandon Jones combined for 7 1/2 sacks, and nine tackles for loss. All were picked in the first three rounds of the last three Drafts and look like Pro Bowl-caliber talents.
5. Tua Tagovailoa is a starting quarterback. There are 32 starting quarterbacks and Tagovailoa certainly has what it takes to be one of them. The jury is still out as to whether he’s destined to just be one of the worst, sit in the middle of the pack or perhaps become a contender to make Pro Bowls down the road. He went 7-4 in games he both started and finished, had 90.1 quarterback rating and a completion percentage near 70.
His season, though, is as much defined by what’s still unknown. The same is true for most of the team.
6. Can Tagovailoa be more than just an average starter? Throw out the pretty good record and the lofty completion percentage inflated by short passes, and the picture the statistics paint of Tagovailoa are underwhelming.
Tagovailoa averaged just 204.1 passing yards per game, threw for 16 touchdowns and 10 interceptions, and topped 300 passing yards only once all year.
It’s not the recipe for success in the modern NFL, and it might’ve been the difference between making the playoffs and missing them this year. Still, he’s only 23 and has only made 21 starts. There’s plenty of time for him to blossom into a star.
7. How can the Dolphins fix this offensive line? It’ll be impossible to fully pass judgment on Tagovailoa until the offensive line gets better and it feels like Miami is just about back at square one after drafted four offensive linemen in the first three rounds of the last three NFL Drafts.
All four of those linemen started Sunday, but they’re four-fifths of one of the worst lines in recent history, according to Pro Football Focus’ grades. Only Robert Hunt, who was drafted with the thought he could play right tackle and has taken off since moving to right guard, looks like an obvious long-term fixture.
Austin Jackson, picked in the first round of the 2020 NFL Draft as a potential left tackle, has moved to left guard and still been pedestrian. The same is true for Michael Deiter, who was picked in the third round of the 2019 NFL Draft as a guard and took over at center this year, and rookie offensive lineman Liam Eichenberg has often been a mess at left tackle this season. The Dolphins even benched right tackle Jesse Davis, their most veteran offensive lineman, in favor of rookie guard Robert Jones on Sunday, hoping to get a look at the undrafted player heading into the offseason.
No one’s job — save for probably Hunt’s — is safe going into the 2022 NFL season. With playoff aspirations, Miami will have to figure out who’s a lost cause, which players are worth some more patience and where it definitely needs an upgrade — left tackle feels obvious — in the offseason.
8. Is Duke Johnson a flash in the pan or part of the plan? There’s no denying the electricity Johnson brought to the Dolphins in the final four weeks of the season. Part of it is the hometown appeal — he went to Miami Norland Senior High School in Miami Gardens, played for the Miami Hurricanes and draws loud cheers of “DUUUUUUUUUKE” every time he touches the ball — and part of it is he was by far the Dolphins’ best running back once he came home.
Johnson ran for 117 yards and a touchdown on 25 carries Sunday, giving him 330 yards and three touchdowns with 4.6 yards per carry in five games as a Dolphin.
Of course, there’s a reason the Dolphins were able to add him for no cost: Johnson ran for just 3.1 yards last year for the Houston Texans, got cut from the Jacksonville Jaguars’ practice squad this season and spent nearly two months on the Dolphins’ practice squad before they finally gave him a shot last month.
Especially given his local ties, Johnson should be back with the Dolphins next year and get a shot to be a third-down running back or complementary piece. The 28-year-old still need to earn it, though.
9. Can the Dolphins find more weapons? Waddle is a burgeoning star and Duke Johnson is something. Wide receiver DeVante Parker flashes and tight end Mike Gesicki, if the Dolphins resign him, is among the best in the league at his position.
Wide receiver Will Fuller, though, only had four catches and the Dolphins desperately missed out on his big-play potential. They must find another receiver to go with Waddle, Parker and Gesicki next year.
10. Will 2022 be the year? At this time last year, the expectation was 2021 might be and it nearly happened. Now the expectation is 2022 will finally be time for the Dolphins to return to the ranks of the NFL’s best.
The pieces are mostly in place. If the young defenders keep getting better, if Tagovailoa takes another step forward, if Waddle becomes a Pro Bowler and if the Dolphins’ offensive line can improve from worst in the league to middle of the pack, then the Dolphins should be able to finally end their long postseason drought.
