Dolphins enter 2021 season with hope in a lot of areas. At some point they need more
The 2021 Miami Dolphins? You might say they’re a team of hope.
That’s different than some recent Dolphins teams, including the ones who produced good moments and the ones that disappointed. Those past teams came to their regular seasons with plans more than hope.
The 2019 Dolphins, in the first year of Brian Flores as the head coach, were terrible. No, really, terrible. Quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick recently called that season “hard times,” even though he always put on a happy face when he was going through it.
But hard times was actually the plan for 2019.
It wasn’t supposed to be great.
It was supposed to be a rough reset season. And it was exactly that.
The team last year came to the season with a plan for improvement. Marked improvement. So the club loaded up on unrestricted free agents and a ton of draft picks.
And plugging in that new and added talent was the plan for improving. And the Dolphins did exactly that. They got better. Way better.
No, their 10-6 record wasn’t good enough to make the playoffs, but no one could reasonably argue the plan for improvement didn’t work. It worked pretty much exactly as intended.
So what’s the plan this year?
I don’t know.
As of this writing, no one associated with the Dolphins had actually articulated one. I suppose they want to continue the march to a postseason berth — their first since 2016.
It would be great if they could make a play for actual postseason success because this franchise hasn’t won a playoff game since Dec. 30, 2000.
But did Flores say that’s the goal? Did general manager Chris Grier?
Grier declined an interview request during training camp. Flores declines to speak of the future beyond the next 30 seconds — at least publicly.
So I raise my hand and volunteer, in their absence here, to explain to you the plan for 2021.
There is no plan.
There is hope.
Lots of hope.
“I see a very talented team, and young team,” veteran kick returner Jakeem Grant said during one otherwise routine training camp day. “We’re young. And I feel like the sky’s the limit for us.
“All we have to do is get in there, watch film and work as a unit. One band, one sound. If we can get out there and be on the same page and communicate and move in the right direction, the sky’s the limit for us.”
That’s a lot of ifs.
But that’s the Dolphins right now: A team with a lot of, well, “ifs.”
Consider:
If the offensive line can gel and become a cohesive unit this year, after so many years of searching for just that, then things are probably going to be fine for the Miami offense.
But the reasons we have no actual clue whether that will happen is because the young right tackle from last year is now a right guard. And a young backup guard from last year was, as of this writing, the starting center.
And the young college left tackle drafted in the second round started out at right tackle and then shifted to left guard. And the starting left tackle, a 2020 first-round draft pick, struggled mightily at times in the preseason.
So the Dolphins hope these disparate pieces that don’t necessarily seem to fit cohesively, can suddenly bond and be a unit that produces great work. And they hope Lemuel Jeanpierre, running an offensive line for the first time as its lead position coach, is the right man to bring it all together.
The hope doesn’t stop there.
The Dolphins this offseason infused the receiver position with a lot of new talent. Will Fuller was signed in free agency. Jaylen Waddle was drafted in the first round. Albert Wilson returned after opting out in 2020.
So the Dolphins hope this is going to be awesome.
But no one can guarantee that because Fuller comes to the team with a significant injury history. And Waddle is a rookie. And Wilson also has had an injury history. And that is in addition to top receiver DeVante Parker, whose career is one punctuated by injuries.
So to get the great results the Dolphins are hoping for out of their receiver room, they have to hope past trends suddenly take a new direction while a promising rookie quickly blossoms. That’s asking a lot.
If the club’s hopes along the offensive line and with their receivers manifest, then quarterback Tua Tagovailoa is probably going to be fine.
This is what we know about Miami’s second-year quarterback:
Tagovailoa has great accuracy.
Tagovailoa has great pocket sense and awareness.
Tagovailoa is a fine leader.
But we also know he’s smallish at 6-foot and maybe 220 pounds. We know he’s got a good but not exceedingly great arm. We know he was injured a good deal in college. We know he needs to improve the speed in which he reads the defense and processes the game.
So the Dolphins hope their young quarterback can highlight his strengths while addressing his shortcomings. And if that happens, the Dolphins hope they have a winning quarterback on their hands.
I know what you’re thinking now: Don’t all NFL teams operate on hope to a degree? Yes. To a degree.
But the Buffalo Bills know Josh Allen is really, really good right now.
The Kansas City Chiefs know they have arguably the best quarterback in the NFL.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers would argue they do, and so would the Green Bay Packers and Seattle, and others.
The Pittsburgh Steelers know they have a great pass rush, probably the best in the NFL. The Tennessee Titans know they have the league’s best running game.
Those teams enter 2021 knowing some things are going to work. Not hoping.
So what do the Dolphins know as a certainty? What can they hang their proverbial hat on?
They know their defense is built to create turnovers because cornerbacks Xavien Howard and Byron Jones are outstanding. They know they have excellent depth along the defensive line.
The Dolphins know they have an outstanding, reliable kicker in Jason Sanders.
So is the plan to rely on defense and special teams and hope the other stuff works out as the season rolls along? Maybe.
But you have to hope that’s not all of it.
