I don’t necessarily follow teams I am not directly interested in. I was scanning the NFL standings and the Dolphins have only scored 70 points in 5 games with no wins. Man - how the mighty have fallen.
They weren’t exactly mighty the last several years, either.
If it helps, it was widely expected Miami was not going to be good this year. They tore the whole thing down to the studs and are clearly in rebuild mode.
They have a new head coach, a new GM, and they dumped their pricy but underperforming (and concussion prone) starting QB. Their current roster is essentially a bunch of rookies/early career players and budget veterans.
So, after this season, they should have a lot more flexibility in their budget for free agents and they’ll have a ton of young talent to build on or shed cheaply. It’s left to be seen if their head coach and GM are good but at least they will no longer have a bunch of dead weight hanging around.
Plus it looks like they’ll have a top 10 pick in the draft, and a solid chance at the top overall pick. That’s a good place to be as long as your expectations are realistic (and low) at least through 2027.
The Fins’ record over the past 10 years is 82-83. They’ve won 10 games twice and 11 games once. So consistently average, but hardly Mighty, as @Great_Antibob has already stated.
…And they did one time score 70 points in a single game.
Dolphin fan here.
They haven’t won a playoff game in over a quarter century. They’ve been mediocre for a while.
But hope springs eternal. They’ve had a good rookie class (linebacker Jacob Rodriguez is a stud). The hope is that they can do good in next year’s draft, too (maybe take a top quarterback- Oklahoma State’s Drew Mestemsker is getting buzz), then the year after that they’re done with the dead cap money from the horrible Tua Tagovailoa contract and can put the finishing touches on a winning team.
At least, that’s the plan.
They’re massively handicapped right now by dead salary cap money. Their total salary cap number right now is $302 million, but 60+% of that (about $185 million) is dead cap: cap money that’s allocated to guys who are no longer on the team (Tua, Jalen Ramsey, Tyreek Hill, etc.). The $185 million is an all-time record for an NFL team. So, their current roster is full of young and inexperienced players, because they can’t afford much else right now.
They brought in Malik Willis as their starting QB, who had been a backup in Tennessee and Green Bay (but had played well in relief of Jordan Love in GB the past two seasons). He’s not played well, but he also doesn’t have the supporting cast he had with the Packers.
Willis is also a nice trial for them. If he works out, they’ve got the QB problem handled for the next several years. If not, he is cheap as QBs go, and they’ll have a high draft pick to take their next shot