24 years now Dolphins fans, T-W-E-N-T-Y * F-O-U-R * Y-E-A-R-S !! That’s how long it will shortly be that the Miami Dolphins haven’t won a playoff game. This year, the touted Super Bowl bound Miami Dolphins will fail to make the playoffs altogether. I know I’m guilty of doing this all to often, and I apologize in advance for telling people how to “fan”, or how to root for their team. It’s wrong, and many times I can only value my own wretched point of view while castigating others for theirs. Again, I’m sorry. You know who you are, but you also know who I am, so today I’m as per usghe, just presenting my view, so you can just skip it if offends you in any way.
I don’t like the NY Jets, although I don’t despise them as much as many people on this forum do. When the Jets are playing even worse than us, which is really saying something, I hate them even less. Do you know what I hate more? I hate our own team and organization’s ineptitude and failures 100X more than any hate I can muster against the NY Jets, it’s not even close. Not a political statement, but in this past election on November 5, America voted for change. That’s exactly where I’m at right now. I’m voting for change, despite the fact that I hold no vote to do so, so I use my proxy here on this blog. In order to enact change, or at least have the hope to do so, we need failure here in Miami. This season is toast, we’re not a playoff team and our record will say so at the end of the season as well. I’m not talking “tanking” here, we’re more than capable of losing without trying to.
If you haven’t figured it out yet, I want the Dolphins to lose this Sunday. Not just lose, I want embarrassment. I want this grounded NY Jets offense to fly high and I want this Dolphins offense to make believe it’s 30 degrees or colder or that we’re actually playing a playoff caliber NFL team and this game actually matters. Tua can throw for 400 yards and have a completion percentage of 80% as long as he doesn’t throw a TD, because some people enjoy that. Again, my remorse for telling you how to “fan”. I feel like a good old fashioned ass whooping by the visiting NY Jets would be a good wake up call to Steve Ross that this team simply cannot stay on the same path next season and beyond. The Aaron Rodgers led Jets just can’t take flight, and are averaging a paltry 18.8 PPG, good for 26th in the NFL. This, in lieu of having what is a top 3 NFL running back in Breece Hall. Hey, guess what team is remarkably close in both categories, points scored and points allowed? Right! Good guess! Yes, our Dolphins are scoring 19.2 PPG, good for 24th, and the Jets are 15th in the NFL on defense allowing 268 points or 22.3 PPG, while our Dolphins have allowed 266 points good for 14th in the NFL.
My plan is not about improving our draft position, no it’s far more than that. That would be a nice by product of losing, but again, this is about change. There are quite a few of us here on FMU who believe that Chris Grier can’t be the one shopping for the groceries any longer, and probably an equal amount of us feel HC Mike McDaniel is out of his league as an NFL Head Coach. His novel approach of befriending all the players has worn thin, and when it comes down to X’s and O’s, he’s failed miserably there too, especially when playing against better teams. We look woefully unprepared, and this roster is not physical enough anywhere, not anywhere on offense or defense are we able to match up against a physical team. Like I said, getting walloped by our division rival who come in at 3-9 would be a real good start to have the word change floating around in Dolphins owner Stephen Ross’s head. He’s been patient, but if this team finished under .500, after assembling a roster he was sold as being a team built to go to the Super Bowl, his patience may diminish enough to go ahead and enact said change.
I literally sit at my computer right now and cringe at the thought that Chris Grier and Mike McDaniel might be the duo crafting our 2025 draft, with10 picks, our own 1st and 2nd RD picks, potentially two 3rd RD compensatory picks, (we traded our own 3rd RD pick to draft RB Jaylen Wright to PHI), our own 4th RD pick, two 5th RD picks, our own, and a pick from DEN in the Bradley Chubb trade, Zero 6th RD pick (Traded to CHI for WR Chase Claypool), and finally, three 7th RD picks, our own, a compensatory pick for S DeShon Elliot and then (7th RD pick from the Chase Claypool trade). 10 very, very important picks, especially considering how many expired 1 year contracts we’ll have, and how awful this roster was constructed in general.
Let’s start with this mind numbing fact. Over $90M of our cap space for next season will be used by QB Tua Tagovailoa, WR Tyreek Hill, and WR Jaylen Waddle. Our amazing WR duo has contributed in this 2024 season 100 combined receptions for 1255 yards and 6 TD’s, and that’s with QB Tua Tagovailoa playing in 8 games. We’re paying in insane amount of money on 3 players which precludes us from spending on talent elsewhere on the roster. I don’t care how you “fan”, you can see that our QB needs a significant amount of talent to be successful, meaning we need a better O-line, and we’re going to need a much better defense as well, but how on earth can we accomplish this with the same two knuckleheads in charge of buying and scouting the groceries. Quick example before my next point. We trade our 2025 3rd RD pick to move into the 4th RD to get RB Jaylen Wright. In 12 games, Wright has 59 carries for 243 yards, zero TD’s. This reeks of “Mikey Tradey Pants Tannenbaum”. It’s not like we haven’t had injuries either. RB Raheem Mostert has been banged up and missed a couple of games and only has 7 more carries than Wright. De’Von Achane is logging in some workhorse RB numbers, while Wright and his 4th RD pick as well as next year’s 3rd RD pick languish on the bench. Achane has been overused, and Wright has been utterly under utilized.
I think the luster of Head Coach Mike McDaniel has worn off. I know this going to irk some here, apologies once again. He’s a Tua cheerleader. The problem is, he’s not a Miami Dolphins cheerleader. He’s done whatever he could to make Tua the best QB he can be. This dink and dunk offense we’re running now is a stark contrast to the high flying offense we ran last season. To be fair, that high flying offense didn’t play well against the better teams, and I think the dink and offense travels better and also keeps the QB out of harms way better too. We have struggled immensely though scoring TD’s, and part of that, no doubt, is the absence of those deep plays. Long drives keep the defense off the field and eat clock, but you have to get into the endzone. Offensive guard play has been an issue here with essentially 2 backups starting, Robert Jones at LG and Liam Eichenberg at RG. Losing RT Austin Jackson hurt as well, especially in the run game. RT Kendall Lamm may actually be equal or better in pass protection, but Jackson was a better run blocker, and we’ve struggled with him out. LG Isaiah Wynn is off IR and has been practicing, but word from MM is Robert Jones will remain the starter. OLB Bradley Chubb is off the PUP and his 21 day practice window is open. Whether either of these players will see any playing time remains to be seen.
I count 35 players under contract for ’25, but there are at least 8 that probably won’t play a game for us next season. LT Terron Armstead, CB Cam Smith, LB Channing Tindall, QB Skylar Thompson, TE Tanner Conner, TE Julian Hill, WR Tahj Washington, DE Grayson Murphy and WR Odell Beckham. Then there are the players who you simply can’t count on making it through any number of games, like OLB Jaelan Phillips, OLB Bradley Chubb, 33 year old RB Raheem Mostert, and of course, QB Tua Tagovailoa. So we lets say we have about 27-30 players assuming I’m wrong about a few, and then you have 3 players who are consistently injured, that means the majority of the roster will be new and counted on heavily next season. I feel it’s unacceptable to go forward with Grier and McDaniel and allow them to shape the majority of this roster, unconscionable actually. Drafting has not been Grier’s strong suit, and he’s overpaid heavily in the wrong areas of the roster. Find me one team that’s legitimately competing to get into the Superbowl that has two WR’s eating the 2 of the top 5 spots against the cap? What I can find very easily for you though is teams that doled out mega money contracts to their QB’s and regret it. NY Jets (Aaron Rodgers), Cleveland Browns (Deshaun Watson), Jacksonville Jaguars (Trevor Lawrence), Denver Broncos (Russell Wilson), Dallas Cowboys (Dak Prescott), NY Giants (Daniel Jones), and Atlanta Falcons (Kirk Cousins).
Again, not telling you how to “fan”, but I don’t want to root for a QB who accumulates wonderful statistics such as completion percentage and yardage totals. Those statistics on their own merit don’t win you football games. You have to score points, and we did score over 30 points per game against the weaker competition just like we did last year as well, but turn up the level of competition, and precisely like last season, same result. You look solely at the stat line, you’d think Tua had a magnificent game. 37-46, 365 yards, 2 TD’s. In reality though, we had 3 points through 13 minutes into the 3rd Quarter, and we when we scored our first TD, the score was already 27-3 with about 2 minutes left in the 3rd quarter. On the long drive where we settled for 3 down 14-0, that was the time to score a TD and keep the team in the game. Tua actually played his best with the game out of reach at 30-8, and the TD we cored there was a very lucky tipped pass that ended up in the hands of WR Tyreek Hill in the endzone. The stats are so extremely misleading, and I take no solace, zero, in the fact that Tua may finish with the highest completion percentage ever by a QB in the NFL if he qualifies after missing 4 games. IDGAF!!!!! Just get me wins! Dak Prescott, the NFC’s version of Dolphins QB Tua Tagovailoa has some wonderful stats on his resume, over 31,000 yards passing, nearly a 3:1 TD:INT ratio (213-82), a career 66.8% completion percentage. (Tua is at 68%), but Dak Prescott and the Dallas Cowboys can’t win big games either. In playoff games, Dak is 2-5, and his TD:INT ratio drops to a still pretty good 2:1. Tua just hasn’t won big games later in the season and mostly against better competition. These are facts, and are not debatable, his record is abysmal.
If we’re going to march forward with QB Tua Tagovailoa at the helm, then we’re going to have to significantly improve the talent level here, fortify the trenches on both sides of the ball. This is going to be a nearly impossible task with us having no cap space, and far too many roster spots to fill. Beating the NY Jets this Sunday may bring joy to some, but to others like myself, misery. It will make Stephen Ross smile if we whoop on the hapless jets while it won’t mean a damn thing for our season, or the future of our team. A loss would be much preferred to get the wheels in motion that the status quo is a failure, just as country decided the very same with current regime in power from 2020-2024. They simply couldn’t tolerate 4 more years of the same, and I can’t tolerate on more extremely important year due to the current state of our roster with so few players under contract. This isn’t a roster fill in year, no, this practically an entire roster overhaul, and I don’t want to watch GM Chris Grier and HC Mike McDaniel continue to f*ck it up!
GO DOLPHINS!!!
Finsmob Unleashed 
Straight up the middle for a TD but that’s Tua’s fault
There’s that SOFT defense
Wow, great pass about a yard past the LOS by Tua!
That might have been the first pass that went more than 15 yards since he came back from his concussion
thank you for sliding Tua
Tua , don’t hang Achane out to dry like that please
Where the eff is Jaylen Wright? Why did we draft him?
Have a snickers dude 😎🤪
he’s been playing a bunch
Where is Jonnu today?
another red zone drive stalled.
D’s fault..lom
Redzone efficiency. When you dink and dunk….it always comes down to it.
We need Cam Skattebo and a good IOL for these inside the 5 plays. lol
I dunno that was an iffy call
Can’t punch it in.
Of course even when our D makes a play it doesn’t
^
Holland is costing himself money
Blown coverage
we are struggling on both sides of the ball.
offense has stats, but should have a lot
more points
Offense is moving the ball just missed red zone opportunities. Defense is stinking up the field. But it’s Tua’s fault
We can’t tackle
We are losing a lot of defensive players to free agency. Maybe that is a good thing.
BBM,
With all the quick guys we have on this team, there’s no excuse for not getting one of them free close to the goal line. My God, I am so tired of watching us do the same shit that isn’t working. Isolate Achane on a LB and have him use his quickness to create space. Can Tua zip a 5 yard throw? WTF?
Problem in the red zone is OL is not good enough to consistently run the ball
Ken,
Teams are playing us to allow us to move the ball. What we do when we get inside the 10 is what matters because we can’t or won’t score from long distance. We have zero big chunk plays anymore.
Yeah and your point. Kinda what I’m saying. We can move the ball but when we get close our OL is not good enough when the D has less field to defend
Mike E .. I was just busting balls .. carry on 😎
Ken – I think you may need to read up on what the offense is supposed to do. Completing passes and getting yardage doesn’t win games. This Jets defense is begging for us to score and we have 1 TD and 2 FG’s. Not scoring TD’s IS TUA’S FAULT. That’s not on the defense, which sucks now because everyone is injured, it’s on the QB and the HC
Yep it Tua’s fault and make excuses for the D
If you read my article, it’s so much more than Tua. Trying to build the team around him and paying him top QB $$$ was a mistake. He can’t carry the team, and Grier tried his best by overpaying Hill, Ramsey, Chubb etc. Tua needs the team to be practically perfect. We’re not going to accomplish that with Grier and MM. Besides Tua just being a good QB, he’s a huge injury risk and not having a suitable backup was total mismanagement of the roster
Wide the fuck open
Soft D but it’s Tua’s fault
is the 3rd down strategy to let them have whatever they want?
No it’s just the lack of talent
Illegal touching
Ken,
So, let me understand, Tua is great because he is getting us down the field with no help from the OL because it sucks. But, as soon as we get close to the goal line, Tua can’t finish because his OL sucks? So…Tua always good….OL always sucks? Is that about right? Lol
Partially true. Tua has to get rid of the ball so fast because he can’t count on the OL. When we get close to the goal line D has less field to cover so much harder to move the ball. That is where a traditional run game is important but t unable to run the ball consistently
that’s the way the offense is designed
I love our defense. Give each receiver 10 yards of separation, and then miss the first tackle. Solid winning strategy there
you have six seconds and you don’t try to get closer?
Wow
great kick sanders
Well how about that
Jason Sanders has been SMOKING hot as of late… minus the missed extra point today.
Only the O-line is to blame around the Redzone. Duly noted. Well, next season when we have about 28-30 players on the roster and no cap space, we should be able to fix this hideous O-line and porous soft D, right?
Tua’s completion % is 83.3 in the first half. 😉
Like the Cowboys game last season, we can’t score TD’s and Sanders may need to kick 5 FG’s to win this one
Lol
Ken,
As Brian suggested, this offense is designed to get the ball out quick to tiny, fast WRs and is an outside zone run team. Neither of those things are built to work in close. No big possession WR? Why? Doesn’t fit in a speed offense….even though we aren’t even using our speed. No big, nasty OL to punch it in between the tackles? Why? Let guys walk and sign 250 pound centers. No dominant TE? Why? Money tied up in average QBs and tiny WRs…who…by the way…offer little in close.
But hey….SB here we come! In 5 years.
bailbondmike
says:
December 8, 2024 at 9:50 am
Graham Barton should have been the pick.
Though, I am liking Chop more. I just hate that there are games where he disappears/not dominant. Hopefully that comes next year. Same with Kamara but I think it will take more time with him.
————–
Absolutely. Johnny Newton was my 1a and Barton was my 1b. In retrospect, it should have been Barton all day long.
That’s no knock on Chop, who is beginning to come into his own and we really do need him now.
Barton was my 1
ramsey getting schooled by Wilson today
Another blown coverage by the D
But it’s Tua’s fault
well let’s get the ball back, drive down the field and kick another FG
Rumor mill has it that Maxx Crosby is fed up with the Raiders and may request a trade.
Wonder if they would be stupid enough to trade him to the Dolphins for Chubb.
Chubb POST-6/1 TRADE
2025 Dead Cap: $9,111,489
2026 Dead Cap: $18,275,489
2025 Savings: $20,230,000
I wonder what Ramsey’s PFF rating will be after the game
his jersey number
Why drop Ogbah into coverage there???
We are on pace today for 30 points but it’s Tua’s fault
Brian in NY
says:
December 8, 2024 at 2:48 pm
Barton was my 1
————
We’d have a semi-functional Offense with Barton. You chose… WISELY!
Kohou covering Adams is a mismatch all day long. Then again, none of our DB’s are covering well.
A-Rod and Devante Adams rekindling that old magic… or is it just that our Defense sucks that badly?
*Davante
Just beat the Jets!!!!
Ooohhh I like the change up to the defense. Instead of giving receivers 10 yards of separation, we give them 20. They’ll never see that coming
😆
it will cut down on the missed tackles
Solid point!! 😂😂
no reason for Ingold to hold
Tua comple % was helped by not throwing to smythe…lol
we punted.
but that’s the defenses fault.
Can you believe Tua was flagged for holding
😂
we are all frustrated. Love you Ken!
Mike E you should be happy today. You are getting what you want
As long as we don’t kick 7 FG’s to win it you might be right. 🤣
receivers are wide open all day
Tua’s still trending to throw for over 300 yards today. He’s moving the Offense, despite our redzone woes.
Lol…good point
We’re on pace to score 20 points or less again today. That’s Tua’s fault.
the “give it to them down” – 3rd down
For a defense that gets consistent pressure rushing 4. HOW ARE RECEIVERS SO FREAKING OPEN EVERY GAME?!
Our safeties have been awful this season, and besides Ramsey, revolving door at the other CB spots, outside and slot
Holland and Poyer just THAT bad this year? I mean I see Poyer miss tackles every week. But wtf happened to Holland?! Is it a scheme thing? They can’t be THAT bad!
at home, nonetheless. Shouldn’t the yets players be struggling in the heat?!
in December?
I mean – come on…wtf are they doing on 3rd down
Defense, STOP PLAYING SO FAR DEEP in the SECONDARY!!!
piggy,
isn’t it still hot in FL in December? Lol
Holland literally taking on the blocker
weaver defense gets worse every game
Our Offense is built to score from the perimeter, much like an NBA team who can kill you with 3-pointers. Our Offense is not built to score in the redzone, unlike like an NBA team who controls the paint.
Tua’s doing his job. The next step is growing our O-Line (especially our IOL) and getting bigger targets for the redzone (like Mike Gesicki).
We’ve regressed in terms of a fully functional Offense.
Jonnu Smith should be a good target
Agreed, but he’s not Gesicki in the redzone.
can do whatever you want against this defense
defense is pitiful today
I can’t believe there are people here posting about Tua when the defense looks like it does today
^
Holland looks like he has been playing to not get hurt last couple weeks
Yup!
He has played his way out of a big contract
find it hard to believe they won’t score here
I will say it again. All 3 phases have fatal flaws, i.e. not close to good enough…lol
This is true, and it’s called regression, as a team.
piggy,
Who cares how the defense plays when your offense can’t score 20 points? This defense was expected to be poor. The offense was expected to win games for us. Acting like we didn’t talk about that repeatedly is disingenuous.
Offense scored 15 points in first half last I checked
we still have a couple more qtrs to play. We can easily score close to 30 before it’s done
Piggy – the defense is terrible because we relied on a bunch of perennially injured players like Bradley Chubb and Jaelan Phillips and drafted poorly at CB with Noah Igbinoghene, Cam Smith and also at LB with Channing Tindall. We paid Tua elite QB money and let 2 of iur best trench players go, Wilkins and Hunt. That’s just a big part of why the defense sucks and the offensive line sucks
not so sure this defense would be better with better talent
can’t have a big run without a flag
Is bad Mike starting to feel better? Lol
Think about it… it wasn’t too long ago when we had DeVante Parker and Mike Gesicki… who you could just throw it up to and they’d come up with circus-catch TDs.
We don’t have a team that built for redzone football. We’ve got a bunch of 3-point shooters. And our IOL is just abysmal in redzone sits.
But it’s all Tua’s fault?
You can’t compete in this league without paying your QB big money
and teams still field good defenses
Ken,
Yep…same as they have after 3/4 of the game. That’d be 20 by the end of the game.
Offense has been 6th in league since Tua has come back. I think safe to say that is not the problem.
In points scored
back to back punts is bad though
D’s fault…lol
😂, we’ll all be doing this all game as we lose to the Jets whose defense is worse than ours this season.
Defense just can’t score TD’s dammit
well they need to make tackles and stop 3rd downs
are we pretending they are doing that now
That’s actually a very good point. Our Defense used to score TDs for us when we had the likes of AVG.
WOW! A rather studly special teams play on that punt!
so Tua has to come up big now
Let’s see
I’ve said this in many games before and been disappointed
Unfortunately you’re 100% correct.
I’ll say it again, Brooks has been a beacon of hope for our D.
Piggy – we’re built to be a high flying offensive juggernaut, but we’re so far removed from that. You know that’s what they tried to assemble. The offense was going to carry the team, score 30 points a game, and hope the defense could do enough.
And then 2-deep Safeties killed our Offensive plans.
Unacceptable M, and you know that!
Jets don’t have a HC or a GM yet we are losing by 8 at HOME….oh my…lol
OUCH!
Facts
dumb play – try to throw it downfield
3rd and 10 just like that is ridiculous
Are we punishing Jonnu today?
I think everyone is entitled to a bad game
We are hitting the WRs today – we need to do that anyway
Yes, but Jonnu moves the chains!
Wright with a perfect drop.
why aren’t they running a play like that on 1st down instead of some double reverse screen bs
That was a check down not the called play
the screen. I don’t think that was a check down I think that was design
Ken,
As always, check my stats! But, our defense was ranked 13th in scoring at 22.2 points/game. Not nearly as pathetic as folks are trying to make it seem.
it’s ridiculous how bad our OL that we have to run plays t]like this here
Tua’s fault
again – why are we waiting until 4th down to just have Hill cut in the end zone
Their whole damn defense was in the box, and you think you’re going to run it in with a 180 pound back? Come on.
Is Tua allowed to throw a TD?
LETS GO TUA
LET’S GO DEFENSE!
u]instead of just having your fast WRa do little cuts in the front of the end zones (like we did on the td and 2point) we run a screen to waddle and Achane run outside
we are making the game more difficult for ourselves
What?! Throw a quick breaking pass to a really quick guy in the end zone? I’m shocked.
Tua didn’t do enough on that drive