The Miami Dolphins have elected to make splashy moves for the second year in a row. In the 2022 offseason, it was the acquisition, and extension of, Tyreek Hill – one of the league’s premier receivers. This offseason, it was trading for Jalen Ramsey. The team also traded a first-round pick for Bradley Chubb during the season. The Dolphins’ front office is building a roster and preparing to contend. They have young pieces that can contribute in the long term but moves for guys like Ramsey and Hill are designed to help the team in the here and now.
Those moves are built on the trust that the foundational pieces already in place are there for the long haul. Tua Tagovailoa is growing as a quarterback after having a much-improved season in his first year working with Mike McDaniel. Jaylen Waddle is blossoming into an elite receiver, and the defense has a number of guys ready to take the next step in their development. Not many teams have the luxury of watching their top young stars come into the foray at the same time, but the Dolphins do and it could lead them to sustained success in 2023 and beyond.
Like every team, there are legitimate question marks, and the AFC East is stronger than ever this season. Internally and externally, there’s a lot the Dolphins need to contend with, especially if the team wants to improve upon their 2022 season where they won nine games. That season ended with a ho-hum loss in the Wildcard round with Skylar Thompson under center. The Dolphins don’t want to repeat that feeling this season, but what will they look like in Year 2 of the Mike McDaniel era?
Offense
The Dolphins offense was one of the most efficient units in the NFL last season. They ranked seventh in DVOA and EPA while putting up 23.4 points per game, though that number could have been higher if Tagovailoa played the entire season. The marriage between McDaniel and Tagovailoa was a perfect fit. McDaniel used his scheme to attack defenses vertically and create spaces to target the intermediate and deeper parts of the field. With Tagovailoa’s blend of timing, accuracy, and anticipation, he was the ideal quarterback to take advantage of those spaces and feed the ball to Waddle and Hill.
The offense slumped later in the season and lost five games on the bounce – though Tagovailoa was inactive for two of those games due to lingering concussions. But prior to that, defenses like the Chargers, 49ers, and Packers looked like they found an effective formula: drop the linebacker deeper into coverage and play aggressive man coverage on the receivers. Now that teams have had an entire offseason to gameplan for the Dolphins, how McDaniel responds and shifts his offense will be key.
The question, and it’s a fair one, is how much weight can be placed on Tagovailoa’s shoulders. He’s a good quarterback when he’s allowed to attack the middle of the field in clean pockets. But things get a little dicey when he’s asked to do things outside of his comfort zone due to a lack of elite arm talent and athleticism. There’s also the caveat of injuries. Tagovailoa has yet to play more than 13 games in a season and suffered multiple concussions last year. How far can a healthy Tua take the Dolphins?
One to watch: De’Von Achane
Defense
The biggest splash for the Dolphins, aside from the Jalen Ramsey trade, was bringing in Vic Fangio to replace Josh Boyer as defensive coordinator. Fangio is considered the Godfather of modern NFL defenses and has led some of the best units in the league over the last decade. The Bears’ defense was one of the best in the NFL when Fangio was the DC, and the Broncos carried on that mantle when Fangio was the head coach. His track record speaks for itself. However, it’s an incredible shift from the ideology of the recent Dolphins’ defensive units.
The name of the game under Boyer was the zero-blitz. That’s blitzing every available defender and leaving everyone else on an island in coverage. Only the Giants ran more zero-blitzes than the Dolphins in 2022. That led to many unblocked pressures, but there was a noticeable strain on the coverage as the Dolphins gave up the sixth-most passing yards per game in the NFL.
We’ll see a completely different defensive plan under Fangio in 2023. His defense is predicated on limiting explosive plays by utilizing two-high safety looks in the secondary. That means you should expect to see a lot of Cover-2 and plenty of Quarters coverage. Quietly expect Jalen Ramsey to play all over the field once he’s healthy. Getting him around the football is key, so there could be heavy doses of him in the slot on early downs allowing him to have more of an impact against the run. All of that is moot however if doctors find more damage to his meniscus than initially thought when he undergoes his upcoming procedure. Dolphins fans are hoping he’s out only 6 weeks, though there remains a small chance it could be significantly longer than that once he goes under the knife.
The totality of it is this: the Dolphins’ defense has a tremendous amount of talent and now has the defensive mind to exert that talent with one of the best schemes in the NFL. The sky is the limit this year.
One to watch: Jaelan Phillips
-Thomas Valentine
Twitter: @tvalentinesport
Photo: CCS Pictures. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.