The 2021 Miami Dolphins
What happened to the Dolphins?
Last year the fish were a dark horse playoff competitor. They were going through some growing pains as such young teams often do, but it felt like everything was on the right track and they just needed another year to coalesce and congeal into themselves and genuinely compete instead of stay right on the fringes. This was a team coming up from the depths of Adam Gase despair. Brian Flores looked like the first apple to fall from Belichick’s tree that actually sorta got it. They were wheeling and dealing players for young talent. Some of those moves looked good, some looked questionable, but there seemed to be a plan. With the team actually causing some heads to turn, you could look at Miami and trust the process.
Looking back now it all seems more baffling than planned. Tua has been controversial since being drafted. The fans seemed beyond hyped about him and I think the Dolphins fan positivity during that draft pick was stronger than any other pick, including Burrow. But since taking over the job from Fitz, who was playing well at the time, Tua has been under exceptional scrutiny and many fans have straight up turned against him and want him dumped or traded. Tua himself has been struggling with injuries for much of his time in the league. He recently returned nursing cracked ribs from earlier this year. Reports that Flores wanted to draft Justin Herbert but got overruled have percolated through the NFL rumorsphere. That might be an easy rumor to spread considering Herbert looks like the best QB of the class in retrospect but he seemed like the guy everyone thought would bust at the time.
But other problems have caught up with the fish too. The team seemed almost allergic to keeping talent. The defense looks miserable despite being one of the highlights last year. They had a corner safety once and they sent him to the Steelers for some reason, and boy could they use him now. Injuries have hurt them a bit, notably with Tua this year, but every team deals with injuries every year and you can only blame the pains for so much. The Ravens have done a great job overcoming worse injury luck than Miami. They also haven’t faced a brick wall schedule that might account for the failures. They just squeaked by a conservative and generally crap Patriots team led by a rookie QB in his first game. They got nuked off the face of the earth by the Bills. They lost to a mediocre Raiders team in OT (a game they were leading by 14 pts at one time), got their ass kicked by Carson Wentz and the Colts, got their sore asses kicked even harder by the good yet very injured Bucs, and then embarrassed themselves against the Jaguars, one of the worst teams in the league currently rocked by scandal.
The fish have a game against the pathetic Falcons this week, which gives them a chance to get things back on track (before facing the mighty Bills again). The rest of their schedule isn’t particularly frightening either, with upcoming games against the Giants, Jets (2x), Texans, Patriots, and a mystery Panthers squad that might suck. The Ravens, Saints and Titans are probably losses, but that’s pretty low overall. There isn’t an unreasonable chance the team could at least right the ship enough to finish the season in respectful mediocrity and this comic could age like milk. But if they lose to the Falcons this weekend, that’s a 6 game skid, probably 7 game skid, before they can beat up the small half-dead child that is the Texans for an easy win. I glanced in Dolphins online circles this weekend after the loss and the morale is not high.
The Falcons will dominate the Fins 27-17
Weird to predict the third quarter score specifically but all right
Is Buff Dolphins Guy skipping leg day and stress-eating?
This is not all on Tua the way some have made it out to be. I mean, how very DARE he crack his ribs because of our papier-mâché offensive line. Yes, the pick at Tottenham was awful, and he could have tripped, fell forward 2 yards and had that first down instead of trying to pass, but that’s just two plays.
Look at the fucktacular amount of stupid penalties, boneheaded play calls, near-nonexistent clock management, futile challenges, an o-line that’s not so much porous as soggy, trading away players who inevitably come back and bite us on the ass, and other players who look like they’ve given up before halftime. At least Tags showed some fight in London – damn sight more than Brissett did the previous four weeks.
It’s not all on Tua but it still kinda is. Tua’s biggest problem is that he isn’t Herbert and we could have had Herbert. This team would absolutely be better with Herbert as much as it pains me to admit it. Yeah he’s not bad, but he also isn’t the greatness we could have had. It’s not fair, it’s not his fault, but it’s the truth. The Dolphins made a mistake drafting Tua. They should have gotten Herbert
And if Herbert was the one not doing well and Tua was doing great, then what? I saw where many people believed the Bengals should have taken Sewell over Chase and we see how that’s paying off for them at the moment. Momentum swings in the NFL so easily.
Maybe Herbert is doing well because he’s not in Miami. Maybe Miami sucks right now because the coaching isn’t working. By your belief, you should go back through every draft and see the picks the Fins made and the better players that came after them, then blame the picks made for not being better.
Ifs don’t matter. Herbert has been playing so well he’s.on pace to being a legit MVP candidate. He had a great rookie season despite being thrown to the wolves, a head coach who got fired, and a terrible offencive line. He now has Joe Lombardi as his OC and is still one of the best QBs playing right now. Tua hasn’t been dealt the best hand either, but he hasn’t been able to overcome it like Herbert has. Those are the facts. The ifs don’t count.
Dave, Minkah Fitzpatrick is a safety, not a corner. Flores wanted him to be a utility DB and he refused (also kinda struggled at it) and demanded to be traded to the Steelers, and earlier this year he was being used as a utility DB and struggling with it again
Ah shit, I had it locked in my head he was a corner for some reason
This is one of the most aesthetically pleasing comics I’ve seen in a while! The crab and the dolphin sun are awesome. Nice work Dave!
Miami had a very weird offseason. It felt like they just moved laterally rather than actually make moves to progress the team forward and build on their success from last year. Almost like the FO saw the team win 10 games and finish just outside of a playoff spot in a very deep conference and went, “meh, this is good enough.”
To be fair, Miami has gotten some terrible luck early on. Tua going down in week 2 very much hurt them, and it came at a point where their schedule was certainly the hardest. Not exactly an easy ask to beat the Bills, Raiders and Bucs when you have to give significant snaps to Jacoby Brissett, and with the defense taking a step back it only makes things even more difficult.
I just feel for Tua at this point. I can’t imagine what it’s like for him having to deal with all this extra scrutiny. When he’s not being compared to Justin Herbert and how Miami screwed up in not drafting him, he’s likely hearing about all these swirling potential trade rumors regarding Deshaun Watson. It’s got to be very rough on him mentally and you can see it in his play. Dude’s trying so hard not to fuck things up that he just looks off.
he’s worried his dad is going to beat him for not winning the superbowl.
Everyone seems to forgets that Herbert was viewed as a project QB while Tua was viewed as a potential day 1 starter. This isn’t like the Bears trading up to take Trubisky over Watson. In hindsight, Herbert was the better choice, but that time time Tua was the more complete, safer prospect.
I’m sure as the proud owner of a new Herbert jersey, no Dolphins fan really wants to hear my opinion. But for what it’s worth, I think Tua was a far better prospect than Herbert coming into the draft, and I was (at the time) sad that Miami snatched him up before our pick. I for one don’t think he’s a bust by any stretch (it’s way too early), but he’s not being set up for success, either. It is probably fair to say that some of the Dolphins players have looked at their record (prior to the London game) and at least partially mentally checked out, even if they haven’t consciously realized it yet. Getting injured so early in the season, having the team face (probably) the toughest part of their schedule, and then returning when the season already somewhat looks lost is a recipe for disaster for any QB.
Anyway, Dave, here’s your pool update post week 6:
You got a 9 this week, which was slightly below average. The winner of the week got a 12. There were also three 11’s and eleven 10’s ahead of you. But if it makes you feel any better, the worst score was a 6.
Overall you’re now at 61, good for a tie from 7th – 8th. The current leader has 72.
Apparently, the Dolphins are seriously pursuing the serial sex offender, Dashaun Watson. If he doesn’t get suspended or thrown in jail (and it would be crazy to see him go unpunished, while Gruden was run out of the business), then I can’t see him losing the starting job to Tua.
If the Texans deal the Massage Rapist to Miami Tua is probably going to Houston, which is a death sentence for the poor guy
I have no idea what the fuck the NFL is doing still pussyfooting around this guy. They clearly want him out of sight, out of mind which is why they’re making the Texans keep him on the sidelines. No way the Texans are not making him suit up and play otherwise. “But he’ll refuse to play for them” then they’ll suspend him for 6 games for conduct detrimental and void his guarantees; they’ve got him by the short hairs. The Texans know it, and he knows it. So why isn’t he playing? Because the NFL doesn’t want him to be out there calling attention to off-the-field stuff and they don’t want to put him on the commish list for some bizarre reason. But by not putting him on the commish list, they’re allowing these rumours to build up and call attention to the off-the-field stuff. It’s mindboggling.