Top 5 positions Dolphins must address

The Miami Dolphins have a lot of work ahead of them. Especially if they want to be competitive in 2016. With holes all over the field, Miami will need to address several positions both during the free agency period and the draft.

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Identifying those need positions is the primary job of Adam Gase and Mike Tannenbaum and then it’s the job of Chris Grier, the teams GM to find the right players and get everyone on board with them. If there is one thing we learned from the Super Bowl this past Sunday is that defenses do indeed win championships and Miami is far from a championship caliber defense.

Factoring into these decisions will be the mental make-up of the players they bring in. Miami can ill afford to simply shop around for names that don’t fit their schemes and they can’t simply assume that each of those players will bring with them the mental and cultural changes that this team needs.

Here is a look at the top five positions Miami must address this off-season.

Offensive line

The Dolphins have a starting left tackle and getting better right tackle but injuries were a concern last season and Miami felt the lack of depth when they lost Ja’Wuan James to a toe injury. Branden Albert was solid in 2015 but he has an injury history that cries for depth at his position at left tackle as well. Then there is Mike Pouncey, a Pro-Bowl center who plays bigger than he is but lacks the intense physicality you want on a big offensive line.

None of those three players are a problem however and all three, when healthy make the line stronger but in between each of them are two bigger issues. Miami has had very poor guard play and this specifically is an area that finally needs to be addressed. In the last few years Miami has opted to go the poor man’s route in finding guards and by that I mean directing their attention to the position late in free agency and pulling players into the fold who are at the end of their careers. And they have been back-ups.

Miami’s decision to build the offense with Dallas Thomas and Billy Turner has not worked out the way they had hoped. Thomas especially has not been very good and this needs to be an experiment that comes to an end. Turner on the other hand may do much better with different coaching and the aforementioned culture change. He is a physical player who has been asked to play more reserved. That too needs to change. What Miami has to do is find at least one starting caliber guard with little risk and then add depth to both guard and tackle positions so a repeat of last season doesn’t happen again.

Next: Linebacker