Miami Dolphins have talent but maybe not enough for 2019

The Miami Dolphins will enter waters that have not been charted for a very long time this off-season but the talent may not be enough to avoid a bad 2019.

This year the Miami Dolphins are supposedly not going to try to succeed by piecing together aging veterans and young draft picks in an effort to try to win the AFC East or make the post-season as a wild card.

Many fans think that the Dolphins should simply “tank” the season in an effort to land a top quarterback prospect in the 2020 draft. Miami will not tank but those suggesting that the talent level is too good not to tank, that may not be accurate either.

Tanking is basically giving up and these players are not going to simply phone in an entire season for the chance at one player. That being said, the Dolphins may find themselves at the bottom anyway because while they have talent they also have a lot of holes.

Across social media platforms and website forums the talk of tanking so soon is quite laughable. That being said the same platforms saying that the talent is too good to finish that bad is also almost laughable. While there is talent there is also questions.

Defensively the Dolphins have Xavien Howard and Minkah Fitzpatrick. They have an overpaid T.J. McDonald on a really bad contract and an underperforming but talented Reshad Jones who is not getting younger.

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Up front they have Jerome Baker and Raekwon McMillan who are both still growing and Davon Godchaux and Vincent Taylor. On paper things look to be good but the Dolphins need more on the defensive line and despite the youth and promise of McMillan and Baker there are big hiccups in their game.

Miami also lacks a second corner and the entire defensive end unit could be gutted this off-season. In fact, it should be. Robert Quinn will make $12 million and Andre Branch sits around $9 million. Cameron Wake is an impending free agent.

On the offensive side of the ball quarterback is the biggest question and no one knows if in fact Ryan Tannehill will be gone. Center and right guard are questions and Ja’Wuan James is an impending free agent.

At wide-receiver DeVante Parker and Danny Amendola both have uncertain futures as they account for $15.3 million in cap space and all of it is recovered if they are released.

If the Dolphins do indeed start to rebuild by releasing players like Quinn, Parker, and Amendola while allowing others to leave via free agency the question is what kind of talent replaces them? Stephen Ross said that he realizes paying for aging veterans doesn’t work so do they go and buy younger veterans at higher salaries? That didn’t work out to well for Jeff Ireland.

The Dolphins have talent but that talent is young and has not fully matured. Depending on what is added and subtracted the supporting cast may not be enough to put the Dolphins in a position to finish the 2019 competing for a final post-season spot when December comes around.

Miami will not tank. No team ever will but the talent level on this team, for now, is good but not great. Not yet. There is a good possibility that Miami does indeed finish in the bottom quarter of the league next year and while that is not a bad thing in a rebuilding season it won’t be because they tanked. It will be because the talent hasn’t quite matured.