The Miami Dolphins are set up for a better future than the Bengals
By Brian Miller
The Miami Dolphins hired a new head coach last off-season. So did the Bengals. The Dolphins, however, are in a better position to turn it around.
When the Miami Dolphins enter the 2020 off-season they will have a lot working for them in both draft picks and salary-cap space. They also have something that the Bengals don’t appear to have. A plan.
For the Dolphins, it is unclear what that plan actually is. They gutted their roster to rebuild it and that came with tough decisions that did not sit well with many in the fanbase. The Dolphins were not trying to get your approval. They want to reshape the roster with players that fit their schemes or that they can find a way to use.
Brian Flores went with former Patriot coaches for his staff for a reason. They share the same discipline taught by Belichick, the same attention to detail. So far, despite only winning two games, the Dolphins players seem to be buying into what is being sold to them.
The difference here is that these coaches are teaching, they are developing, and they are not coddling these players. We don’t know what is going on in Cincinnati but the team is also a mess with no wins under a first-year head coach.
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The Bengals Zac Taylor opted to bench Andy Dalton in favor of his rookie Ryan Finley. His reason, or so he told Andy Dalton, was to look forward to the draft. That meant starting Finley now to assess him and see if they needed to draft a QB high next year. Now, after two weeks, Taylor is going back to Dalton. Has he seen enough?
The Bengals are showing no progression under Taylor whereas the Dolphins are typically in games until late. The Dolphins are staying competitive with an extremely young roster full of players that would be lucky to be on other team’s practice squads. The Bengals are not competing.
In Miami, we are seeing a lot of disciplined growth and that too is coaching. We don’t see that in Cincinnati. The Bengals are not in the AFC East so in reality we don’t care what they do next year or the year after but the point is that while they may hold the top pick in next years draft, the Dolphins seem more likely to capitalize on winning a few games and making the most of who they draft instead of where.