Predicting the Miami Dolphins week one MVP on offense
By Brian Miller
The Miami Dolphins will take on the New England Patriots on Sunday for their first game of the season.
When the Miami Dolphins kick off their season on Sunday, who will be the team’s MVP? We take a look at who may play their best to open the season.
Offensively, the Dolphins may match up well with the Patriots. Neither team has any tape on the other so we don’t exactly know how the Patriots defense is progressing this year.
The Patriots lost nine players to the 2020 opt-out clause and of those nine, two are on defense. That may not seem like a lot but the Patriots lost several starters in free agency on defense including Kyle Van Noy to the Dolphins.
Losing Dont’a Hightower is an additional blow to what was one of the best defenses in the league last year. The Patriots also lost safety Patrick Chung who started as well.
Unfortunately, this week is hard to predict because we don’t know what players are doing on offense for the Dolphins or the Patriots defense. We can assume that Belichick will have his team disciplined but without the leadership, they had last year, that discipline may be more difficult to achieve.
The Patriots will rely on experience defensively where Devin McCourty, Jason McCourty, and Stephon Gilmore combine for 32 years of experience. At linebacker, there is some experience but most of the players are not exactly the household names we were used to seeing and hearing about.
There is a big opportunity for Miami to exploit the Patriots defense by mixing up their offense. Mike Gesicki should play a big part in the gameplan because DeVante Parker is a little banged up. Parker will play but he has been dealing with a hamstring issue the last couple of weeks.
Preston Williams could be the star on the outside and it would be fun to see him exploit the Patriot corners but these are good cornerbacks so my predictions are not going to fall on the outside or on the inside.
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This weeks most likely MVP will come down to running back or offensive line. No offense to Ryan Fitzpatrick but if he has time to throw, and if there are running lanes, it will be because the Dolphins offensive linemen held up.
Looking at the offensive line, I don’t think Austin Jackson is going to shine in his first NFL start as a rookie but I do think that Solomon Kindley will. In fact, the right side of the line could be the Dolphin’s best options to roll passing lanes and open running lanes.
Ted Karras, Kindley, and Jesse Davis could be a formidable trio early in the season. As we review the game film next week, I think we will see Kindley emerge as the best of the three on Sunday. Kindley had a very good training camp and he has the tools to hold up against defensive lineman. He wasn’t going up against garbage in camp either.
I think Kindley has the best chance to be this week’s offensive MVP when Miami opens at New England.