Not time to panic for the Miami Dolphins despite opening losses

The Miami Dolphins have started the 2020 season with back-to-back losses, but now is not the time to panic as the team continues to rebuild.

For most teams, starting any season 0-2, with both losses coming against divisional rivals, would be something to start panicking about, but for the Miami Dolphins this shouldn’t be the case.

The Dolphins are undergoing a serious rebuilding process, which begun prior to the 2019 season – a campaign in which it took the team eight games to register their first win under first-year head coach Brian Flores.

After the first two weeks of last season, the Dolphins had registered a grand total of ten points against the Baltimore Ravens and New England Patriots, with the latter keeping them off the scoreboard altogether.

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Adding to the general misery of the fanbase at that stage, the Dolphins gave up a whopping 102 points across those two games – 49 against the Patriots and 53 against the Ravens.

Fast forward to the 2020 season and some fan expectations of what the team could achieve this season appears to have been greatly inflated, with Flores’ men falling to the Patriots and Buffalo Bills in back-to-back games to start the new campaign.

Hopes that the Pats’ losses through opt-outs and Tom Brady’s departure to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers would help the Phins get an early-season victory over the long-time dominators of the AFC East, were dashed by Cam Newton – with New England earning a 21-11 victory.

The loss and the performance of the defence were not ideal, but certainly an improvement from the same time a year ago.

Then, the Dolphins suffered a close 31-28 loss to fellow AFC East rivals the Buffalo Bills in Week Two, with fans already calling for the reins to be handed over to rookie quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, with the assumption being that he can somehow lead the team to victory, despite the fact he doesn’t play defence and this has been arguably the Dolphins’ biggest issue so far.

When comparing the first two weeks from 2019 to today, there have been some noticeable improvements, most notably being how many points the Dolphins have scored and how many they have allowed.

Combining the opening two games of 2020, the Dolphins sit at an aggregate score of 39-52, while last year saw them enter Week Three at 10-102.

This is a clear improvement from the start of Flores’ tenure as head coach and the team will only continue to get better as the weeks progress, with the offensive line still finding their rhythm together and rookies and new additions to the side still learning the playbook and having not had any pre-season to implement different schemes.

Additionally, the two teams that the Dolphins lost to this season are the two favourites to compete for the AFC East title this season, with the Bills resurging after many years of disappointment while the Patriots are still coached by Bill Belichick and have a former MVP under centre in Cam Newton.

The Dolphins will be competitive as they progress through their rebuild and Tagovailoa will undoubtedly impress when he is given the chance to take to the field, but now is certainly not the time to be panicking about how this team performs, especially as it is still so early into the rebuild and another high draft position could help the team go even further down the road.