Miami Dolphins overachieving season is no recourse for missing playoffs

It was a fun Miami Dolphins ride while it lasted, but reality bites hard sometimes.

That hard reality is a ten-win Miami Dolphins season not being enough to advance to the wildcard round even though the league allotted one extra team to get in.

Ira Winderman, who covers the Miami Heat for South Florida Sun-Sentinel had this to say about it.

Believe it or not, my preseason prediction called this. I predicted one less win and just missing the wildcard, with that last part edited out about missing the WC. You can see it here.   

I like many others did not think that Josh Allen would keep getting more accurate as the season went on, and raising that bar.

While I’m on a prediction kick, I will add one more. “Turnovers will be the firepower on defense” I predicted here. And boy was it. This Miami Dolphins team had at least one turnover in every game this season. Which is something for us fans to look back on fondly and also ahead to the next season.

And what can be expected moving ahead? I will take a guess that head coach Brian Flores might start looking at older more experienced players that have had some playoff experience. Especially after this young team seemed to self-destruct. This last game was a de facto playoff game under the circumstances.

The team didn’t look the same, with more dropped passes than ever before. Isaiah Ford earned himself a new nickname from me. Four or five on the floor Ford, from however many drops, were on him. The odd thing is that he was more sure-handed before his short stint with the Patriots.

The defense also rolled over this time around, when they had been the strength of the team. A few examples are Xavien Howard with his ten interceptions. Emmanuel Ogbah was just one shy of that number, with sacks. Think back to the game playing the Rams or Chargers, the defense shined. In one of those games, the coach took the ball out of the quarterback’s hands with them just running the ball and playing scared while behind by a fair margin.

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Reinforcements are coming through free agency and the draft. Changes will be made. While writing this there was a report that Chan Gailey had gotten fired. But ESPN had to retract that report. When it comes to rumors, sometimes ripples turn into waves.

While the season as a whole was strong. Ending on such a weak note can have dramatic changes to follow. Are we underestimating that Bills team? Did we expect too much from the Miami Dolphins? We will have to wait and see how the playoffs turn out and the shaping of the rest of our division.

While we wait with the taste of disappointment, let’s not lose sight of our promising future.