5 reasons Miami Dolphins fans should be thankful this year

The Miami Dolphins may be walking the razor blade thin line of playoff elimination but that doesn’t mean there are not things to be thankful for.

Thanksgiving 2021 has arrived and while we can all scratch our heads at the notion that the Dolphins are likely one loss away from being an afterthought this year, many already have them as an afterthought, there are still reasons to be, well, thankful.

Tua Tagovailoa

It really doesn’t matter if you hate him, love him, or if you are straddling that fence with an “I can go either way” attitude. You may also be in that “I just wanted Justin Herbert” camp which is really made up of a bunch of fans who didn’t really want him until he started his pro career.

What we can all agree on, and should be agreeing on, is that Tua has shown a lot of class and upheld his dignity throughout the entire Deshaun Watson garbage. This wasn’t a simple, day before the trade deadline, event. This included Stephen Ross asking for permission to speak with Watson, it included a mid-season presser by Chris Grier who told the media that he was inquiring about a trade even though Brian Flores refused to comment on any of it for two months.

No, Tagovailoa has taken his shots from Colin Cowherd and other media talking heads and yet he still goes out and plays well enough to have a top 10 QBR and consistently post positive completion percentages. In fact, Tua has two 80% plus games and two above 60.

Jaylen Waddle

Fans want to dump all over Chris Grier for trading down from three overall to 13 and then back up to six overall just to take a WR when he could have stayed at three overall and drafted either Kyle Pitts or Ja’Marr Chase. The others say he could have sat at 13 and still drafted DeVonta Smith who was taken by the Eagles who previously held the 6th overall spot.

It really doesn’t matter though. Waddle has not had a single dropped pass credited to him this year and is just over 260 yards from breaking the Miami Dolphins rookie receiving yardage record. He should also finish the season holding the rookie catch record as well.

On an NFL level, Waddle is a top five rookie receiver in the league and continually gets better each week. More impressive is the fact that the Dolphins are using him relatively out of position given the injuries to the WR unit and we have yet to see him go deep, one of the things he does best.

Mike Gesicki

This may be a short lived thankfulness as Gesicki is supposed to be a free agent at the end of the year. The Dolphins could franchise tag him if they desire but that would just as costly as giving him a new deal. Gesicki is the leading receiver on the team right now and is the most consistent on the offensive side of the ball.

If being an incredible talent isn’t enough, it seems that Gesicki is serious when he says he wants to remain with the Dolphins. Now the Dolphins need to realize that they need him just as much.

Jevon Holland

We can’t let the defensive side of the ball go unnoticed. Lately they have been playing like the defense that we all witnessed in 2020. For all the success they have had, Holland has been an incredible rookie gem. If we are going to hate on Chris Grier we have to give him props for the drafting of Holland.

Most Dolphins fans wanted to see Miami draft a running back but when the Broncos jumped ahead of the Dolphins to take Javonte Williams, it turned out to be a perfect situation for the Dolphins to take a top safety talent that has shown more than most first round draft picks.

The Fans

We can say all we want about which players are great and which ones are horrible and we can absolutely trash our own fanbase, something that happens daily on social media. That being said, it is more like siblings. We can trash each other but if you are from another teams base, you better shut the hell up or deal with all of us.

This year has divided the fans more than any other including the 1-15 season and there are still six games left on the schedule. The Dolphins could make a strong push to salvage the season and in doing so would eliminate much of this but we have to agree about one thing and be thankful for the fact that we still get to root for the Miami Dolphins, they may have dysfunction but it’s our dysfunction.