Miami Dolphins defense will hold the key to teams playoff chances
By Brian Miller
The Miami Dolphins playoff hopes will hang on the shoulders of the defense and not the offense. It may sound odd but it makes perfect sense.
When the season begins a week from Sunday, the Miami Dolphins will try to make the postseason in Mike McDaniel’s first year as the head coach. Naturally, we look to an improved offense as the catalyst to extra games. That shouldn’t be the focus.
Tua Tagovailoa will improve this year just because of the influx of talent around him. Miami’s WR group is already head and shoulders above what it was last season. The running back room is better, the tight end group is the same, and the offensive line was improved by coaching alone.
It is hard to believe that the Dolphins will finish near the bottom offensively in 2022 like they have over the past couple of seasons. Miami has nowhere to go but up and we have to assume that even Mike McDaniel’s inexperience as a head coach isn’t going to hurt the offense.
What we need to realize is that Miami’s offense will be better than last year and last year they were 9-8 after recovering from a 7-game losing streak.
If the offense is going to be better then the hope is that the defense will need to be as good or better than it was last year. What the defense can’t be, is worse.
Josh Boyer is the key. Brian Flores had a lot of input in the defensive schemes run the last three seasons but Boyer is now tasked with the same talent on defense, maybe more, and has to have them playing strong out the gate.
If Miami’s offense can improve and the defense stays the same or gets better, then there is no reason to believe Miami can’t make a run for the playoffs but again, the key is defense. Can they adjust to a tweaked system? Can Boyer utilize the zero-blitz with the same effect?
Miami will start the season without Byron Jones in a banged-up secondary and that will put more pressure on the front seven and whoever fills in for him for the first four weeks. We should see opposing teams attack whoever is opposite Howard.
The first four weeks will not be easy but if Miami can get through that stretch and win two or three games, we will have a good idea of what the season will hold.