I didn't watch the video but in my opinion not even close unless they have a miracle draft. We will most likely be playing for a shot at the 7th seed again
It's a tough ask to drop a 51 minute podcast with no direct discussion points and ask folks to comment. In the future, grab a few of their talking points and use that as the conversation starter of the thread. Personally, I think the Dolphins are a healthy Tua and a few players in the trenches away from the Super Bowl. When healthy, we can compete with anyone and have a "shooter's chance" of finding those 4 elusive playoff wins. But we haven't been healthy and it's such a huge drop-off from Tua to QB2...it's basically a different offense that doesn't utilize our current roster.
Winning the division, and getting the home playoff game is mandatory. The odds of them progressing beyond the Wild Card round without that are very slim. Most likely, also getting at least the #2 seed, so that they can play the Divisional Round at home as well. As a franchise, they've never once won in that round on the road before. Unfortunately, the path to that point is harder for Miami than it is for many other teams, because Buffalo is a top five team in the NFL themselves. Beating them in Miami is then probably mandatory, as is going at least 3-1 vs the Jets and Patriots. The league has screwed the Fins over by taking away a home game in 2025, and they'll have 9 road games in 2026, so we're probably needing to build towards 2027 at this point.
Hopefully the league doesn’t screw us out of home field advantage against Buffalo again by making it a night game.
I'm confident that they will. The Bills are the League's pets, and get what they whine for. We may have to wait out a few years before we get past this.
They haven't played a 1pm home game vs Buffalo since we beat them and Josh Allen cried like a b!tch about the heat. Prime time or later in the season would be my bet for the foreseeable future.
The 2026 SB is being held in Levi stadium, so the Dolphins are about 3,000 miles away from a SB. Metaphorically sounds about right.
Depends on health first and foremost. After that the two major flaws are the offensive line and the defensive side of the ball. Tua being injury prone doesn't help either, but we're paying him and we have to ride with it. You build a tough OLine that can open up the run game and you build a DLine that can get after the quarterback. The Eagles just showed us what a team needs to win a Super Bowl. We have some pieces in place on both sides of the ball. We need good health and for Tua to stay upright and we'll at least be a playoff team. I think if we can become dominant in the trenches then we can get there.
Not just vs Buffalo. Last year, after playing against a team just as used to the heat as Miami (Jacksonville) in Week 1, they didn't have another 1pm home game until October 27th. And only two before November 17th! And all three of those games were against hot weather teams (AZ and LV) About as minimal a home field advantage as the league could have possibly given the Fins.
Unfortunately, even concussions in back to back weeks weren't enough to take Allen out of even a single game last season, though at least they did lose both of them, as he played poorly with his bells rung, much like Tua vs GB in 2022.
Can't argue with that. The dude is clueless when it comes to building the trenches which happens to be the most important parts of the team aside from quarterback.
Since he became the head of the draft department, years before he was promoted to GM, the team has been absolutely awful with the OL. Just horribly incompetent to the point that the only ones they ever get right are taken in the first and early second round. And even those are often frequently injured and unable to stay on the field.
If McDaniel can give up playcalling and let someone else run the offense Tua may have more time presnap to dissect the defensive alignments in front of him instead of getting delay of game penalties.
When last year's schedule was posted, I thought the exact same thing. Buffalo's WHINING about the heat made the NFL change every home game from the 1pm time slot and screwing us out of our home field advantage. I just look at it like this... If Miami has to travel to FRIGID cold weather venues and forced to play there, then those same teams should have to travel to the sauna of south Florida and suck it up.
You're exactly right. No disagreement from me whatsoever. Unfortunately, the league itself and the media have brainwashed a lot of fans into believing that the NFL is a "winter sport", even though for most of its history it was played almost entirely in the Autumn, and now people think those horrible conditions are what's normal and hot weather should be avoided.
We need a strong draft and make shrewd signings in free agency. We need progression from the players and staff. We need key players to stay healthy. We also need a lot of luck to go our way. If all that happens, maybe we’ll have a chance at making a Super Bowl run. However, I am not convinced we have the coaching staff to guide us to one, nor the quarterback to get us there due to his durability and record against play off caliber teams. Let’s be positive and hope for the best, but part of me thinks we’ll be thinking about a new quarterback before the 2020s are up and possibly rebuilding again under a new front office and coaching staff.
That's a major problem during the regular season, but it's 10x a bigger deal in January and February when it's 80 in Miami and 10 in all the northern states. We have no way to prepare for the cold and inclement weather. I completely agree with the comment that we need to secure the #1 seed in the AFC to have a shot at the Super Bowl. That probably means 14+ wins in the average season, just to avoid playing in KC or Pitt or Buffalo in January. It's pretty unfair if you think about it, the league uses our weather against us. It sure would be nice if they played at a neutral site in the playoffs...New Orleans, Atlanta, or Jacksonville maybe where it will be in the 50's.
In the years between when the playoffs expanded in 1990 and until they changed them a few years ago to add the 7th seed, I think that the #2 seed was always a plausible path. We got it once back in 1992 and then were so damn close so many other times, but a game here or there ruined the season and we ended up playing in the WC round or even missing the playoffs. Now? Winning the division is mandatory, full stop. I just don't see anything else working. Winning at home and then hoping that the 1-seed gets taken down could still happen, but its now harder. Especially with that extra game to play.
Tampa Bay won the SB in 2020 as a WC team without winning their division and playing all playoff games away from home. So it's not mandatory.
Anything can happen. But just because one team does it once doesn't mean anyone else will for an extended period. They also had Tom Brady throwing to Mike Evans, Chris Godwin and Gronk, along with one of the best head coaches and best defensive coordinators in the league. Plus they went to play at a 7-9 team in the WC round, which is obviously not something that most road teams get to experience, then indoors vs a divisional opponent in the divisional round. Could the Dolphins, in theory, win at Houston, Indy, Vegas or LA in the playoffs at some point in the future? Sure. But we honestly need KC, Buffalo and Baltimore to fall way off first.
