Like someone else said. I'm not an expert, so I usually don't feel the need to share my opinion. I love this site though, other than the game threads (those stress me out too much). A lot of the opinions here help drive my knowledge of the team (much better than the dolphins beat reporters and obviously national media who pay no attention to us). I'm here every day!
I wish I was as optimistic as some here are, but I've gotten my hopes up too many times. I think our chances boil down to one thing, and that's Tannehill. I don't think Tannehill has been a bad QB - I think if you put last year's Tanny on the Broncos, Panthers, Seahawks, Cardinals, the teams would still be great. The problem with the Dolphins is that we need a transcendent QB to make our team competitive. I think Tanny needs 30 TD's, 4,200 yds, and ~12 Int's for us to have a chance at the playoffs. I'd say there's a ~40% chance this happens, maybe higher if Gase is able to get the best out of him. If he has another lateral year, I'd plan to move on and rebuild unless Gase looks to have the rest of the team trending significantly upwards.
As for the rest of the offense...I'm excited to see us finally have some nice pass blocking. This may help with the above. That said, the run blocking could be bad, and if defenses just drop an extra man into coverage we could see Tanny make some mistakes (or just dink and dunk to death). I love Jarvis, and I think Still will have a decent year, but we need Parker to step up. I think this is another big variable for Tanny - if Parker becomes a legit threat, our offense becomes sooooo much more dynamic. I think Foster and Ajayi both have frustrating seasons and neither necessarily sets themselves apart from one another.
I'm scared of our LB core and secondary. We need Kiko, Maxwell, and Howard to exceed expectations. Another situation where we need pieces to fall into place, but if they do, we could be in good shape. I think Suh will have a great year, and the DL will do relatively well.
Someone wrote an article about how we need a lot of things to line up, which is not necessarily likely, but if they do, we could be special. I think that's a pretty good statement. I can see our offense and defense as high as #10 in the league, and as low as #25. That probably goes for many of the treadmill teams in the NFL, which we've essentially been since Marino left.
I'm not high on this season, but skeptically hopeful (is that possible?). I do, however, think Gase could take this franchise in another (positive) direction going forward, even if it means this year is the warmup period. I just want to see that there's something brewing. Think Pete Carroll's first season in Seattle. I have a newborn anyway, so one more year of mediocrity won't bother me too much as I'll have a really cool distraction!
Anyway, best of luck to the fins and all of you. Thanks for making this site awesome.
