Mello Yello
Active Roster
Torn Achilles.
Chris Perkins: Dolphins headed for mediocrity in 2025 before 2026 rebuild
- Thread starter Finsup1981
- Start date
Torn Achilles.
This is what it boils down to, for me.Chris Perkins: Dolphins headed for mediocrity in 2025 before 2026 rebuild
The Super Bowl window has closed for this core of Dolphins that’s led by quarterback Tua Tagovailoa and wide receivers Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle. The imminent departure of star cornerback Jalen Ramsey means something as basic as winning a playoff game isn’t a realistic option in the next couple of years.
A rebuild, led by a culture change, must occur after this season.
The Dolphins have way too much talent, especially offensively, for 2025 to be deemed anything resembling a rebuild.
That’s the good news, if there is any good news in this situation.
The bad news is the Dolphins are positioned very poorly for a rebuild.
They don’t have the resources to add significant talent, and in the meantime they’ll continue losing top talent.
What does that mean for 2025?
Mediocrity. Again.
It means the 2025 season is basically a duck-and-cover drill for executives, coaches and players.
It means the 2025 season is one that plays out the string while the front office plots the next Super Bowl run, maybe in 2028. This is a season that sets up the future while paying minimal attention to the present.
I think the Dolphins can win nine games in 2025. They’re not far from being a playoff team.
Simply making the playoffs, however, is an embarrassingly low bar that must be raised as part of the required culture change.
Here’s what I mean: when the talent-rich Dolphins made back-to-back playoff appearances in 2022-23, their first-round playoff exits were deemed a major success and celebrated with lucrative contract extensions amid a wave of optimism; when the so-so Miami Heat made back-to-back playoff appearances in 2024-25, their first-round playoff exits were deemed a major failure and earth-shaking changes have been contemplated amid a sense of frustration.
The Dolphins must rebuild in many ways.
Think of 2025 as a pivot year, the year to get things right for the future. This year’s team has almost no chance of winning a playoff game or any other significant accomplishment. That’s the reality.
I originally thought 2024 would be the get-right season and 2025 would be the go-for-it season in a final hurrah for this core of players.
But this core won’t have another “go for it” season.
The glory days are gone. Over. Finished. The Super Bowl window for this collection of players is closed and locked.
There was a small crack to squeeze through before the Dolphins and Ramsey mutually agreed to seek a trade shortly before the draft in April.
But Ramsey’s imminent departure slams the Super Bowl window shut for the core of the Dolphins players that began being gathered in 2022, coach Mike McDaniel’s first season.
Key players such as left tackle Terron Armstead, guard Robert Hunt, defensive tackle Christian Wilkins, safety Jevon Holland and, in a few weeks, Ramsey, have gone away, stripping this squad of any chance of being better than the gold standard of this disappointing era, the 2023 team that finished 11-6.
As for the near future, well, consider that Tyreek is scheduled to count $51.9 million against the salary cap in 2026. One way or the other, he’ll likely be gone after this season. Once Tyreek leaves, it’s all over for this offense. It must be totally rebuilt.
And Tua’s contract becomes easier to part with after 2026 when his $34.8 dead cap money hit becomes more digestible. He’s due to count $56.4 million against the salary cap in 2026, $53.4 million in 2027, and $65.8 million in 2028, his eighth season.
Few teams are willing to stay with a quarterback who earns that much but can’t win a playoff game, so extending Tua’s contract to lower/spread his salary cap charge wouldn’t seem a wise option.
In a span of three years, the Dolphins could lose Tyreek, Tua, Armstead, Campbell, Ramsey and Holland.
Also, they must make a decision on whether to re-sign edge rusher Jaelan Phillips or allow him to depart in free agency after this season. He’s playing on his fifth-year option.
A major rebuild is coming.
The draft classes of 2023 and 2024 must form a new core, and there’s not much hope for that to happen at this way-too-early point of the process.
Running back De’Von Achane and edge rusher Chop Robinson form the nucleus of the new core, and they’re not nearly enough.
We’ll see if defensive tackle Kenneth Grant and guard Jonah Savaiinaea, this year’s first- and second-round picks, respectively, can help form a new nucleus.
But there’s not much more to offer from the previous three drafts.
Perhaps this season the Dolphins’ under-achieving offense, which loaded up on everything from coaches to quarterbacks this offseason, can finally carry this team to big things.
After all, if not for offensive additions such as senior pass game coordinator Bobby Slowik, backup quarterbacks Zach Wilson and Quinn Ewers, guard James Daniels, Savaiinaea, running backs Alexander Mattison and Ollie Gordon II, backup guard-tackle Larry Borom, big wide receiver Nick Westbrook-Ikhine and in-line tight end Pharaoh Brown this season would be the rebuild year.
Those, however, are major additions.
So there’s a chance the offense can put the 2025 Dolphins on its shoulders and carry it to big things.
But most likely, the Dolphins are playing a waiting game during the 2025 season, merely killing time before they can get to the inevitable rebuild beginning in 2026.
Chris Perkins: Dolphins headed for mediocrity in 2025 before 2026 rebuild
I originally thought 2024 would be the reset season for the Dolphins and 2025 would be the go-for-it season for this core of players. But this core is unlikely to have another “go-for-it” season.…www.sun-sentinel.com
"Simply making the playoffs, however, is an embarrassingly low bar that must be raised as part of the required culture change."
100% spot-on.
If you believe making the playoffs is the barometer for excellence...we just view football differently.
Ray R
Club Member
I had already posted my prediction for an 11-win season along with my reasoning, which is basically as follows:
1) We are actually a pretty good team but had an abnormally large number of injuries last year that exposed a very limited secondary which crippled us at the end of the season.
2) We did as good a job as could reasonably be expected this draft and may have done an exceptionally good job with UDFA's so far this year. We will know more when the final roster is established.
3) I expect that this year's team will be much better with a significantly improved OL, along with some significant changes in the defense which may better fit what Weaver's defensive plans calls for.
4) Overall, I feel we really "beefed up" (LOL) our reserves to the point that having just the normal number of injuries will not slow us down at all.
5) Our cap situation is such that we still have enough to bring in a solid, if not excellent FA, should injuries this year make that necessary.
At this point in the year getting "overly specific" about any single player or coach is basically just "TURD polishing". On the other hand, projecting general areas of either improvement or regression make much more sense.
Feel free and go back to the thread where the OP took a poll as to our wins this season. I believe you will find my posts there are in keeping with this one.
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Mello Yello
Active Roster
I'll just say this...it's not very creative or inspiring to hear about how "there's no excuse" for not winning Playoff games.
That's BS.
Tua's concussions in '22 were not something we saw coming. Given the team nearly beat Buffalo on the road in the Playoffs using Skylar Thompson I'm happy to accept that we might very well have won that game if not for Tua's in-season concussions.
Unless you were screaming "don't draft him!" back in 2020 because you had a crystal ball showing he'd suddenly become concussion-prone 3 years down the line, it's just a lazy take to act like we all saw that coming.
Similarly, acting like the 2023 injuries to Connor Williams and Austin Jackson which decimated the OL were things we should've seen coming is also equally lazy. No one was predicting those. Meanwhile, our defense ended that year with Jerome Baker, Jaelan Phillips, Bradley Chubb, Andrew Van Ginkel, and Cameron Goode all on IR.
Losing 1 critical OL piece or even just a couple of those defenders might've been sustainable but losing all of them wasn't and nobody thought every single one of those would get injured.
Rebuilding takes time and that's what the '24 and '25 offseasons have been about. We'll see through the course of 2025 just what McDaniel and Grier are building. The jury's out.
But constantly complaining about how there's no excuse is lame. There's a narrative. There was optimism that everyone bought into.
Any fan here who's acting like they weren't a fan in '22 or early '23 is just lying. And worse, you expect sympathy from other fans who have to spend their day reminding you how much you like this team.
I'm not going to sit here and remind you of the GD history of it all. You liked it when things were good. Things went bad for cruddy reasons.
Get over it.
That's BS.
Tua's concussions in '22 were not something we saw coming. Given the team nearly beat Buffalo on the road in the Playoffs using Skylar Thompson I'm happy to accept that we might very well have won that game if not for Tua's in-season concussions.
Unless you were screaming "don't draft him!" back in 2020 because you had a crystal ball showing he'd suddenly become concussion-prone 3 years down the line, it's just a lazy take to act like we all saw that coming.
Similarly, acting like the 2023 injuries to Connor Williams and Austin Jackson which decimated the OL were things we should've seen coming is also equally lazy. No one was predicting those. Meanwhile, our defense ended that year with Jerome Baker, Jaelan Phillips, Bradley Chubb, Andrew Van Ginkel, and Cameron Goode all on IR.
Losing 1 critical OL piece or even just a couple of those defenders might've been sustainable but losing all of them wasn't and nobody thought every single one of those would get injured.
Rebuilding takes time and that's what the '24 and '25 offseasons have been about. We'll see through the course of 2025 just what McDaniel and Grier are building. The jury's out.
But constantly complaining about how there's no excuse is lame. There's a narrative. There was optimism that everyone bought into.
Any fan here who's acting like they weren't a fan in '22 or early '23 is just lying. And worse, you expect sympathy from other fans who have to spend their day reminding you how much you like this team.
I'm not going to sit here and remind you of the GD history of it all. You liked it when things were good. Things went bad for cruddy reasons.
Get over it.
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Mello Yello
Active Roster
That is disingenuous.
That isn't the bar. You know that.
The quote you're referencing is part of a back-and-forth aimed at a poster's lazy take who wants to act like he wasn't totally onboard in '22 and '23 when things were good.
Fact is, he was, just like everybody was and then a ridiculous series of (unpredictable) injuries hit and we didn't get what we want.
The real men just grow up and choose to accept that, learn what lessons can be learned and move on in a new direction doing the smartest and most responsible things possible. Being an adult isn't that interesting.
Posting reactionary stuff on the internet that contradicts what optimism you had 2-3 years ago doesn't require being responsible. People can act like they weren't fans and didn't buy in. They can claim they saw it all coming and that the people in charge are just too stupid....at least not as smart as they are.
What sucks is that the lousy woah-is-me attitude of lazy posters here ends up being the problem of those who accept reality for what it is and have to spend their time reminding those lazy posters that there was a narrative to all that.
Pounding the table acting like you're smarter than people who 'have no excuse for failure' is just lazy. It's not analysis or actual fandom. It's reactionary nonsense.
Ray R
Club Member
Opinions vary.
He got that because he runs a country club
His own player hung him out to dry last year about lacking practice and accountability
If I worked for him, got paid and can have no accountability I’d give him a positive grade too. Where do I sign.
Of course the players gave him an A plus, they’re getting paid for taking it easy in the Miami sun hahahha
Player survey is a joke, even if it actually exists
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I think Ramsey was on the brink of being washed up last year. The only thing that saved him was his reputation. He doesn't have the same quickness anymore and that lanky frame is taking longer to get up to speed. After what Wilson did to him last year #1's won't be worrying about his coverage. I'm frankly amazed there is more than 1 team who wants him.
The way I see it, this team is totally dependent on Tua's health if they are to be successful. If he stays healthy and they score points they could easily be a playoff contender. That's with or without Hill. I think people forget what he had to put up with before HIll got here. Other than Waddle, there was nothing.
Defensively, they will struggle against the pass. I think they'll be fine against the run. If the offense can score and put the D in pass rush situations, they'll be "not terrible"
Record prediction right now.
Tua's healthy, 8-11 wins. Tua gets hurt, 4-6 wins.
Ray R
Club Member
I agree with almost everything in your post except for your estimation of our wins; well, opinions vary.
You fail to mention and it doesn't show in the stats, but how many times did we burn through time outs, only to have none when we needed them because of a late play calls?
I don’t see any evidence that one single person believes Grier is doing a great job.
I do see, however, reasonable and objective people looking at all the facts and seeing that McD, with 3 years experience as a HC, doing very well. That doesn’t mean he hasn’t made mistakes, even seasoned HC’s make mistakes.
Well, in 2023 they were tied with 5th fewest delay of game penalties in the NFL and once again under the league average. He’s gotten better each season that he’s been HC.
You keep writing “wasted timeouts”. Care to show what TO’s you think were wasted and if they are an abnormal number?
Springveldt
Club Member
So they don't actually like him and he has lost the locker room but they gave him an A+ because they want to stay at club med in Miami. Got it.
And you know this how?
Yeah, it’s hard to find stats on this because it’s very subjective. However, there are numerous articles talking about how the league in general needs to do better. McD isn’t “wasting” TO’s any more than his peers.
Here’s a good read:
NFL Clock Mismanagement Becoming a Massive Problem
NFL head coaches have had several atrocious blunders of clock management that cost or nearly cost their team a game this season. The coaches get paid for these things: think fast and efficiently against the clock. From usages of timeouts to letting timeouts go to waste, games are left hanging in...
theleadsm.com
lol… I’m sorry I hurt you.