Dolphins must navigate brutal 2017 schedule to sustain success | FinHeaven - Miami Dolphins Forums

Dolphins must navigate brutal 2017 schedule to sustain success

jimlerario

jimlerario

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How tough is the Miami Dolphins' schedule in 2017? They will face last season’s Super Bowl teams a combined three times.
In addition to games against the New England Patriots (twice) and the Atlanta Falcons, Miami’s brutal schedule includes eight teams with winning record in 2016. The Dolphins also play the Baltimore Ravens, who finished 8-8 and have often had Miami’s number. This is the byproduct of the Dolphins winning 10 games, getting a second-place schedule and making the playoffs for the first time in eight years.

Here is a look at Miami’s home and away schedules (* denotes 2016 playoff team):
Home opponents: *New England (14-2), Buffalo (7-9), New York Jets (5-11), *Oakland (12-4), New Orleans (7-9) (in London), Tampa Bay (9-7), Denver (9-7), Tennessee (9-7)
Away opponents: *New England (14-2), Buffalo (7-9), New York Jets (5-11), *Atlanta (11-5), *Kansas City (12-4), Baltimore (8-8), Carolina (6-10), Los Angeles Chargers (5-11)

The Dolphins' 2016 success leads to questions this offseason of whether that success is sustainable. Coming off a 6-10 season, Miami had the luxury of a last-place schedule in 2016 and took advantage. That will not be the case in 2017.

The Dolphins could have a case as a dark-horse threat to make a deep run in the AFC if quarterback Ryan Tannehill returns healthy, head coach Adam Gase continues the upward trend in Year 2 and the team makes solid offseason additions via the draft and free agency. Miami has some well-defined holes at linebacker and tight end, for example, that must be addressed.

“Are there holes to fill on the team? Sure, and I think [Gase would] be the first to tell you,” Dolphins Hall of Famer Jason Taylor said Thursday. “Obviously if you don’t win the championship, you have things that you need to correct. If you win the championship, the Patriots are working as we speak to correct things, too. But they’re on the right path. It was great to see them in the playoffs.”
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Let's see how the offseason goes, but we have the 6th most toughest schedule.
 
Meh, basing "toughness" of a schedule is useless this early. A lot of teams end up being better or worse than excepted. For example, based on 2015 standings, we were supposed to have one of the toughest schedules for 2016. Teams like the Jets, Bills, Bengals, and Cardinals ended up as disappointments. Teams like the Ravens and Titans made improvements from the season before. It's going to happen again in 2017.
 
Atlanta may have a Super Bowl hangover, Oakland has a QB coming off an injury late in the year, Jets and Bills don't have QB's, Chargers stink, Alex Smith is becoming a liability for the Chiefs, Denver has no QB (yet), Cam Newton and Carolina are a question mark. Tampa Bay and Tennessee have very promising futures, but haven't "arrived." Nothing more useless than predicting wins and losses based on last years results, but that's the glass half-full view.
 
We had one the toughest schedules heading into 2016, by the end of the year most were calling it a soft schedule. All you can do is play the games you are dealt.
 
Daytona Fin said:
We had one the toughest schedules heading into 2016, by the end of the year most were calling it a soft schedule. All you can do is play the games you are dealt.
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Bingo. Couldn't put it any better. "Soft" or "tough" schedule doesn't matter, putting up W's does. They're all NFL teams.
 
We have the same schedule as the rest of the East except for the 2 games based on division finish. Like others have said, no way to know what the teams will be like in a year.

The only crappy part of the schedule that IS certain is the loss of a home game while New England loses an AWAY game. That's the BS that I don't like.
 
This gets tiresome every year. Almost every game is tough. Blowouts are really more of having a lucky day. Every team has a team of 53 professionals. As we saw last year "easy" games vs Cleveland and San Francisco were a lot tougher than they should have been.
 
NE is winning the division. So Miami needs to stay in front of all of the WC teams. It is actually a real detriment when it is almost impossible to win the division because then you're battling all the other teams for the final two spots.
 
Don't scare about schedule as much as situation. Last year we figured to rebound after underachieving in 2015. It's a bounce league. Entering 2017 it's the opposite. We improved our win total by 4 games so a regression is logical. Doesn't have to happen but I'm a believer in more often than not, as opposed to subjectively nitpicking all the reasons the majority outcome won't apply this time.

One way we could overcome it is if many of our opponents are happy fat cats coming off a string of wins entering our building, like the Steelers and Bills in 2016.

Facing rookie quarterbacks doesn't hurt either.
 
Miami plays New England twice a year. Is there any bigger challenge? Having a tough schedule, if it ends up being that way, isn't such a bad thing for a young team. The Dolphins need to learn to beat the top teams to get to the next level anyway.
 
the nfl have same 6 to 8 good team every year and rest are just fill in blank team. 2 to 4 new playoff team every year. that the nfl....
 
CalDolFan10x14 said:
Meh, basing "toughness" of a schedule is useless this early. A lot of teams end up being better or worse than excepted. For example, based on 2015 standings, we were supposed to have one of the toughest schedules for 2016. Teams like the Jets, Bills, Bengals, and Cardinals ended up as disappointments. Teams like the Ravens and Titans made improvements from the season before. It's going to happen again in 2017.
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agreed.
 
Need to take those games one at a time and start stronger. We can't get into a 0-4 hole or it will come apart quickly. Barring late pre-season injuries we should be better out of the gate offensively. Defense may take a few weeks to gel together. We must find a way to stop the run and make teams one-dimensional.
 
Losing another winnable home game to London does suck. If we fail to win this one, or if we get injuries, I'll be pretty pissed. Sure, there are benefits to getting a Super Bowl, but this might be one of the tangible costs as well.

As for the schedule, the offseason is a pretty big equalizer in the salary cap era. The good teams lose players they can't afford to keep. The bad teams scoop up the best collegians and often bring in new coaches in addition to typically adding through free agency. As the Carolina Panthers showed, the margin between being called dominant one year and awful the next is pretty thin. I look forward to this offseason talent cull/acquisition, then Gase's 2nd year with his offense, then seeing an offensive line gel and start consistently opening holes for Ajayi, which takes the pressure off a re-habbed Tannehill ... then we'll see how good we really are. Let's worry about the Dolphins improving, because if that happens, we'll be just fine.
 
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