Late last season I looked at our roster and paused in numbed astonishment. It was absolutely the worst collection of non-talent in the 30+ years I have been a Dolphin fan. That's why I continue to be amazed at the support and benefit of a doubt Rick Speilman receives here. If he is an excellent evaluator of talent, he's even better at making sure we don't acquire any of it.
At the line of scrimmage, we were a disaster on both sides of the ball, especially defensively. That's why I'm so impressed Saban has prioritized those areas. Other than JT on defense and Carey's potential on offense, we had journeymen galore on both lines. Jeno James is OK, hopefully better than that this year.
We won't scare anyone on offense without a major injection of athletic ability among the offensive linemen. And a versatile, error-free QB who can manage 7 yards per attempt. Feeley doesn't threaten any of those categories, king of the mindless line drive. Unless it's a franchise RB, I think we can hold off in that priority, similar to safety on defense. Our foundation at QB and in the trenches should be Saban's focus.
One major caution: many Dolphin fans are putting way too much stock in our offensive output late last year, especially as indicative of vast improvement. I have Excel workbooks stacked with evaluation of trends, and that is one of them. Teams that can't score and can't win inevitably boost their production late in the year. The opposition obviously takes them for granted, to some degree, and it's very common for low scoring losses early in the year morphing into higher scoring failures at season's end. Early in the year, the defense fights like hell to salvage the season. Once the record is hopeless, the defense naturally falters and the games open up. Weak teams in all sports tend to play much higher scoring late in the year. In fact, many sportsbooks refuse to book NBA totals late in the season involving two teams thatare eliminated from playoff contention. They tend to waltz up and down the court in a glorified layup drill.