I think the surest bet with this team is the offense will be improved if Tannehill is healthy all year. This is a given in my opinion but the national media is all about fantasy football and name recognition and unfortunately for Ryan, like it or not, his name is recognized for a torn ACL and he hasn't been good enough fantasy wise to be recognized. There are likely some really lost folks who think Jay Cutler is a better QB and we will be worse with Ryan. Anyway my expectation or prediction is the offense will be much better, good with just the return of Ryan, very good if Parker plays closer to his potential and even better if the rookie TE's can flourish early. If Gesicki can be a quick study we have a huge mismatch piece to play with. I think we're asking a lot of the rookie TE's though, it's a tough spot to play and there have been much more high profile guys who have come into the league and not been big factors right away. I admit if Ryan goes down we're dead.
Defensively I expect the DE group to be very good, the secondary should be improved I'm hopeful the LB's will also improve. The group looks more gifted but will it translate? Kiko Alonso still in primary nickel scares me. He was always chasing last year, there was some ugly stuff. Many times I felt he was beaten by one cut and out run. Is McMillan good enough to be the other nickel backer? Supposedly coverage is his weakness which doesn't bode well. If he's a 2 down player we will be relying on Anthony, who is assignment based or a rookie in Baker. Not sure how this will play out. Also losing Suh hurts whether we want to admit it or not. The DT group doesn't suck but we lost an ELITE player.
Still say this team is closer to the playoffs than a 3 win team barring injury of course. If we lost Tannehill early in the year you never know. I say ceiling is 10-6/11-5 and floor is same ole same ole 7-9/8-8.
