Jermey Fowler does a year ranking with NFL executives and scouts
ESPN Jermey Fowler published his list of team rankings based on the evaluations of NFL executives and scouts and it was interesting. The list included this season’s Miami Dolphins team and the last two season as well, to track trajectory. It offered team rankings and then offensive and defensive rankings to deeper context. Now, this is only their evaluations based on talent, but they are pros, and it was a collection of them, so it does have gravitas. We don’t know if they’ll be right about this season’s team, but they were pretty close the prior season.
Take these rankings with a grain of salt, but this isn’t Mo, Larry, and Curley Joe either.
Phins 2023-24 Rankings
Here are the Dolphins Fowler report team rankings from 2023 and 2024, so we can get a gauge of their prior assessments and also to see the overall trajectory when 2025 is included.
2023 Rankings:
Team: 5th Overall
Defense: 2nd Overall
Offense: 15th Overall
2024 Rankings:
Team: 9th Overall
Defense: 6th Overall
Offense: 15th Overall
I think these are in the general ballpark of the Dolphins talent base, but you can see the talent pool on defense slipping a tad from 2023 to 2024. You can bet with the best pay per head that I disagree with the Dolphins offense having same ranking in 2023 and 2024. The loss of Connor Williams and Robert Hunt was tremendous and had to drop them, even a little. But I won’t nitpick about this.
Now, let’s compare them to the Phns projected ranking in 2025.
What’s the trend line over the last three seasons?
Here are the projected rankings for this season… and I doubt it will make fans happy.
2025 Rankings
Team: 22nd Overall
Defense: 20th Overall
Offense: 22nd Overall
Ouch! Even if they are in the ballpark, this isn’t good. The worst part is this offense must be the driving force and it’s the weaker side of the ball. Head Coach Mike McDaniel is fighting for his life–supposedly–so if this is even near the reality, it’s going to be very difficult for him to prove his worth.
The larger picture is clear though. After having near unprecedented draft capital from 2020-2022, we are near barren four years later. If this isn’t an indictment in General Manager Chris Grier, then I don’t know what is.
