The new season begins with a gauntlet, where less than 2-2 could spell big trouble.
For this new season to not be a repeat of the last it must start off at least .500
With every new season comes new hope that this might be the year that the Miami Dolphins return to the playoffs. A lot has changed over this off-season, however, while there are some indications, none of the changes can guarantee that the Dolphins will actually have a better record this year.
Since the NFL season is only 16 games, unlike say the MLB, which has 162 games, every game is extremely important because a team only has such a limited amount of regular season games. This also means that if a team wants to make the playoffs then they can’t start the season off slow with losses piling up early. If a team goes 0-4 to start the first month of the season, then that team is practically guaranteed to be out of the playoffs.
The Dolphins schedule for the first month of the season is one of the harder tests of any team in the league.
Miami starts the season by going out west to face the Seahawks in Seattle, then they follow this up with a trip across the country to play the Patriots at home.
The silver lining for the first two weeks is that Miami will get the Seattle trip, which is the longest trip of the season, out of the way first; and in terms of playing the Patriots, they will be without Tom Brady for that game.
Then Miami will finally have their first home game against the Cleveland Browns, followed up with a short travel week as they head to Cincinnati to play the Bengals on Thursday night.
Each of the three away games will be against perennial playoff teams, and the best sportsbooks in the world will have the Dolphins as the underdog in each of those games. “On paper” it appears that the Dolphins will most likely go 1-3 to start the season, which is clearly not starting off on the right foot. However, anything better then 1-3 would be a strong indication that this regime might be a good one.
A benefit of playing a team like the Seahawks to start the season is that since Miami has a Rookie head coach, it means there is a lot less tape available on his schemes that Pete Carroll and his coaching staff can analyze and dissect. On the other side, Coach Gase and his team will have plenty of tape on the Seahawks to look over, so there is an outside chance that Miami might have a slight advantage in game planning with Seahawks – that is before half-time adjustments. In addition, the Seahawks have started out slow the last two years, so maybe (fingers and toes crossed) this is a trend that will continue this year. Either way, this is going to be a tough game. So with little expectations, maybe by playing a superior team, the Dolphins can use the underdog card to their advantage.
The early part of this new season will go along towards giving this regime legitimacy.
I believe that against the Patriots will be our best chance to win one of our first three away games. With Brady absent from the starting QB role, there definitely will be a negative effect on the Patriots offense. If Miami’s pass rush is truly better this season, then it could be a key to beating the Patriots in Foxborough week 2. This game will determine if this team will be good or not. Given the advantage, they must go for the throat.
The Dolphins have no alternative, they need to beat the Browns since they are truly one of the worst teams in the league. So, there is no excuse for them losing the game- ’nuff said.
The next game against the Bengals will be very tough. However, the Dolphins will have one small advantage in the fact that their new Defensive Coordinator Vance Joseph had a large part in the Bengals defensive scheme the past 2 years. With a bit of an inside track on what they like to do things, this could possibly be used to help Gase’s play calling.
If Miami can go 2-2 then this would actually be a very good start to the season and put the Phins in position to at least be in the thick of things later in the season. What are the rest of the Miami Dolphins News fans expectations for the first month of the season?