Year two of the Brian Flores in Miami can’t come soon enough for Dolphins fans — the first season under Flores featured plenty of promise and a thrilling finish. But the variance of what could transpire this season with Miami isn’t something that should be overlooked. The Dolphins have a ton of new players, a ton of youth and a ton of work ahead of them to ensure they have the chemistry and communication needed to be able to operate at the highest level of performance.
Yet despite the turnover, there’s still plenty of optimism that a last-place schedule and the changes throughout the rest of the AFC East could bring Miami some notable success in 2020.
How can we reconcile the best and worst possible outcomes? Pro Football Focus attempted to do exactly that — offering a snapshot of the best and worst case scenarios for the 2020 season for each AFC team. The exercise featured PFF’s research team running simulations of the 2020 season and spotlighting the end result of the highs (90th percentile) and lows (10th percentile) of each team. Here’s how things turned out for the Miami Dolphins:
- 10th percentile outcome: 5-11
- 90th percentile outcome: 10-6
If a 5-win strike zone feels large, it was generally the same range as seen by each and every AFC team throughout the course of the exercise. The Dolphins’ “worst case” outcome was tied for the second best in the AFC East with the Buffalo Bills — New England’s worst case outcome in the 10th percentile was 6-10 whereas the New York Jets’ worst case outcome was 4-12.
In short, we’ll probably need to see more than a few lucky bounces in order for the Dolphins to achieve a 10-win season in 2020 — but at the very least Dolphins fans should know that PFF simulations indicate that an improvement is on the way. And if we were to split the difference between the extreme outcomes either way, Miami could be looking at a .500 season in year two under Brian Flores at the very least.