The Miami Dolphins will enter the 2020 with aspirations of playing in the postseason — not necessarily an attainable goal in 2019 during the team’s drastic roster overhaul. Those aspirations serve as a sign of progress for this team, who didn’t find their first win of the season last year until Week 8 under Brian Flores after a slew of close calls in the first half of the season.
But how likely are Miami’s hopes of a January playoff game? Miami has plenty of new talent in place — but that talent will also come with a learning curve and the Dolphins being unable to work through organized team activities during this time of year threatens their progress and chemistry in the early portions of 2020.
ESPN’s Football Power Index is out for the 2020 NFL season and hopes to provide an answer to each team’s outlook for the year ahead. Things weren’t kind for the Miami Dolphins. Miami ranked as the 6th worst playoff odds among all NFL teams in the first update to FPI; the Dolphins were credited just a 13.8% chance to make the postseason. Furthermore, Miami’s projected record on the season is 6-10 — just a one game improvement from the team’s performance in 2019 with such an underwhelming amount of talent at the team’s disposal.
Would this be considered a failure? Not necessarily, as the Dolphins have plenty of room for improvement in individual areas of their team and the potential youth at quarterback (provided rookie QB Tua Tagovailoa earns the right to start) could cause for a rocky road and a few more bumps in the road. But a 6-10 finish would still sting a bit, especially with the feeling that the AFC East is a wide open proposition after years of dominance by the New England Patriots.
FPI seems to agree. Here are their rankings for the AFC East based on projected records:
- Buffalo Bills: 8.6 — 7.4 (41.0% odds to win the AFC East)
- New England Patriots: 8.6 — 7.4 (40.9% odds to win AFC East)
- New York Jets: 6.8 — 9.2 (11.7% odds to win AFC East)
- Miami Dolphins: 6.2 — 9.8 (6.3% odds to win AFC East)