This won’t come as a surprise to any Miami Dolphins fans, but the team’s offensive line was bad in 2019. How bad? You’d be excused for choosing to call it “offensive”.
It’s well warranted — and the Dolphins clearly know it, too. Why else would this team come out swinging this offseason and add five new offensive linemen into the fray. The Dolphins targeted two key free agents in Ted Karras and Ereck Flowers before drafting Austin Jackson, Robert Hunt and Solomon Kindley in the first four rounds of the 2020 NFL Draft in April.
The good news is there will be no shortage of openings on Miami’s offensive line this upcoming season. To appreciate just how poorly Miami’s offensive line played in 2019, ESPN’s Mike Clay shared the numbers of Miami’s starting offensive line in ESPN’s Pass Block Win Rate metric.
You have to see it to believe it.
Of 171 qualified NFL offensive linemen last season, Dolphins' Michael Dieter (146th), Evan Boehm (149th), Shaq Calhoun (165th), Julie'n Davenport (169th), Jesse Davis (170th) and J'Marcus Webb (171st) all finished 146th or worse in @ESPNStatsInfo Pass Block Win Rate. Wow.
— Mike Clay (@MikeClayNFL) May 11, 2020
Each one of Miami’s qualifying offensive linemen scored in the bottom 25 in effectiveness in pass block reps in 2019 — whereas it would be mathematically possible for 29 NFL teams to see their entire offensive lines score better than the best individual in Miami’s group. Credit to Michael Deiter for being the “best” of the Dolphins’ bunch in 2019; though Dolphins fans shouldn’t be too quick to dismiss Deiter as a sunk cost. Consider the players he played next to at left tackle scored 169th and 171st respectively out of 171 players and it is easy to understand why Deiter may not have flourished on Miami’s offensive line this past season.
Nevertheless, with five fresh faces coming into the fray and Boehm and Webb already off Miami’s roster (don’t expect Shaq Calhoun to make this team, either), the team will have a great opportunity to fix their pass protection woes in 2020. The good news? It’s almost impossible to get much worse.