Scoring is on the rise in the NFL. The rule changes of the league have allowed for more widespread offensive output — a trend that will likely continue, too — everyone likes points! But the trends of the NFL are leaving some teams behind the curve, the Miami Dolphins included. While scoring is on the rise for the league as a whole, you can’t necessarily include the Miami Dolphins as a reason why.
The last time the Miami Dolphins scored 400 points in a season was back in 1986 — that season the Dolphins tallied 430 points while allowing 405 and stumbling to an 8-8 record after a stretch of five consecutive division titles and two Super Bowl appearances from 1981 to 1985. Miami’s offense those days was prolific — and the offenses we’ve seen since could largely be described as anything but.
Miami came close to scoring 400 points back in Don Shula’s final season in 1995 — logging 398 points on the year.
But if you look at the scoring trends of recent championship teams, 400 points is a pretty common theme. The 2015 Denver Broncos are the last Super Bowl champion who failed to score at least 400 points on the year — a stretch of four consecutive years in which the pace of points has exceeded a threshold the Miami Dolphins haven’t surpassed in 33 years. Eight of the NFL’s 12 playoff teams in 2019 logged over 400 points on the season. And of the four that didn’t, Houston (378), Philadelphia (385) and Green Bay (376) were at least close. Only the Buffalo Bills (314) were a far cry from the mark.
This isn’t to say the Dolphins must score 400 points or they’re doomed to never win another championship — as the 2015 Broncos succeeded in winning a title and the Packers and Giants of the early 2010s were also able to secure a Lombardi Trophy while scoring in the high 300s. But the Dolphins scored 306 points last year, 319 the year before that and 281 the year prior to that. This team hasn’t been close. As a matter of fact, the Dolphins have had more seasons with less than 300 points scored (3) than they have seasons with more than 350 scored (2) in the past decade.
Miami is on the right track — in large part because they’ve stopped chasing the dream of being an offense like the one Rodgers has led in Green Bay and the one Manning led in Denver. Instead, they’ve adopted their own blueprint. That, at the very least, should get this team to the point where it shouldn’t feel inconceivable that the team could log 400 points over a 16 game stretch.
And after 33 years of surpassing that common mark among recent championship teams, getting into the ballpark feels like a nice start for the Dolphins.