The NFL offseason still holds plenty of time before we see the teams take the field for training camp or a preseason game. For as much that has changed already this offseason, there is plenty more opportunity for further change in the months ahead. But for the Miami Dolphins, the heavy lifting feels as though it is over for the year.
Miami has collected a dozen fresh faces to add to their current roster in an effort to restock the talent on the team — and they’ve done well to do exactly that. This will be a drastically different football team in a lot of ways when the season begins. But will they be better in the win column by the end of the year?
USA TODAY seems to think so; but they think it will be close:
NFL record projections for the 2020 season.https://t.co/paYfpcghLn pic.twitter.com/xTYMTiYIbc
— USA TODAY NFL (@usatodaynfl) May 14, 2020
The “way-too-early” forecast for Miami is 6-10, just a one game improvement from the Dolphins’ surprising finish to the decade in 2019. The Dolphins surprised many with their 5-4 record to close out the 2019 season — and although progress is often measured in more ways than one, seeing Miami scratch out only one extra win in 2020 would be the shallowest of victories.
With the AFC East largely considered wide open for the first time in a long time, the Dolphins should be aiming to find success there first and foremost. And if Miami were to win 3 games in the division in 2020, the team would need to find just four wins between the AFC & NFC West divisions and fellow AFC last place teams in Cincinnati and Jacksonville to top the projection of 6 wins.
We shouldn’t be putting a win goal on the team this early in the rebuild, but if we were — it would be higher than six!