Congratulations, Dolphins fans. You may not have realized it, but you’ve just survived a crucial stretch in team history. You’ve survived the dark ages of the Miami Dolphins’ defense. Yes, we all knew that the team’s defensive prowess was going to struggle in year one under Brian Flores amid the team’s rebuilding effort. Miami bid farewell to Kiko Alonso, Robert Quinn, Cameron Wake and several other defensive contributors ahead of the 2019 season — and that doesn’t even include the trade of DB Minkah Fitzpatrick and the loss of a slew of Dolphins starters throughout the season last year.
But the Miami Dolphins defense has never had a worse three year stretch than the one we’ve just endured. Between the 2017, 2018 and 2019 seasons, the team’s defense has yielded a whopping 1,320 points — an average of 440 points a season. How bad is that? That’s more points than the Dolphins allowed during their 1-15 campaign back in 2007 (437 points). As a matter of fact, the Dolphins have had only one defensive season that yielded more points than that 2007 season:
2019.
The Dolphins have allowed 400 points to be scored against them just five times in the team’s history — but two of those occasions have come in each of the last two seasons. Here is a breakdown of the worst points-allowed defensive totals in franchise history:
- 494 points (2019)
- 437 points (2007)
- 433 points (2018)
- 407 points (1967)
- 405 points (1986)
And, as a bonus, the team’s 6th worst point-allowed total is 393 points, which was conceded in . . . (drumroll, please) . . . 2017.
Miami’s last three seasons have each been among the six worst seasons in team history in regard to keeping opposing teams off the board. Which makes the team’s staunch commitment to the defensive side of the football this offseason such a refreshing approach. Yes, it could have been easy to point to the Dolphins’ improvements after yielding nearly 100 points in the first two games of the season and suggesting that Miami didn’t need to overhaul the entire group. But in reality, they did — because you don’t get this poor of a result year over year without there being significant issues at hand.
And so the Dolphins did sign Shaq Lawson, Emmanuel Ogbah, Kyle Van Noy, Elandon Roberts, Kamu Grugier-Hill and Byron Jones in free agency ahead of spending half of their top-100 picks in the 2020 NFL Draft on another cornerback, a defensive lineman and a hybrid safety. The Dolphins surprised with their draft day execution of passing on running backs and wide receivers in favor of Raekwon Davis, Noah Igbinoghene and Brandon Jones. But if you were a defensive coach on the tail end of your team’s darkest stretch of defensive play, wouldn’t you want to get it right, too?
It’s clear the Dolphins did. And at the very least the end result should be to pull Miami out of the dark ages and give this defense an identity and a fighting chance.