After a promising offseason that saw the Dolphins acquire both Brandon Marshall and Karlos Dansby, many thought the team that finished 7-9 in 2009 would be a serious contender to challenge for the AFC East title in 2010.
The season seemed to be off to a strong start after winning their first two games, including a down-to-the-wire victory over the Vikings (who at the time were still considered one of the best teams in the NFL.) The Dolphins finished with the league’s worst home record 1-7, and to add insult to injury (or more accurately injury to insult) in the Dolphins only home win, they watched both of their quarterbacks go down to injury.
Ultimately, the Miami Dolphins lost their last three games to finish with their second consecutive 7-9 season. Despite some promising building blocks, the Dolphins are going to need to make some additions if they want to challenge the Patriots and Jets for AFC East supremacy. Let’s take a look at their primary areas of need.
Running Back
2010 was the year that the Wildcat was figured out. After finishing 4th in total rushing in 2009, the Dolphins ended this season ranked 21st overall. What is worse news than that? Ronnie Brown and Ricky Williams – who made up 99.17% of the Dolphins rushing attempts – are both slated to be unrestricted free agents. Given their less than stellar performance in 2010, it seems unlikely that both will be back.
Ricky Williams, 33, seems pretty close to re-retiring to the exotic places he is so fond of considering; he played fewer snaps this year (481) than in his two previous years. Ronnie Brown, 29, is young enough to still have some gas left in the tank, but after finishing third to last in average yards after contact (backs with 100+ rushing attempts) you have to wonder if injuries are catching up to him.
It’s possible the Dolphins could target a running back in the draft, but two good free agent options are Ahmad Bradshaw and DeAngelo Williams. Bradshaw is one of the more complete backs in the NFL; he’s great in pass protection (+10.5) and is an incredibly tough runner finishing with 42 forced missed tackles, more than Ronnie Brown and Ricky Williams combined. DeAngelo Williams is coming off of two injury-shortened seasons, but has simply been incredible when healthy. Williams finished as PFF’s top overall back in 2008 and could return to form and be a dynamic player for the Dolphins if they could pick him up.
Interior Offensive Line
If you aren’t Richie Incognito (+6.5) and you play on the interior line for the Dolphins, you didn’t have a great year in 2010. To Miami's credit they locked up Incognito for another three years after the season ended, but the problems lie elsewhere. Though running back was discussed as the Dolphins’ primary need, one of their major issues was that – other than Incognito – none of the Dolphins’ interior lineman finished with a positive run grade: John Jerry (-8.8), McQuistan (-2.5), and Joe Berger (-0.8).
Jerry and Berger are players who will possibly be returning to the starting lineup, though Incognito is expected to be given every opportunity to take Berger’s center spot. In a limited sample size, however, Incognito rated lower in his 139 snaps playing at center (-2.4).
The Dolphins will probably use the draft to fill some of their needs at interior line, but if they decide to go the free agency route a good place to start would be resigning Incognito who we have ranked as the 9th best available interior lineman.
Quarterback
With few exceptions – and we’re talking historic exceptions – teams just do not win championships without a great quarterback. Is Henne that quarterback? It’s probably not time to close the book on Henne yet, but his 2010 season did not live up to the expectations many had for him. It would be unfair to say that Henne played awful – we had him rated as the 18th best quarterback last year, not bad, but not exactly a guy on pace to be great. He threw more interceptions than touchdowns and finished with a mediocre 75.4 passer rating. For his career, Henne is 13-14 so it is not unreasonable for the Dolphins to be looking for a quarterback.
Chad Pennington (now this is a book that should certainly be closed and not reopened) has likely sealed the end of his career with a torn ACL in an offseason basketball game. Even if he does return in the optimistic time frame being thrown around, he and Tyler Thigpen are both free agents, so this position is completely in flux for the Dolphins. Thigpen played well enough for the Dolphins to consider bringing him back as their backup.
After bringing in Brian Daboll as their new offensive coordinator for the 2011 season, what the Dolphins decide to do at quarterback should be interesting to watch. Since none of the available free agent quarterbacks are better options than Henne, whether or not the Dolphins take a quarterback early in the draft should be an early indication of how Daboll feels about Henne as the future face of the team.
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