Why Your Team Sucks 2024: Miami Dolphins

Some people are fans of the Miami Dolphins. But many, many more people are NOT fans of the Miami Dolphins. This 2024 Defector NFL team preview is for those in the latter group. Read all the previews so far here.

Your team: Miami Dolphins.

I bring the pressure to my own Frankfurt whenever I watch an erotic thriller. HEY-OOOOOOO!

Your 2023 record: 11-6. Most unstoppable team in the NFL. For three weeks. Oh, but what weeks they were! The Dolphins scored more points than any other team in the AFC, and racked up 130 of them in those first three games alone. That mini-streak was capped off with a 70-burger against Denver that had naïve fans (that’s you) thinking, “Oh my God! It’s the Greatest Show On Turf All Over Again! They may never lose another game!”

And then they went to Buffalo and got waxed by four touchdowns.

The Dolphins would defeat a winning team only once after that Bills fiasco. A hobbled Jalen Hurts beat the brakes off of them. The Chiefs beat them in Germany thanks to some tricky lateral business. And they blew a two-touchdown lead in the final five minutes to mayonnaise-scented wunderkind Will Levis and the Titans.

Along the way, injuries piled up. The Fins’ best wideout got hurt. Both of their lightspeed running backs got hurt. Their best pass rusher tore his Achilles, and their second-best pass rusher tore his ACL just a few weeks later. By the time these guys were assigned to Kansas City for a Wild Card ice bowl against the defending champs, everyone knew they were more done than Jim Nantz’s breakfast. The Chiefs dispatched them with ease, in a game that I had to subscribe to Peacock for. Roger Goodell, I will shit in your laundry. A playoff game. On Peacock. Jesus fucking Christ.

Your coach: Mike McDaniel, who’s so busy drawing up pre-snap motions for his receivers that he can’t seem to hire a defensive coordinator worth a shit. McDaniel’s first attempt at filling the position was Josh Boyer. Boyer sucked, so McDaniel fired him and brought in name-brand DC Vic Fangio to replace him. Fangio sucked, AND all of his players hated him. So McDaniel fired him, and now turns to former Ravens DL coach Anthony Weaver to figure out a way to stop opposing teams from passing for 400 yards. Do you have any faith that Weaver will be The One True DC here? Or are you like me and already primed for McDaniel to offer Gregg Williams the gig four months from now? I think you know the answer.

Your quarterback: Tua Tagovailoa, who joins Trevor Lawrence and Jordan Love in the “I guess they’re worth $50-plus million a year?” QB club. The Dolphins have been searching for a proper successor to Dan Marino for my entire adulthood. Tagovailoa is, by no small margin, the best of them. Has he won a playoff game yet? No. Does he have a rather alarming capacity to turn the ball over when under duress? Yes. Would a team as hard-up for good QB play have extended this man instead of trading him before his brain melted into a briny slush? Nope.

But Tagovailoa has the distinction of being Not Cleo Lemon, so the Dolphins had to pay him. This means Miamians are gonna sit here for another four goddamn years arguing with one another over whether he’s the answer. They’ll have four more forgettable playoff losses to help them decide.

Your backups are Mike White and Skylar Thompson. Given the Dolphins’ recent injury history, you’ll see both of these men under center before December.

What’s new that sucks: Same as last year, McDaniel will conjure up lots of big-ass plays for WR Tyreek Hill, WR Jaylen Waddle, RB Raheem Mostert, and RB De’Von Achane to distract you from the rot that permeates every other facet of this roster. Yes, the Dolphins signed Odell Beckham as a WR3 this offseason, but do you really think that matters? Odell’s catch was a literal decade ago, and Ron DeSantis could outrun him these days. As far as I’m concerned, Odell retired the moment his ACL tore in the Super Bowl.

Elsewhere in Miami, churn abounded all offseason. Gone on defense are EDGE Andrew Van Ginkel, DT Christian Wilkins, LB Jerome Baker, franchise great Xavien Howard, and DT Raekwon Davis. Here to fill the resulting void are PSU rookie Chop Robinson, plus free agents in CB Kendall Fuller, ageless wonder Calais Campbell, S Marcus Maye, LBs Anthony Walker and Jordyn Brooks, and former Bills All-Pro Jordan Poyer. If you try hard, which I won’t, you can imagine these new arrivals joining forces with Bradley Chubb (still on PUP) and Jaelan Phillips (cleared to play after snapping his Achilles) to keep this defense respectable. But even Dolphins fans will tell you that Wilkins was the one who made this unit work, and now he’s gone to Vegas for a fat payday and a poolside cabana. This defense is worse, and the AFC is still the AFC. There’s a reason that Shaquil Barrett retired right after signing here, you know.

The big names on offense remain, but the Dolphins still find themselves unable to cobble together an O-line that gives Tagovailoa more than 0.3 seconds to go through his progressions. C Connor Williams left in free agency, and Miami attempted to replace them with Aaron Brewer, who is worse by every conceivable metric. That means that, despite all of the roster shuffling I just outlined above, we’re left with a team that’s vulnerable in the exact same ways it was a year ago. Depth is nowhere to be found. Injuries are inevitable. Opposing offenses will feast. Aside from the Cowboys, no team in the league plays below expectations as consistently as this one.

Tyreek Hill’s house burned down because he lets his kids play with fire. He fired his divorce lawyer for having the gall to file divorce papers. Then he bragged to Kay Adams that he could beat gold medalist Noah Lyles in a foot race. The Dolphins just gave this man another $65 million guaranteed.

What has always sucked: You know these stats already, but I’m here to kick you while you’re down. The Dolphins haven’t won a playoff game since 2000. They haven’t won a Super Bowl in 50 years. Like the 49ers, Cowboys, Raiders, and Commanders, the Dolphins have generations of fans who have never been to the mountaintop, but aren’t allowed to complain about it. It’s not my fault that your organization ate its dessert before eating dinner. If you wanted to see the glory days of 17-0, your parents should have fucked decades earlier.

And don’t But Drew, my parents would have been too young! me. You live in Florida. Forced child marriages will be enshrined into law a month from now in your state. You people aren’t Americans. You are an anthropological curiosity. Centuries from now, archaeologists will salvage relics of your civilization from a dried-out Everglades and marvel at this bizarre, insular culture where school was forbidden, homosexuality was punishable by Morgan Wallen concert tickets, and Mercury Morris was considered a winning personality. Everything I just said presumes that Floridians will soon go extinct. I assure you that, in terms of their import to the rest of American society, they already have. Only the Le Batard Show cares about you, Florida. Fuck Ron DeSantis with gun.

What might not suck: They’ll be fun as shit to watch. Make these Dolphins the Thursday night team every week and I wouldn’t complain for a second.

HEAR IT FROM DOLPHINS FANS!

Eric:

I am 41 years old and every one of my passwords is a variation of Marino because... Fuck. 

Mike:

I've been a Dolphins fan for 25 years and these last few years the Dolphins have been the best I have ever seen. They haven't won shit.

Jack:

The last time this team made it to the Super Bowl I was still a year away from starting kindergarten. I had a longer entry typed out, but deleted it to just say this.

Marc:

Cheetah motion scored us ~100 points in two games until the rest of the league figured out our gimmick.

Manuel:

Since the Dolphins last won a playoff game:

-The Heat have won three titles, played in another four Finals, and have become the most loved team in the area.

-The Panthers have emerged as one of the best run, most stable franchises in the NHL, punctuated by a title this year. They have suddenly becomes darlings for a bunch of people who have never seen ice in their lives.

-Inter Miami has acquired Messi.

-The Marlins, who may or may not exist anymore, somehow won a title despite being the Marlins.

The Dolphins are shit. They may score 70 on sad-sack Denver, but once the temperature drops below 80 or a team .500 shows up, they shrink like George Constanza’s ding dong in a pool. Fuck Mike McDaniel. Next time he calls a fade to the 20th string tight end, I will personally take a shit on his fancy Jordans

John:

Is there still a Jets rivalry? Do we still inexplicably beat the Pats at home? Do either of these things matter now? Does this team matter now? I'm convinced that at any moment someone is going to look at Tua funny and he will evaporate into a fine red mist. I don't want to be watching when it happens, so I don't watch.

Kyle:

After Tua's horrific concussion troubles the year prior, I bargained with every god imaginable to just let him stay healthy in 2023. Naturally, the monkey’s paw ensured that everyone else would get hurt weeks 15-18. They finally have a legitimate offense for the first time since Marino and that dumb half-season of the Wildcat, but they can't play a lick of defense when it matters.

Fuck Bills fans crying about the sun existing. Fuck Stephen Ross with a $280 Lobster Roll.

Nick:

People have asked me hundreds of times why I’m a Dolphins fan, and I genuinely can’t answer them. Fuck Jimmy Johnson’s shellacked hair. Fuck Nick Saban, and then step over his broken body as a sign of leadership. 

Mike:

I had the privilege of seeing AI pictures, again and again, of Tua stealing Taylor Swift from Patrick Mahomes before we lost to the Chiefs.

Now, as we look ahead to 2024, we’ve decided to continue doing that one trick that definitely didn't get exposed against competent defenses. This whole plan hinges on Terron Armstead, who starts in theory only. Backing him up is Kendall Lamm, which is a great name for someone being led to the slaughter.

All of this is to say that: any excitement watching the offense has instead been replaced by a creeping dread. Every week that Tua plays a complete game will make the next hit he takes feel that much worse. We're not safe. We'll never be safe.

Fuck Brian Hartline.

Chad:

As a 12-year old in 1992, I heard many stories about this incredible team “only 20 years ago” that went undefeated.  I was so proud to inherit this franchise as my own.  Fast forward 32 fucking years and literally nothing has happened since. 

Dan the Man was too busy knocking up his housekeeper to ever get back to a Super Bowl.  Beginning in the late 90’s, they made the playoffs five straight seasons and lost those games by an AVERAGE score of 33-3. They hired Nick Saban and I heard from a trusted source that on his first day, his secretary said good morning to him and he had a staffer tell that woman to never speak to him again unless he spoke to her first.  They then signed Culpepper over Brees.  Then they paid Bill Parcells to use his name, image and likeness while he golfed every day. Then they paid Jay Cutler to come down here and throw the ball wherever he felt like it. They love signing players accused of domestic violence. Every September, when they beat an actual AFC contender whose players are all suffering from heat stroke while playing in this unlivable climate, the Dol-Fan’s (South Florida’s MAGA contingent) all come out talking about how this is the year.  I hate this franchise with the force of 1,000 suns.

Pablo:

Look up a highlight reel of Dan Marino. It will consist of some variation of him barely pulling the football behind his ear before launching it into Earth’s upper atmosphere, where it will complete two full orbits before coming down into the outstretched hands of his intended receiver nine yards deep into the endzone. Since then, this team has had more starting quarterbacks than your uncle has brought girlfriends to Thanksgiving dinner.

They would roll out Tua onto the field in a motorized wheelchair if they thought it would lead to a coveted 9-8 record.

Half of the University of Miami’s fanbase consists of locals who were either too dumb or too poor to attend.

Dylan:

Our former shutdown corner has been sending his humpy-time videos to the kids of the women he’s banging. Our coach is one more playoff loss away from being a “refreshing change of pace” to being “unable to lead men.”

Zach:

The main highlight of every Dolphins game is Tyreek Hill doing something that makes me say something like, "Yeah he sure is fast!" so as to not think about the deal they've made to have that awful guy on their team. It's one thing to make a Faustian bargain, but the thing about Faust is that got more for selling his soul than a consistent Wild Card Round loss. 

I'm still reeling by the fact they tried to motivate players in 2021 by bringing them to the Bay of Pigs Memorial.

David:

I look forward to these every year because it means football is close. With that said, I fucking hate my Miami Dolphins.

We have the NFL's longest active playoff win drought. TWENTY THREE YEARS. In a league famous for parity, how the hell do you go a quarter of a century without winning a playoff game? HOW? 

Do you want the script for this year? Easy. It's Week 10, and the Dolphins are leading the division by two games. The Bills have dropped a couple gimmes early on because Josh Allen has the accuracy of a drunk darts player at closing time. The Jets are playing .500 ball because Aaron Rodgers is 40 years old. And the Patriots are starting Drake Mayonnaise.

Then Tua gets hurt, or Tyreek gets hurt, or our entire O-line gets hurt, and this team just fucking crumbles like a wobbling Jenga tower. The Bills overtake us for the division on the last day of the season after Josh Allen scores the winning touchdown and gives our sideline the finger. We eke into the playoffs as the seven seed and promptly get blown out somewhere cold like KC, Buffalo, or Baltimore. Every year, it's the same script. I'm so sick of it. 

My poor fiancé has to deal with me being a miserable fuck from September to January. She is a pediatrician, deals with sick children every single day of her life, and I'm pretty sure I'm a bigger baby than any of her patients. Fuck the Dolphins.

Mike McDaniel is funny though.

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