Miami is 0-4 and has scored 46 points, and our model has the Dolphins at two wins with the season already pointed at the draft
Updated
Miami went to Minnesota and lost 15-10 in a game the Dolphins defense played well enough to win, and fell to 0-4. The four losses have come by 14, 22, 14 and five, and the offense has scored 46 points across them, which is the lowest total in the league by some distance. When we ran the rest of the season the Dolphins came out at 2-15 with no playoff chance, which is where they sat after Week 3 and five wins below what the model projected in July, when it had Miami at seven. The slide happened in September. October has simply confirmed it.
The offense is the problem and the quarterback is the center of it. Malik Willis is 58 of 103 for 712 yards with one touchdown and two interceptions, a passer rating of 73, and has been sacked eleven times. Our model projects him for 3,370 yards and eleven touchdowns across the season, a line that would be the worst by a full-time starter in the league. De'Von Achane is gone for the year with the ACL tear from Week 3, and Ollie Gordon II has taken over the backfield at 148 yards on 29 carries and projects for 713 yards, up from 201 a week ago as the model has rerun his role. Malik Washington leads the receivers at 17 catches for 219 yards and projects for 72 and 876. Caleb Douglas has missed two games with an ankle and projects for 54 catches if he returns. The unit projects for 229 points, 31st in the league, and only Tennessee is lower.
The defense has been competitive, and Minnesota was the clearest demonstration. Miami held the Vikings to 15 and gave the offense every chance. Our model projects the unit allowing 440 points, 30th in the league, which is a harsh number for a defense that has given up 101 in four games, but it reflects a roster the model expects to wear down. Joshua Uche projects for twelve sacks and Chop Robinson for eight and a half, and Robinson's line has climbed from seven. Zach Sieler's line has climbed from three sacks to over five. Jacob Rodriguez's tackle projection has jumped from 36 to 131 as the rookie linebacker has taken over the middle. The team projects for 34 sacks, 30th. The pass rush is better than the ranking suggests. The depth behind it is not.
The division is the rest of the league's problem now. Buffalo is 3-1 and projects for eight wins. New England is 2-2 and projects for nine. The Jets are 1-3 and project for nine. Miami has lost to none of them yet, which is the strange part, and plays all six division games from here. When we ran the rest of the season the Dolphins finished last in the AFC East in every simulated year, and the two wins the model projects come from somewhere in those six games more often than anywhere else.
The next month offers no relief. Cincinnati at home at 16 percent, a bye in Week 6, a trip to the Jets at 14, New England at home at six, and Detroit at home at six. When we ran that stretch Miami went 0-4 in the large majority of simulated years, and the two home games against the Patriots and Lions are the two the model is least willing to give the Dolphins any part of. An 0-8 record entering November is the most likely path, and the two-win projection depends on the second half.
The matchup record is a team that has been outmatched rather than unlucky. We gave Miami 54 percent in Las Vegas and the Dolphins lost by 14. We gave them 34 in San Francisco and they lost by 22. We gave them 20 against Kansas City and they lost by 14. We gave them 26 in Minnesota and they lost by five. Zero wins from about one and a third expected is an underperformance, but a small one, and the only game the model had Miami favored in was the opener. It will not have the Dolphins favored in any of the next four either.
The player lines are a roster being rerun around the injuries. Willis' projection dropped from 3,586 yards to 3,370 and his touchdown line from 13 to eleven. Gordon's rushing projection climbed from 201 yards to 713 as the model priced him as the lead back for the rest of the season, the largest single-week move at the position, while Achane's remaining line is the 127 yards he had. Washington held at 72 catches. Douglas' projection dropped from 57 catches to 54 and Chris Bell's from 41 to 35. On defense, Chop Robinson's sack projection rose from 7.3 to 8.5, Sieler's from three to over five, and Jacob Rodriguez's tackle projection went from 36 to 131 as the model moved him into the middle linebacker role for good. The number to watch is the one touchdown pass. Willis has thrown one in four games, and the model's eleven-touchdown projection is the lowest for a full-time starter in the league. Until that changes, nothing else on the sheet matters much.
The market opened Miami at eight and a half wins. Our model sat a win and a half under it in July, which looked harsh. It now sits six and a half under it, which looks like the number. The slide is about a quarterback who has one touchdown pass in four games, a running back lost for the season, and an offensive line that has given up eleven sacks. The defense has been better than the record. It is not nearly enough. Two wins is the projection, and the first of them has not shown up on the schedule yet.
