đ The Touchdown Collective - Built for January? Part I: Miami Dolphins
Keeping you ahead of the game, one play at a time
How the NFL really works when the lights get cold
As part of my off-season schedule for The Touchdown Collective Iâve created âBuilt for January?â â a 10âpart look at teams across the NFL and asking whether they have what it takes for play-off football.
In todayâs Touchdown Collective, I take a look at the Miami Dolphins and how things which might work in September donât necessarily translate to January football.
So, with all that being said, letâs dive inâŠ
The Dolphins play a brand of football that can look unstoppable in September. But January isnât September.
Speed is Miamiâs superpower. Motion, spacing, timing â everything they do on offense is designed to stretch defenses until something breaks. Itâs a choreography of leverage and angles, a system which forces defenders to choose between being wrong quickly or being wrong slowly.
In a dome, it can be devastating. On home turf with the warm September weather in Florida, it can feel unfair on visiting teams. When Miami controls the environment, they control the game.
But January football compresses the field. Weather affects timing. Wind disrupts precision. Cold punishes finesse.
The Dolphinsâ structure is elegant, but elegance doesnât always survive the cold. The post-season asks offenses to win in ways that arenât always comfortable â with power, with patience and with an ability to grind through possessions that donât unfold cleanly.
When the script is intact and on plan, the Dolphins can overwhelm you. The question is, what happens when the script gets wet, muddy, or frozen?
Mike McDaniels found that out to his cost last season.
What happened was they lost games at home early in the campaign, which made their season a nightmare. Below are the Dolphinsâ home results for the first half of last season.
Week 2: 33-27 loss to Patriots
Week 4: 27-21 win over Jets
Week 6: 29-27 loss to Chargers
Week 9: 28-6 loss to Ravens
Three defeats in four games when the elements are in your favour for your brand of football isnât a great start in anybodyâs book.
Now, they did play a team who reached the Super Bowl, a play-off team and the Ravens with Lamar Jackson fit and firing, so obviously none of those were games where the Dolphins would have been huge favouritesâŠ
And they werenât in Week 10 against the Bills at home either, but won that one comfortably 30-13. So consistency is something that needs to be worked on in a major way.
Their challenge isnât talent. Itâs translation. Can their speed become power? Can their timing become adaptability? And can their system win when the field shrinks and the game becomes less about design and more about resolve? January football forces teams to reveal their second identity â the one that emerges when the first one is taken away.
New head coach Jeff Hafley spoke on the Dolphins roster and his plans for it at the Combine last week â and it seems he is aware that changes are needed to the base of operations.
He said: âBetween free agency, the draft and the good pieces that we have right now, the whole goal is to build a really strong foundation and we have a shared vision for that. I've kind of noted that.
âIt's one of the reasons that I wanted to come here with the relationship that I have with him [General Manager Jon-Eric Sullivan] and us talking really over the last two years of what it will look like.
âSo I think it's exciting and that would be the best way that I can describe it, having a chance to kind of really build a strong foundation together with a shared vision. Some could look at it in certain ways; I look at it as really exciting.â
The Dolphins seem to know who they are â or at least who they want to be â in September. January asks who they can become.
They are built to terrify teams. But until their offense proves it can win when the game gets muddy, theyâre not built for January.
đ© Who am I? Iâm Michael Ham, the Daily Star Sunday and Sunday Express Sports Editor â and an avid NFL fan. I have almost 20 years of experience in sports news journalism and Iâm the writer behind The Touchdown Collective.
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