The Bar Has Been Set Higher For These Miami Dolphins

Raise your hand if you thought that the Miami Dolphins would be 6-3 after 9 games in the 2020 season. I do not want to see a single hand up.

Before this season started, I had the Miami Dolphins at 7-9 before the season started. My win predictions were: @Patriots, @Jags, vs. Chargers, vs. Rams, vs. Bengals, and sweep the Jets.

Did you expect the Dolphins to go up to San Francisco and beat the NFC Champions before the season started? I didn’t.

Did you see expect the Dolphins to travel out west to beat Kyler Murray and the Cardinals, traveling out west? Nope.

3-1 against the NFC West? The best division in football? Not a chance that I would’ve predicted that.

I got the road game against New England wrong. I was expecting the Denver Broncos to be challenging the Chiefs for the division, not the Raiders.

I was expecting the Dolphins to have an improved defense with signing Byron Jones, Emmanuel Ogbah, and Kyle Van Noy, but not in the top 5 in scoring defense.

There were questions about how Tua Tagovailoa would look when he would be inserted as the starter. Nobody knew which week it would be neither.

Here’s one thing that is going to go our way down the stretch. A last-place schedule. Only 2 games out of your schedule a year depending on your record from the previous year. This year, the Dolphins got the AFC South Jaguars and the AFC North Cincinnati Bengals on their schedule. They took care of the first one with Jacksonville on Thursday night football in week 3, and the Bengals as a team are struggling despite Joe Burrow looking good, we got them in week 13 at home. If the season ended today, Miami would face Baltimore at home and the Raiders on the road in 2021 due to Miami finishing 2nd in the division.

The Jets are a freaking mess, I don’t have to tell you that. I don’t know if they will even win a game.

That means, with the Dolphins at 6-3, a favorable schedule in the next few weeks, having a defense in the top 5 in scoring and the offense in the top 10, the bar has been set higher now for this season.

This 4 game stretch after beating Kyler Murray was something everybody on DolphinsTalk was talking about, going at least 3-1 or 4-0 in the next 4 games. We got the first one done, defeating the Los Angeles Chargers. The next 3 are very very winnable: @ Broncos, @ Jets, vs. Bengals.

December will be tough, but a 2-2 finish would be something that many Dolphins fans will take. I am not saying we’ll beat the Chiefs, and it might be freezing cold in Buffalo in December with a chance to win the division, but never say never. However, the Dolphins did beat the Bills in Buffalo in week 16 in 2016, but that was a Rex Ryan coached team. This 2020 Buffalo team is a lot better.

Think about where this team was last year after starting 0-7. What a turnaround it’s been. The Dolphins have a coach, a potential franchise QB, a dominant defense and special teams, and in full control of their destiny to win the AFC East. Control your games, and things will fall in place.

So what are your expectations now for the Dolphins to finish the season? Mine is 10-6 or 11-5. Something I never thought I would say mid way through the 2020 season.

Let us know what your expectations are, it is something that I have conversed with a few Dolphins fans, and it’s crazy that a lot of us went from huge pessimism to optimism in a span of 18 months.

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