Miami Dolphins May Just Receive the AFC East Crown in 2015
By Joe Wedra
It’s been a long time coming for the Miami Dolphins in the Patriot-dominated AFC East.
Since the 2001 season, the Patriots have lost the division just twice — one of those times without QB Tom Brady.
Simply put: winning a crown in 2015 won’t be easy.
At the end of the day however, you’d be mistaken if you didn’t look at the overall makeup of this roster and be somewhat impressed with what they’ve been doing. The leaders up top are making the right decisions. More importantly, they’ve locked in on “their guy” at the quarterback position, and that aspect of the 2015 outlook couldn’t be labeled as more important than it already is.
Jeff Darlington of NFL.com displayed Miami’s trust in Tannehill perfectly in his latest piece, giving a glimpse inside the beginning stages of Tannehill’s impressive new post-rookie contract deal:
"So Tannehill got there early, typical for him, on a mid-February afternoon when football was no longer in session. When Ross arrived, joined by newly hired vice president of football operations Mike Tannenbaum, the three headed to a private banquet room.“We have a plan,” Ross told Tannehill, once seated at their table. “We want you to be the face of our franchise. We want you to lead us to a championship.”"
It took trust — trust that has been earned over a significant stretch of time. Now, it’s Tannehill’s turn to rise in a similar fashion of Joe Flacco in Baltimore. With critics blanketing his back, Flacco peaked to the highest point in his career when it counted the most. For the soon to be 27-year-old Tannehill, lessons learned from the Ravens quarterback may be in order.
Give Miami credit. They didn’t get to this favorable 2015 outlook by sitting by in hopes that their roster would be able to get the job done. They had to mix it up. And while it doesn’t jump off the page, this transformation has been in the works for quite some time.
Last year, it was adding pieces like Brandon Albert, Ja’Wuan James and Louis Delmas. The year before, it was crucial defenders in Jelani Jenkins and Olivier Vernon.
Now, in this crucial offseason in their quarterback’s overall development, Miami’s help on offense was snatched out of the air.
Tannehill finally has the young weapons on offense to thrive. The defense made quiet, robust moves to bolster the unit. It’s time for both sides to finally mesh to give Miami fans the thing they’ve been longing for since the fluky 2008 season — a division crown to attribute to their quarterback of the future.