2020
We again escape the retirement list – good news yet again. In the next few years, though, I have to think we are going to start taking some hits. We have six players with more than 12 years in the league.
We have two staff retirements – head coach Harry Prior and OC Kendall England. Prior leaves with a record of 218-82-3, with 7 championships – pretty impressive stuff, even if I did all the thinking for him. Our new coach is 17-year veteran Mel Clancy, who has a career record of 135-148-2 and has one title with the Redskins, way back in 2005. Our new OC is Darrell Cooley, and he should be excellent.
With Copeland tagged for over $9, we have 35 players signed (lower than usual) and about $4.6m in usable cap space. After a work-through of the rosters, I have $12.6 million – and an opportunity to work out a new deal with C Deon Flint that would clear up even more (but lock him to use with a big new bonus, too). So – we have at least some room to move.
Target FA to re-sign, in order or importance: WR Tito Taylor, LT Eddie Wickes, CB Mickey Sims, LB Burt Veen, T Ike Hickman, WR Sherman Pritchett, S Wesley Baskey, RB Pat Noccolino, TE Roderick Giles, P Jeremy Shaw, LB Mack Baniewicz, LB Aaron Tucker, RFA RB Bo Brwester, FB Sammy Briseno. Lots of targets – limited cash, as usual.
LT Eddie Wickes is going to be impossible, unless he gets no pursuers elsewhere. He wants a $22m signing bonus, and to be paid $16m a year. No possible way. So, I’m all but writing him off as gone. In fact, all my top players are looking for fat deals – this is going to be tougher than I had expected.
I start the FA process, and re-sign CB Mickey Sims, who should remain affordable for two, maybe three seasons. LB Burt Veen gets exactly the deal he requested – he wouldn’t accept anything different, even if it had more money up front – weird. LT Eddie Wickes has a $107 million contract on the table, but it disappears as the Rams use up their cap space elsewhere. Wow, he balked at $107 million. In the late weeks, I re-sign TE Roderick Giles (who we have to get back into the starting lineup) , but we still have a lot of unsettled guys to sort through – but that will wait until after the draft.
Since I fully expect to lose T Eddie Wickes to free agency, I figure landing a startable tackle is probably our top priority in this draft. We got Ike Hickman (also out there as a FA, but I expect to get him back) as a URFA – but I don’t want to depend on that working again. We spend our first two picks on linemen, trying to get some depth there – and I’m hoping that McCloskey will work out and slide over to play guard for us, where I could use a talent infusion.
Code:
Pick Pos Player Board Dash Sole Strg Agil Vol Draft After PostCamp
1.22 LT Marshall Goodwin 4.9 5.24 43+ 29 7.55+ 67 31/57 31/58 31/58
2.32 C Ted McCloskey 5.4 5.11 13 28 7.94 96 28/61 27/58
to LG 19/52 21/40
5.32 DE Gerald Stokes 3.5 4.98 37+ 32+ 7.67 32 29/38 30/37 31/37
7.32 LB Luke Swift 3.7 4.75+ 32 24 7.60 75 22/44 22/42 23/39
URFA QB Cary Brandon 3.6 4.62 26 13 7.85 22 19/43 18/42 21/40
URFA RB Kendrick Wiggins 2.2 4.87 22 18 7.26 3 14/23 14/22 14/20
URFA TE Stanley Hocking 3.8 5.18 29 20 8.44 29 23/43 22/42 26/37
URFA FL Deion Upshaw 3.0 4.70 11 12 7.56 92 13/34 13/33 14/31
URFA P Norman Rowe 4.8 4.99 20 12 8.25 93 34/53 31/45 33/45
URFA MLB Brett McElroy 3.7 5.05 39 26 7.66 91 17/44 17/43 17/38
The late draft picks both seemed pretty intriguing to me, but both lost some luster as soon as we got them into camp – not a great first sign. I’m not crazy about any of these URFA pickups, and am mostly looking for special teamers here. I’d like to see a surprise, but I don’t have anyone in mind, really.
In the post-draft FA market, I am shocked at how far LT Eddie Wickes’s demands have dropped – he suddenly is looking for a deal of only like $3m a year. Unbelievable! I had all but given up on him – now I’m looking g for a way to lock him up for as long as possible.
We work out new deals with WR Sherman Pritchett, RB Pat Noccolino, S Wesley Baskey, and finally LT Eddie Wickes in week 7 of 8. So, our main targets through free agency are locked up, with one exception – WR Tito Taylor. I have to go ahead and extend our deal with C Deon Flint, but that makes up the room we need to sign not only Taylor, but also T Ike Hickman and P Jeremy Shaw. So – that wraps up everything we need – having LT Eddie Wickes aboard for a new four year deal is a great surprise – how did he miss his $100 payday with the Rams?
Training camp is our spot to see the trend line for our young players. This year, we get some lousy news – looks like my second round pick is a bust, and I don’t see any breakouts on the whole list, at all. DE Gerald Stokes looks like a nice value pick, but he shouldn’t become more than a usable cheap reserve. Nothing to be too excited about here, including the top pick – who will probably become a decent RT, but not an anchor player by any means. Yawn.
We head into the season trying, for the third time, to successfully complete the “three-peat” ® of league titles. With all the subplots on the team, perhaps the most intriguing remains – when, if ever, are we going to see star production from RB Bruce Pietrzyk? My scouts still say he’s an unbelievable talent – but so far, he’s posted zero hundred yard games… even in this offense I’d think he’d come up with bigger numbers. I’m wondering if my initial fanciful thoughts of moving him to play WR might have been right on—at least he’d be getting the ball out there. Alas.
LT Eddie Wickes is showing why, perhaps, his contract demands dropped. He is hurt again – this time with a broken arm, his second of the season. If he cannot remain healthy, he’s not the bargain I thought we got. Similarly, DT Courtney Malan goes down again – another 14-week injury, and we’re scrambling again at DT. That’s a serious need area for down the road.
However, despite the injury whining, we beat Buffalo in a week four battle of unbeatens – crushing them 41-3 to take command of the division and extend to 4-0 on the year. In week six, we lose a home game to Denver, while Mel Copeland is healthy – a rarity. We play pretty well, but we are absolutely ravaged by injury – I have a waiver wire pickup out there playing at CB, since we were down to only four guys at CB/S who were not listed as “out” (that’s 5 out of 9 guys unable to even suit up). We end up a solid 12-4, but in our tough division that puts us into the wild card – not a great setup for a wounded team that really needed that week off to rest up.
Code:
Front Office Football 2004
2020 Summary for Miami Dolphins
Record: 12-4
Winning Pct.: .750
Miami Dolphins Team Rank
Rushes 344 32
Rushing Yards 1695 24
Yards Per Carry 4.92 1
Pass Attempts 630 1
Completions 393 1
Passing Yards 4350 2
Yards Per Attempt 6.90 17
3rd Down Conversions 35.3 30
Points Per Game 28.6 1
Turnovers 21 9 (T)
Turnover Margin +12 3
Opponents Team Rank
Rushes 431 10 (T)
Rushing Yards 1729 11
Yards Per Carry 4.01 12
Pass Attempts 572 31
Completions 282 1
Passing Yards 3278 3
Yards Per Attempt 5.73 1
3rd Down Conversions 40.4 13
Points Per Game 16.5 1
Turnovers 33 2 (T)
Week Team Versus Oppnt
1 42 at NYJ 23
2 22 at SFO 19
3 34 at HOU 18
4 41 BUF 3
5 28 at SDO 24
6 24 DEN 30
8 24 at KCY 5
9 34 OAK 6
10 12 at NED 17
11 19 NYJ 14
12 22 ARI 29
13 35 CLE 3
14 31 at STL 7
15 23 at BUF 30
16 35 SEA 14
17 33 NED 22
$$WC at SDO
Passing Pos Att Comp Yards Y/Att TD Int
14 Copeland QB 630 393 4350 6.90 32 12
**Team --- 630 393 4350 6.90 32 12
Rushing Pos Att Yards Y/Att TD
29 Pietrzyk RB 156 883 5.66 11
28 Brewster RB 76 373 4.90 3
14 Copeland QB 46 237 5.15 2
32 Wright RB 42 136 3.23 2
**Team --- 344 1695 4.92 18
Receiving Pos Targ Catch Yards Y/Ctc YAC TD
89 Hansen WR 117 69 1087 15.7 156 9
83 Giles TE 94 65 609 9.3 94 6
29 Pietrzyk RB 88 63 519 8.2 187 4
82 Barker WR 112 59 754 12.7 80 4
85 Taylor WR 80 47 622 13.2 79 3
27 Beyer FB 41 36 226 6.2 57 3
88 Pritchett WR 43 20 222 11.1 19 1
**Team --- 629 393 4350 11.0 733 32
Defense Pos Tack Asst Sack Hurr Ints Defn
55 Westbrook ILB 95 43 4.5 12 1 22
49 Veen OLB 79 20 6.0 10 1 6
31 Griffith S 68 35 2.0 0 2 8
71 Halpin DT 52 22 4.0 6 0 0
99 Sullivan DT 51 13 2.5 4 0 1
33 Rasmic CB 48 14 0.0 0 1 16
97 Beethoven OLB 46 17 2.5 1 1 5
47 Harper S 43 9 0.0 0 2 3
93 Maxwell OLB 39 1 3.0 2 0 2
24 Morrison CB 35 16 1.0 0 3 6
96 Summers DE 33 20 5.5 29 0 1
23 Baskey S 30 11 0.0 1 0 5
90 Castine DE 21 13 3.5 10 0 0
41 Winslett CB 20 7 0.0 1 0 0
52 Assesi OLB 18 5 0.0 0 0 0
76 Malan DT 16 6 1.5 4 0 0
**Team --- 839 278 44.0 94 19 98
There are signs all over the place that this was probably our worst season in this era. Start with Mel Copeland – perfectly nice numbers for most QB, but for him this year is a disaster – only a 91.3 passer rating. I guess we can’t complain about Pietrzyk – his 5.66 yard per carry is great, but it would be nice to see him command more than 55% of the RB carries on the team. WR Harris Hansen is developing into our top target, and topped 1,000 yards – it’s been a while since we had a wideout do so. Roderick Giles, back in as our starter, was very productive again, too.
The defense, without our best CB, SS, DT and DE, played fairly well, I guess. We remained tough against the pass (despite the patchwork secondary group we put out there) but softened against the run. DT Sammy Halpin did his best – he’s a one-trick pony run stuffer inside, and did a decent job, it seems. But he and Sullivan just aren’t top-shelf types… we really need a bigger impact player in the middle up front. We’ll try to get Courtney Malan back for the playoffs, but his injury situation is tenuous as usual. CB Emmitt Rasmic played fairly well after being pushed into starting – 16 passes defensed is a pretty good number, for only 36 catches allowed. But our team just didn’t get many picks this year – without our two best players in the secondary, it’s no real shock.
We will wait a week on CB Mickey Sims, hoping too get him up to probable. But LT Eddie Wickes and DT Courtney Malan have to come back and play hurt if we’re going to go anywhere in the playoffs.
Postseason
Miami 31, San Diego 17 – Bruce Pietrzyk has 159 total yards, and we put together a very nice effort, not making mistakes, and keeping them at bay all afternoon. Good road win to move on.
Miami 21, Buffalo 17 – Another great win, with Pietrzyk again rushing in the sealing TD. Copeland throws for 279 yards and 2 TDs in a great game – a narrow win over the division winners.
Houston 32, Miami 23 – Weird game, as we outgain the Texans slightly, and have only one turnover – but they were better on third downs and in the red zone, and came away with a fairly easy win. Harris Hansen has 146 receiving yards in the effort – but our season is done one level short of the big game.
Houston, after a 9-7 season, manages to win it all with a 31-23 win over Detroit in the Supebowl.
QB Mel Copeland manages to get the first team QB honor, despite a “down” year. P Jeremy Shaw is also a first teamer again. But that’s it for us – so many of our stars were hurt, we didn’t get a full complement of stats from most of the main contenders for awards. Tough year… might this be the beginning of the end for this team?