Hyde5: Five Dolphins thoughts from the Super Bowl

[BlueFin]

I don't believe they are that far away, its a matter of the right moves being made and certain player progression. Of course injuries and the bounce of the ball are always crucial as well.

The number one thing this team was lacking this year was scoring production at the receiver position, and cornerback play. If these things get corrected, Tannehill takes the next step (which I have total faith in)...I may just lay some money on a surprise season in south florida.

[hooshoops]

You don't know that yet.

yes i do...you may not but i do...i know that qb is one to believe in and that kid can play...at a very high level...

[ckparrothead]

I had the same impression, that the playoffs verified we're not even close. San Francisco and Seattle were far more advanced than we we faced them. I don't think we had another gear.

Keep in mind the whistles are swallowed in the secondary yet these teams still put up bushels of points. We have trouble scoring during the soft rules interpretation of the regular season.

I agree with Hyde that San Francisco seemed to be the better team. Among a sample of 10, I'd suspect they would win at least 7. I lost a bet on 49ers -3.5 but was thrilled the Ravens won. I'm a huge Ed Reed fan. His post game interviews on CBS and NFL Network were terrific. Last thing I wanted was 49ers to win but not cover, which nearly happened. Besides, the haters would have been out in force if the Ravens had blown that game. I could sense all the partially written threads, the ones attacking Ray Lewis. It would have been like the jubilation when Lebron James lost to the Mavericks two years ago. Lewis would have been mocked, and proclaimed the goat of the game. I don't like Lewis' post game themes, and I have no idea what his involvement was 12 years ago. But I don't like vehicles for the simplistic haters. It was marvelous when they were denied again. It's been a rough stretch for them, given the Heat title, election results, and now the Ray Lewis ringed send off.

I wouldn't put much stock in futures odds, at least not the number itself. They might be useful in teams in relation to each other, from a perception standpoint. But futures odds these days are notoriously low. You could probably double or triple every number on the back end to have a better feel for actual likelihood. Sportsbooks were burned big time by high odds on the 1987 Twins, and later the 1999 Rams. Those examples caused casino owners to demand less risk. Why give bettors 200/1 when they are willing to take 40/1 on the same team? You always have a steady stream of tourists walking into a sportsbook with their little crumbled sheet of paper, rescued from grandma's purse. Uncle Fred wants $20 on the Cubs and $20 on the Bears and $20 on the Blackhawks. You could punch out a 2/1 ticket on all three and nobody would care. They'll take it home and happily present it to Uncle Fred, who will happily accept the paperwork and root them in.

Among everything a sportsbook does, there is less sophistication in futures odds than anything else. There's no power rating that makes a team 20/1 instead of 30/1. It's merely feel, and a determination to keep everything low. Numbers move down all the time, but seldom up. Some joints never move a number up.

The sportsbooks had avoided being burned on high odds for quite a while until the Cardinals won the World Series recently. They weren't high odds to begin with, but when they were in bad shape late in the season some joints that maintain adjusted numbers assumed they had no chance and moved them way up, to 500/1 or beyond. A few guys took advantage of that and cashed big tickets. The chief Nevada oddsmaking firm sent out a related warning subsequently. A friend of mine who works in a sportsbook emailed me a copy of the memo. It basically screamed at the sportsbooks to follow the suggestions and not take things into their own hands. In other words, don't risk anything.

I think you hit the nail on the head though with how to view the odds. You view them in relation to one another, not on absolute levels. They have the Dolphins #23 or #24 in the league. The Dolphins are currently #21 in the league (by draft order), so that's about the same. Maybe even slightly down.

But it's like we just got done talking about, all through the post season we saw teams (other than perhaps the Vikings, Bengals and Colts) reach down and find an extra gear. The 49ers and Seahawks were not the same team in the playoffs that we saw when we played them. We were far away from true contention.

Is there anything structural in this off season that the Dolphins are set to have that should make them better? This is where most people would probably argue you have to take account of all the extra picks and money that the Dolphins have available to them.

But that's where I don't agree. The Dolphins have a lot of picks and they have a lot of money. But they have those picks and they have that money because of liabilities they've created. You have an extra pick because you got rid of Vontae Davis. That's a liability you've still yet to fill. You have another extra pick and about $8 million extra because you got rid of Brandon Marshall. That's another liability you have yet to fill. You have approximately $35 million more available (excluding the $8 million above, after accounting for cutting Richard Marshall and signing draft picks) because you have guys like Jake Long, Randy Starks, Sean Smith, Reggie Bush, Brian Hartline and Anthony Fasano on expiring contracts. More liabilities. That's a combination of players that are steak and sizzle. They're all at worst solid guys that will help you win games, and some of them are more than that.

If you're replacing all those guys with outside free agents, suddenly you have to face the fact that while everyone wants to pretend you get $1 return for $1 investment in free agents, since these are after all "proven" players...the reality is you're probably getting closer to 40 cents on the dollar acquiring outside free agents. You're going to sign $35 million worth of guys and chances are come out with $15 or $20 million worth of player production. And that would likely be a "good" free agent haul.

[hooshoops]

very good points about the return on your financial investments in outside free agents...definitely a roll of the dice if you plan on filling all these needs there...get yourself in trouble that way pretty easily imo...

and creating 2 holes you never filled in trading vontae and marshall...and thus far the returns on those trades have been horrid...

[Nublar7]

Yeah you have money because you are letting players walk, but aren't these the same players that have led the team to four non-winning seasons? Just because you are losing players and replacing them with others doesn't automatically mean you are worse off. Doesn't mean you are better either, but if you can get the right pieces it works. Fact is that the players that were being acquired between 2008 and 2011 are not really the same type of players you want now. They are building a Joe Philbin team now, not a Tony Sparano team. That is why we probably shouldn't be surprised that someone like Brandon Marshall was shipped out or that some of these free agents will be allowed to walk. The transition to the Philbin style started last year, and it continues this offseason. Will they be able to completely finish the rebuild this offseason? Probably not, but they realistically can put this team in the playoffs with the offseason that is set up. The Super Bowl contender they are working towards is probably a couple of offseasons away at this point.

[39wildman]

the dolphins problem to me last ten yr is offensive. when defense playing bad offensive cannot carrier load. when def playing good offensive depend on field goal and lose game. defense cannot win game by them self....offensive need wr, bess , hartline to slow. or they need draft wr to replace both within next 2 yr..but they did good job last yr. hartline number was high because we only had 2 wr. maybe te all depend if you leaves t.e in block... draft de pass rusherand 1 cb maybe ol should be set

[ckparrothead]

Yeah you have money because you are letting players walk, but aren't these the same players that have led the team to four non-winning seasons?

If the Cardinals got rid of Larry Fitzgerald, could they justify it on the basis of the above logic? The players I highlighted have been GOOD players for Miami. Winning players that help you win ball games. No, not all of them have been stars. Not most of them. One could argue, not one of them (though I'd disagree).

But the problem in Miami has not been those players playing poorly. The problem in Miami has been not enough players along side those players. You've got Mike Pouncey, Davone Bess, Cameron Wake, Paul Soliai, Kevin Burnett, Karlos Dansby, Koa Misi and Reshad Jones...but other than those guys, along with those liabilities I named, there haven't really been many other players worth a damn. And as a whole, the group lacks stars. Are you going to find that in free agency? Is there a whole lot of precedent for finding stars in free agency? Not really. So if you're not likely to find stars in free agency you're really just hoping to replace $35 million of solid players with $35 million of more solid players from other teams, knowing full well you're likely only to come out with $15 or $20 million worth of players.

I'm not suggesting what the course of action is, or that they're set to do anything wrong. I'm laying out the difficulty of the situation they're in, which is being understated right now.

[Perfect72]

When the 9ers were at the 5 yard line in the final 2, I thought to myself if this was the Miami defense that the 9ers were up against, all they would do is a QB Draw and the QB would walk in for the TD because Miami has given that easy play up for a loss maybe 6 times in the last 5 years.

SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO TRUE....Unfortunately...SO many teams do the QB Draw on the Dolphins (Except for Brady as he prefers to pad his TD pass stats).
Seems like the Dolphins are FAR away from a SB level team. BUT, you never know, Maybe Ireland will use the same camel that picked the winning SB team for his draft picks (Most believe the camel would at least not do Worse than Ireland)

[FishTank]

It's very easy to improve at 10 positions when you have quality coaching in place from one year to the next. If you believe in these coaches and the program they are building, then, yes, it's very easy to expect that we will improve at 10 positions on the roster while adding talent from both the draft and through a few free agent signings.

Will this put the Dolphins in the top 6 teams? The 49'ers did it in two short years after looking hapless. Good coaching will reveal talent even where talent deficiencies once existed.

[Fin-O]

Oops. Sorry. Yes the Bills have worse odds than Miami at 75-1.

So according to Las Vegas, Miami's odds for winning the Super Bowl rank 23rd/24th out of 32 teams.

By the way, the Jets are 30-1. With Mark Sanchez still at quarterback.

NY is going to have better odds because they will get twice the bets, Vegas factors that in every bit as much as potential.