Here’s the good news, Dolphins fans. Anyone who wants to make a quick $1,200 can do so by throwing a hundred bucks on the Miami Dolphins to make the playoffs in 2019. The bad news? You won’t find longer odds in the entire NFL. The Dolphins are in pretty isolated territory, too — only the Arizona Cardinals join Miami with odds exceeding +1000 to make it to the postseason.
This isn’t necessarily that surprising — Vegas has been unkind to the Dolphins all offseason and an appraisal of Miami’s tough opening month of the season plus the overall talent on the roster is easy to be skeptical of. Any success the Dolphins experience in 2019 is more likely to be seen on the field but not necessarily in the win column.
Any team hoping to make the postseason should target 10 wins as the objective — 10+ win teams have missed the playoffs 21 times since the league switched to a 16-game schedule. The New York Jets were the last team to miss the postseason with 10 wins, back in 2015. (You hate to see it.)
And so not only do the Dolphins need to see development from their players, they need to improve their win total from 2018 by 3 games despite grossly overachieving in the win-loss column last season. The Dolphins won 7 games despite being 26th in scoring offense, 27th in scoring defense, -5 in turnover differential, 24th in penalty yardage and being one Miami Miracle away from failing to surpass 200 yards passing in 10 of their 16 contests.
The odds of that happening? Pretty long. Hence the long playoff odds.
