The tank! It’s working! The Miami Dolphins have not made a single public acknowledgement of flushing the 2019 NFL season down the drain — but the writing is on the wall. It’s quite clear that the Dolphins are hitting a hard reset button and that decision will bring hopes and dreams of a sudden infusion of blue chip talent to help drastically change the trajectory of the franchise.
And although the methods are frowned upon, there’s nothing preventing a rebuilding team from taking their lumps and starting over. The 2019 Dolphins? They’ve got a lot of lumps.
And don’t look now, but the approach seems to be progressing as hoped for. While Dolphins fans and media wring their hands about other winless teams (there are a bunch of them after Week 3), none have been as historically bad as the Dolphins. And although the Dolphins may steal a win or two somewhere along the way with bad teams on their schedule — ultimately this team is grossly overmatched by design and it’s hard to envision any other result than the Dolphins holding the top pick.
ESPN’s FPI (Football Power Index) has new odds outlining the projected 2020 NFL Draft order. And good news, Dolphins fans — the team sits atop the projection by a wide margin.
FPI ran 10,000 simulations of the remaining contests on the NFL schedule — Miami’s average draft position was 1.4 in the order, with the next closest team being the Washington Redskins. They ranked an average draft position of 6.0 in the order. In all, FPI gives the Dolphins a 76.6% chance of finishing with the top pick — no other team in the NFL has greater than Washington’s 4.6%.
So relax, Dolphins fans. Miami may not sit first yet — but it’s a long season and there’s a lot of football left to be played. For the Dolphins — it’ll all be bad enough to secure the prize in mind, the #1 overall pick of 2020.
