In September, the Miami Dolphins entered the 2024 season with legitimate Super Bowl aspirations and were viewed as a top team in the AFC. Fast-forward three months, and they are on track to miss the playoffs and potentially end the year below .500.
On paper, it is easy to see what went wrong with the Dolphins' season. Tua Tagovailoa's four-game absence with a concussion set them back for an entire month, and they never recovered. As a result, the Dolphins are just 6-8 through 15 weeks with multiple bad losses on their record.
Tagovailoa was not the only Dolphins player to get hurt; Terron Armstead, Bradley Chubb, and Kendall Fuller also missed time. While it is easy to chalk up a lost season to injuries, there was more that went wrong along the way.
Tua Tagovailoa
Regardless of any other issue, Tagovailoa's injury was the biggest factor in the Dolphins' regression. While it is hard to blame a player for an injury, there are only a few ways Miami's season could have been worse.
In the four games Tagovailoa sat out, the Dolphins went just 1-3 while being arguably the league's worst offense during that time. Fans criticized Tyreek Hill, De'Von Achane and Jaylen Waddle for failing to show up in his absence. Either way, no team will succeed without its leader.
Since returning from injury, Tagovailoa has accepted responsibility for his absence. He recognizes that his best ability is his availability, and taking himself out for four games by diving head-first into a tackle was not the smartest move. He chalks it up to aggression and his competitive nature, but in a game that was already out of hand, a franchise quarterback — particularly one with his injury history — simply cannot make that play.
Management also deserves some of the blame for how his injury impacted the team. Through 2024, Tagovailoa has played in just two full seasons, going back to his freshman year at Alabama. That kind of reputation needs to be accounted for. Instead, when he suffered another head injury, Miami was distinctly unprepared. A handful of backup quarterbacks around the league have extensive starting experience, giving no reason why the Dolphins were not a team with one of them on their roster.
To his credit, Tagovailoa has learned from the injury and finally began to slide at the end of his scrambles. Hopefully that limits his injury risk in 2025. Unfortunately, it came a little too late for the Dolphins' 2024 playoff hopes.
Liam Eichenberg
An offense as explosive as the Dolphins' starts up front, where they have been mostly solid under Mike McDaniel. They still have a few glaring weaknesses, primarily at guard, beginning with fourth-year Liam Eichenberg.
In a unit anchored by Armstead and receiving solid play from Kendall Lamm and Aaron Brewer, the Dolphins bleed pressure up the middle. That falls on the shoulders of Eichenberg and Robert Hunt, with the former ceding most of the pressure.
Eichenberg has just a 51.5 overall grade from PFF, making him one of the lowest-rated guards in the league. In Week 15, Eichenberg received a horrendous team-low 29.5 pass-blocking grade from PFF, per PFF's Ryan Smith on X, formerly Twitter.
Eichenberg has struggled all season long. When he is not struggling against pass rushers, he often stumbles over his own feet and fails to give De'Von Achane any space. His lack of footwork prevents him from pulling effectively, further causing Achane issues on outside runs.
The Dolphins' guard issues have existed for several years but stand out like a sore thumb in 2024. With elite tackles on the perimeter, Miami's interior problem must be addressed in the offseason.
Jaylen Waddle
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When the Dolphins' offense gets going in 2024, they still look as good as they have under McDaniel. The issue has been consistency, which no player on the team has been able to maintain.
Fans have focused their complaints on Hill and Jaylen Waddle, the team's star duo. The criticism has been deserved, as both players are on track to end the year with disappointing numbers. Hill is in for the biggest regression, going from 1,799 receiving yards and 13 touchdowns in 2023 to just 805 yards and five touchdowns through 15 weeks in 2024.
As the bigger star, Hill has taken the brunt of the beatings from fans and media. Yet, there is a solid reason to believe that at 30 years old, a player whose game relies on as much speed and athleticism as Hill would experience an athletic decline. The same cannot be said for the 26-year-old Waddle, who should only be entering his best years.
After a strong Week 1, Waddle fell off a cliff in the following weeks. A lot of that had to do with Tagovailoa's injury, which many understood. However, once the star signal-caller returned to the lineup, Waddle's numbers did not. The Alabama product has topped 100 yards just twice in 2024 and has frustratingly been on and off the injury report all season long.
Even in some of Tagovailoa's best games, Waddle has not been a part of it. He has been held beneath 50 receiving yards in eight of his 14 games — 57 percent — in 2024. If he had not already earned a reputation in the league, his box scores would make any unsuspecting fan believe he is the third option on a weak passing offense.
At the beginning of the year, the Dolphins had a solid case of owning the best receiving corps in the league. With just a couple of games remaining in the season, that could not be further from the truth.
