Dave Hyde: Dolphins spent three years rebuilding the same mediocre team they tore down

You tin consciousness the shot play shutting depressingly down now. This ever happens aft the Miami Dolphins are eliminated from the playoffs, each mendacious anticipation and fool’s golden gone.

Another end. Another mess. There’s ever immoderate crippled similar Sunday’s 34-3 nonaccomplishment to Tennessee, wherever world slaps the backmost of the Dolphins’ fans head, similar a Three Stooges scene, and everyone sees however things truly are.

There whitethorn person been worse season-enders than this 1 against Tennessee.

Name one.

This didn’t conscionable ended a season. It ended the schedule-inflated seven-game triumph streak. It ended a three-year Ponzi strategy of a plan, too. Conclusions are in. They aren’t pretty.

General manager Chris Grier blew it drafting backmost Tua Tagovailoa implicit Justin Herbert.

This discourtesy constructed with big, costly parts scored less points (19.3) than the 2018 discourtesy led by Jay Cutler (19.9) that led to the rebuild.

The Dolphins, astatine 8-8, spent 3 years re-constructing the aforesaid mean squad they truthful gleefully tore down.

They play boring football, too. That’s subjective, I know. But, travel on, this is mind-numbing stuff.

What a plan. What a joke. If you ticker this benignant of play capable done the years, you tin get aggravated for what they’ve done to the Dolphins.

It’s not conscionable this regime. They’re conscionable the latest. That’s adjacent said with an appreciation for the pugnacious benignant and disciplined marque of Dolphins manager Brian Flores.

But for anyone who was astir backmost erstwhile this franchise won, backmost erstwhile the question successful immoderate play was however acold they’d spell successful the playoffs, this twelvemonth was simply an add-on to 2 decades of watching a well-tailored, well-groomed idiosyncratic crook into a bum.

It’s embarrassing. Down determination with the Titanic wreck, down with the New Coke formula, sits this latest Dolphins’ rebuilding plan. What adjacent was the program successful retrospect? Tanking? Hitting connected draught picks? Did they truly travel either well?

Tanking, arsenic I wrote astatine the start, is astir the dumbest program you tin person successful sports. The Dolphins didn’t adjacent bash it right. The beforehand bureau tanked. The manager didn’t.

The beforehand bureau traded distant endowment for draught picks. The manager refused to suffer to Cincinnati successful the second-to-last crippled of 2019 erstwhile LSU backmost Joe Burrow was the prize.

There was Burrow precocious Sunday afternoon, smoking a cigar aft lifting a unspeakable Cincinnati franchise to the playoffs. There was Flores talking astir not making the playoffs again.

“Disappointing,’ helium called it implicit and over.

Here’s different enactment written 3 years ago: The franchise that’s truthful dumb it has to vessel for a backmost is excessively dumb to physique astir him. Proof?

It looks atrocious capable contiguous to person passed connected Herbert to draught Tagovailoa. That’s the benignant of determination that gets radical fired. What compounds it is the Dolphins didn’t springiness Tua a warring chance.

The violative enactment was built with costly draught picks. Is determination immoderate wide keeper beyond defender Robert Hunt?

The receivers are roster-fillers beyond Jaylen Waddle. He’s everything you could anticipation for arsenic a rookie. He besides wasn’t the big-play receiver the Dolphins could person taken successful Mike Pitts and particularly Ja’Marr Chase.

Oh, the defence looks great. At slightest it looked large against the mostly backup quarterbacks successful that seven-game triumph streak. But determination was Tennessee manager Mike Vrabel telling his squad aft it ran for 198 yards connected the Dolphins, “The astir carnal squad won. And we didn’t crook the shot over, and they conscionable kept giving to america and we kept taking it from them.”

Three much years wasted. That’s the taxable arsenic this play heads to a finale against New England. The Patriots’ Bill Belichick rebuilt his squad to the playoffs successful 1 year. Cincinnati did nether Burrow’s 2 years. The Los Angeles Chargers stay live for the playoffs with Herbert carrying them this past Sunday of the regular season.

Once upon a time, this was the champion clip to beryllium a Dolphins fan, January with the playoffs connected the calendar. Now it’s conscionable a clip to commencement laying blame.

It’s not conscionable different play shutting down now. It’s this latest, three-year plan. It stunk. It sunk. They’ve officially rebuilt the mediocre squad they tore down 3 years ago.