Dolphins’ Patchwork OL To Be Challenged Early And Often

Quick, name the five starters on the 2019 Miami Dolphins offensive line. If you had to hesitate for a moment, don’t feel bad. I can’t name all of them, either, and the coaching staff may end up just flipping a coin to decide who starts at the guard and right tackle positions.

During the Ryan Tannehill era, we complained long and loudly about the Dolphins’ lack of a quality offensive line, when in all likelihood, the team’s blocking scheme was primarily responsible for the offense’s inability to consistently move the ball. This year things are more clear cut; Miami simply doesn’t have NFL caliber players at multiple spots along their OL, regardless of what kind of scheme they run.

Left tackle Laremy Tunsil is the only real stud in this group; it’s unfortunate that his reputation gets dragged down by the other four scrubs that comprise the rest of the Dolphins’ blockers. Tunsil probably should have gone to the Pro Bowl last season. Everyone other than the Dolphins knows that Daniel Kilgore is not the answer at center, Jesse Davis might pan out at right guard and former Chicago and Buffalo tackle Jordan Mills is a desperation move on the right side. That leaves third round rookie Michael Deiter to start at one of the guard spots.

In recent years, Miami’s problems along its offensive line have been twofold: first, they’ve tried to employ a finesse based scheme against some of the stoutest defensive fronts in the NFL. The other problem, of course, has been a revolving door with the OL coaching staff. You can make all the jokes you want about Chris Foerster and his less than professional approach to his job, but with or without Foerster the Dolphins have yet to be able to mesh scheme with talent and put a decent product on the field week in and week out, and unfortunately it’s going to get worse before it gets better. It’s going to be an interesting year, to say the least.