Week 16 Editorial - Part 3 of 3 - "What Now?"

Technically, the Dolphins can still make it into the playoffs.  In order to do this, they would have to beat Pittsburgh, and have ALL of the following happen:  Denver has to beat Kansas City, Cincinnati has to beat the Jets, Oakland has to beat the Ravens, and New England has to beat Houston.  

All possible in any given week, but this is the ONLY scenario in which the Dolphins make the playoffs, essentially four of the five wild-card competitors have to lose and Denver has to win.  The odds of this scenario playing out is 0.03%.  

The Jets will be playing in probably the final NFL game in the Meadowlands.  Denver doesn't need to win to make the playoffs, in fact, the Ravens and Jets game is more important to them than their own.  They need one of them to lose regardless of whether they win or not.  Oakland hosts the Ravens and has nothing but pride to play for whereas the Ravens need to win to make the playoffs.  Houston needs a win and two f the four other contenders to lose.

I put it to the jury that there's something more important at stake here than the 2009 playoffs.  If we make the playoffs, we'd have to play the Patriots.  If we beat the Patriots we'd have to play the Colts.  If we beat the Colts we'd have to play either the Chargers, Broncos, or Bengals.  Then we'd have to face the NFC champion in the Superbowl, my guess either New Orleans, Minnesota,  Philadelphia, or Green Bay.  

I just don't think we have enough left in the tank for that run.  Injuries, mental fatigue, hometown distractions (it's not necessarily a good thing to have the Pro-Bowl and Super Bowl in your house while you're trying to focus on football).  All this leads one to believe that it would take miracle upon miracle upon miracle to get to the Super Bowl this season.  

Making the playoffs would take us out of the top 15 in draft position.  Not that I don't think the draft won't be so loaded we can get strong talent down the table, but to be 4 or 5 places lower in each round can change a lot of things, like getting THE best player at a particular position as opposed to the 2nd or 3rd best, and also affects potential trades.

Yes, I know it's blasphemous to suggest we lose the game, so I'm going to make this very clear, I am NOT suggesting we not go out and try to win this week's match-up versus the Steelers.  What I am saying is that we shouldn't bank on making the playoffs, in fact, the odds are so stretched against us that you should just put it out of your head, and if it actually happens, be thankful for an extra week of Dolphins football.

But what I am suggesting, no, imploring the coaches do, is to not ignore the fact there are questions to be answered in a blind attempt at making the playoffs.  

If any more starting players get a serious injury at this point, they will not be ready to start the 2010 season.  If Chad Henne, for example, gets injured, we would have no choice but to re-sign Pennington to a big money contract, not even knowing if he's going to be ready either.  Basically, we'd be 'effed'.  What about if Starks or Jake Long get injured?  Forcing the issue here in a virtually un-winnable battle could have serious repercussions on the 2010 season.  We cannot afford to have to start over from scratch.

And there are things we need to know before free agency and the draft.  

• We absolutely MUST see Patrick Turner on the field running routes.  If they do not give him a ticket and a set of plays, we can consider him another wasted draft pick, but not one who failed miserably like Pat White, but one who was never even given a chance.  

• We MUST see a Free Safety on the field.  We cannot keep playing with two strong safeties and expect our pass defense to improve.  Chris Clemons is a true free safety, and Tyrone Culver plays the spot better than the two starters.  This needs to be sorted out or we'll have to circle FS as a priority for the off-season.

• Andrew Gardner - remember him?  With all the injuries and rotation along the offensive line, he must be shockingly bad not to even be activated.  Then again, could he be worse than Vernon Carey?  We need to know, Coach.  Put him in the game.

• Jason Allen.  At some point we're going to have to trade him, because the coaches hate him so much they'd rather play two rookies and Nate Jones ahead of him.  I've never understood it, because the guy is a playmaker.  But if he's not going to be used, get him some game time so his trade value increases.

• Let Ted Ginn return punts.  Let Kory Sheets return punts.  Let Chris Clemons return punts.  Let anyone other than Davone Bess give it a go.  Stubbornness is not a good quality in a football coach.  We need to try something other than Bess. For the season, Bess returned 27 punts for 206 yards (7.6 avg - That ranks him 42nd in the league in punt returns), fair caught 15 (36% of the time), fumbled 3 times, and his longest return was 22 yards. 

• Lionel Dotson, Ikeaika Ilma-Francis, Ryan Baker, Evan Oglesby, Kory Sheets, Andrew Hartline, Eric Walden - are these guys even on the team?  Baker has looked good in limited action, but the rest have failed to make it onto the field this season.  

• Brian Hartline  - Stop messing about, just start him already.

I know alot of readers will wonder, well Tinshaker, how are you going to get all those young players on the field on game day - you can't dress everyone!  Well that's actually an easy answer.  You rest Jake Grove and either Justin Smiley or Donald Thomas, whichever has the more serious mystery injury.  You rest Camarillo.  You rest Ricky Williams.  You rest one of the regular d-linesmen, you rest Joey Porter and you rest Gibril Wilson.  The loss of Crowder also opens up a spot.  Basically you take all the banged up starters at positions where you have a young guy waiting for game experience:  O-line, WR, RB, DL, S, LB.

I know this all sounds a bit selfish, wanting to know what we've got, especially in the players that were picked up over the course of the season.  Miami had the 2nd highest payroll in the league this year at $126,855,921. I want to know where all that money went, not just 80% of it.  I want to know where we go from here, and need a fuller picture.  I can pretty much imagine where its going to go if we play this game like any other team battling to make the playoffs.  Instead, I'd rather use the game more wisely in regards to the future.

Again, I'm not saying we shouldn't try our asses off to win the game, but in doing so we should be finding some answers to questions that are going to come up immediately should we lose.

Tomorrow we look at the actual head-to-head meeting between the Dolphins and the Steelers.  I should warn any readers in Tampa, you will not be getting the game on local TV, at least not according to the early announcements.  However, we West Coasters will as will 80% of the country.  More details tomorrow.

Okay, now lay into me and my theory in the comments section.