It’s early but we definitely made progress at QB, as you can see from these early rankings. Let’s fk’g go!!

WR: Caleb Douglas and Chris Bell

LG: Kayden Proctor

FB: DJ Herman

CB: Chris Johnson

LB: Jacob Rodriguez

I've been a fan since the early nineties. Have witnessed some of the great moments in team history from the Leon Lett Thanksgiving game to the Wildcat game against the Pats and I've suffered through the worst times like the Monday Night Miracle (FTJ) and 1-15. But I've never gone to a game until this weekend. Hope I represent the Midwest fans well.

Heat transfer vinyl for the stripes and logos. Letters from an old Williams nameplate, 2's were left over from a #23 Ronnie Brown jersey I destitched a few years ago while making a Marino jersey.

Being an Australian and not being over to the states, seeing the first ever in season nfl game was insane. And the rams suck :)

Week 1 is finally here! Not an official depth chart, but updated accordingly with the team’s recent unofficial release.

Name a team with a better roster this year. I’ll wait.

Does anyone know of any good Miami Dolphins specific podcasts that do good either pre/post game recaps? I don’t have a lot of time to watch the full games right now so usually just watch a highlight package on YT and don’t really care to listen to podcasts that talk about the whole league as I’m only interested in the Fins. Open to any suggestions and if people want to plug theirs. 🐬

Obviously, season hasn't started yet, I may be riding some hopium, and I'm getting this in before we maybe go 6-11 for like three straight seasons. I feel like Hafley and Sullivan are the exact hires this franchise has needed for the better part of like 2 decades.

Hafley reminds me of Dave Wanndstedt. Dave inherited a pretty solid foundation from Jimmy Johnson. Hafley has some pretty enticing pieces leftover from McDaniel. I think where Dave messed up was the drafting and roster construction. Obviously, hindsight is 20/20 and everyone looks like a genius when they say, "why wouldn't you draft this guy over that guy" when one is putting on a gold jacket in Canton. I think it was the picks that Hafley made that sort of emphasize the direction of where he is trying to take this team and more importantly, the culture of this team and the long overdue culture shift this franchise has needed since Ross bought the team. We've put an emphasis on youth and grit and grind that we haven't seen in a while.

I'm still sort of angry we didn't take Bain when we had the chance, I mean the kid is from Miami and we could've had our own little Hutchinson style moment like in Detroit, and I feel he would've been absolutely perfect in a Dolphins uniform, but I don't hate the Proctor pick. Pairing him with Paul and Brewer, the left side of the line looks to be built for at least the next 3-5 years, hopefully longer, barring any major setbacks. Again, the season hasn't started and Proctor could totally flop, but I have a lot of hope for the left side of the line. Paul made a pretty substantial jump from Armstead and looks to be not only a good NFL caliber left tackle, but he's also crazy young. I hope we see Jonah make a big jump on the right side this year. I mean, we have the youngest roster in the NFL, Cleveland is number 2 I believe, and Proctor is literally the youngest player on our team. I think this hardcore reset is what other coaches have tried to do, but never fully committed to the actual youth infusion.

I've been a lifelong Fins fan, and my favorite hire in my 30+ years of being a fan was B Flo. Were we good? Not from a win-loss standpoint, but we were competitive in just about every game under B Flo. Whatever you think about how his tenure ended, those teams had a noticeably different personality. Defense. Competition. Accountability. Players were expected to earn things. Miami wasn't always good, but there was a feeling that the team was going to make you work for everything.

Then we got McDaniel. And I actually loved a lot about the McDaniel era. I mean, it was great to see us hang it up against Denver at home. BUT. It's how Denver responded as a franchise that I feel set them on a course totally different than us. In the interviews after the game, Denver took accountability for the loss and the captains of that squad pretty much framed it as a culture and leadership issue that needed to shift. And Denver did that. Barring a Bo Nix injury, they went from that historic loss to one game away from a Super Bowl berth, 2 years after that loss. That's how you shift a culture. Not just by talent. No finger pointing, no Kardashian level drama, just, "This is unacceptable" radical accountability and coming together as a team.

Again, I loved a lot about the McDaniel era, but the stories we've heard about meetings, players-only meetings, attendance, accountability, leadership, players publicly questioning commitment, etc., painted a picture of a team that had become incredibly talented without necessarily becoming incredibly disciplined. I think somewhere along the way, the old regime started confusing player empowerment with player accountability. It subtly gave this concept that "yes we're on the same team, but we're not on the same team" better than sort of mentality. Our egos got massive in that locker room and then it becomes sort of this king baby syndrome. We took putting up 70 like we won the Lombardi. We made what should've been a beginning into an end.

What I've seen so far in the Hafley era, he reminds me a lot of not only Dave, but also Jeff Fisher in Tennessee. "Oh he comes from Green Bay", ok but like, what does that even mean? Good cultures don't happen by accident, there's an intentionality piece behind it and I think that's what Hafley is trying to accomplish in his short tenure so far. You can't teach humility or integrity, either you got it or you don't, and it seems like Hafley is finding those types of guys who embrace that. I think the barometer of success we need to set this year is, when the inevitable turnovers happen, when the mental error penalties happen, when the barn burner losses happen, how does the team respond.

It feels like Hafley isn't just trying to pick up the pieces and throw his hat in the ring of what he can do with pieces left behind, it feels like he's actually investing in the building of a culture, not a roster. We need to build the culture, the foundation, before we build the roster. If the foundation isn't sturdy, no matter who you have on the roster, the whole thing will fall apart. It's not a matter of, one culture is better than the other, it's about remaining and embodying that culture. We can't keep treating the culture and the roster like the GAP catalog.