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At the beginning of the month, Miami Dolphins head coach Brian Flores convinced virtually no one when he insisted his team wasn’t planning on tanking this season in an attempt to get the top pick in the upcoming draft despite having named Ryan Fitzpatrick their starting quarterback just a few days before.
Later that week, the Dolphins would confirm they are who we thought they are when they lost to the Ravens by a score of 59-10 in a laughably underattended game and prompted a number of players to phone up their agents to demand a trade to literally anywhere else (one of whom would see his wish come true).
While there’s a chance the Dolphins will win at least some games this year, I know more than a couple of people who have decided to throw some money on the line in the hopes they become the third team to go 0-16—including one guy who stands to make $100,000 if they do.
The all-too-brief Fitzmagic Era officially came to a close this week when the Dolphins announced Josh Rosen will be the starting QB on Sunday, which—depending on how you look at things—does or does not inspire that much hope when you consider he helped the Cardinals get the top pick in the most recent draft by leading them to a 3-13 season.
Assuming Rosen doesn’t prove to be their savior, Tua Tagovailoa will probably be the man in the pocket next year if the Dolphins see their dreams realized. However, their fans aren’t the only people who aren’t thrilled with the tank job.
According to The Athletic, the NFL competition committee is preparing to look into whether or not the Dolphins are purposely being uncompetitive, with a source saying:
“The committee will probably have the questions posed to it again, if not by the media, maybe by teams. It’s likely the competition committee will have to address this issue.”
As the outlet notes, the NFL could ultimately restructure the draft to resemble the NBA lottery in order to discourage teams from following in the Dolphins’ footsteps or limit the number of first-rounders a franchise can have.
However, it’s unclear if new rules could be instituted as early as this year, and given the evidence at hand, the Dolphins are probably hoping that’s not the case.