Dolphins Early Award Outlook
The Miami Dolphins roared into their bye week after their most dominant performances of the 2022 season as one of the hottest teams in the NFL, in position to make this a most memorable year.
Now at 7-3, the Dolphins have the second-longes active winning streak in the league at four games, behind only the seven-game string by the Minnesota Vikings.
The Dolphins have moved atop the AFC East and find themselves second to only the Kansas City Chiefs in the. conference standings, thanks in large part to the crazy offensive numbers they keep producing.
And with the team success comes the individual recognition, where now a bit past the halfway mark the Dolphins have some clear contenders for major individual awards.
NFL MVP CANDIDATE TUA TAGOVAILOA
Tagovailoa has jumped — cannonballed might be a better term here — into the MVP conversation with his nearly flawless trifecta of performances against the Lions, Bears and Browns during which during he averaged 323 passing yards and totaled nine touchdowns with no interceptions and a passer rating of at least 135 each time.
Tua's current passer rating of 118.4 is on pace for fifth-best in NFL history, just behind Nick Foles' 119.2 in 2013 and ahead of Ryan Tannehill's 117.5 in 2019.
After the games of Week 10, Tua was tied with former Alabama teammate Jalen Hurts for second in the race at 5/1, according to odds from BetOnline (www.betonline.ag), behind front-runner Patrick Mahomes (11/10).
Josh Allen has falled to fourth on the board after the Buffalo Bills' back-to-back losses that featured some costly and bad interceptions.
It's worth mentioning that wide receiver Tyreek Hill has the highest odds of any non-quarterback at 75/1 (ahead of Christian McCaffrey and Justin Jefferson each at 100/1), though the reality is that we pretty much already can predict that the NFL MVP award will go to the quarterback of one of the top 4-5 teams in the final standings.
In a survey of 38 NFL executives by Sports Illustrated writer Albert Breer that was published before the games of Week 10, Mahomes got 20.5 of 37 votes for the award; Tua got none — again, this was done before the Dolphins' win against Cleveland.
As long as the Chiefs remain in first place in the AFC standings, Mahomes will be difficult to overtake. But Tua could become difficult to ignore if the Dolphins keep winning and he keeps putting up big numbers.
NFL OFFENSIVE PLAYER OF THE YEAR CANDIDATE TYREEK HILL
This award seems to be AP's method of making up for the clear quarterback bias, and right now it's difficult to find a non-quarterback who's had a bigger impact than Hill.
Hill fell below the magical 2,000-yard pace after the game against Cleveland, but he still leads the NFL in receptions (81) and receiving yards (1,148), and the impact his speed has made of the way defenses have to play against the Dolphins cannot be measured.
While the Breer survey was done before the Cleveland game, when Hill had five catches for 44 yards and a touchdown, the Dolphins star ran away with the vote total — he had 24 votes and nobody else had more than four.
While the last three recipients of the award were non-quarterbacks, it's not uncommon for those players to win it and it sometimes can act as a consolation prize for the NFL MVP award.
That means that Hill (assuming he continues to produce numbers) could find himself doing battle with the likes of Josh Allen, Hurts, maybe even Tua, along with non-QBs like Justin Jefferson and Derrick Henry.
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NFL COACH OF THE YEAR CANDIDATE MIKE McDANIEL
While the Dolphins did have a winning record in 2021, it's still remarkable to see the impact and the difference Mike McDaniel has made in his first year as Dolphins head coach.
Unfortunately for him when it comes to this award, there are other first-year coaches experiencing a lot of success.
McDaniel is fourth in the latest BetOnline odds at 8/1, behind fellow first-year coaches Kevin O'Connell of the Vikings (7/2) and Brian Daboll of the Giants (4/1). They actually all trail Nick Sirianni of the Eagles who's at 6-5, even after his team's first loss of the season.
From this vantage point, the criteria for any NFL Coach of the Year award should be doing the most with the least, as well as improvement over the previous season.
In that vein, Daboll would be the front-runner here because it's not like the Giants are loaded with playmakers and they also were 4-13 last season.
Daboll was the winner in Breer's midseason poll with 14 votes, ahead of Sirianni (9) — and, remember, this was done before the Eagles lost. McDaniel got only one vote.
If the Giants falter down the stretch, though, McDaniel would stand a good chance at winning the award if the Dolphins end up making the playoffs and the offense continues to produce at such high levels.
NFL EXECUTIVE OF THE YEAR CANDIDATE CHRIS GRIER
If Hill has to be considered a candidate for postseason awards, then so does the man who engineered the trade from him.
And Grier deserves credit not only for Hill, but for landing difference-making left tackle Terron Armstead (among others) in free agency and then swinging the deals for star pass rusher Bradley Chubb and under-the-radar running back Jeff Wilson Jr. at the trade deadline.
There will be major competition for this award, though, starting with Howie Roseman of the Eagles and John Schneider of the Seattle Seahawks.
Roseman swung trades for A.J. Brown and Chauncey Gardner-Johnson in the offseason, among other things, while Schneider made the Russell Wilson trade, acquired Comeback Player of the Year candidate Geno Smith to replace him, and oversaw an amazing draft — Charles Cross, Kenneth Walker, Tariq Woolen — that's helped the Seahawks get in position for a second-half playoff run.
It was Roseman who got the most votes in Breer's survey with 16, followed by Schneider with 15. Grier got two votes to place fourth.
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