Pro Bowl a Sobering Weekend for Dolphins
It was a pretty cool video that the Miami Dolphins social team put out Friday showing Xavien Howard offering words of encouragement to Jevon Holland during a Pro Bowl practice in Las Vegas, telling him what he needed to do to get a spot in the all-star game himself someday.
But there also was a sad element to the video, the fact that Howard once again is alone representing the Dolphins at the Pro Bowl.
It's now three out of four Pro Bowls where Howard is the only Dolphins selection, and the other time was the 2019 season when the Dolphins had nobody selected to the game.
While everyone knows that the Pro Bowl can become a popularity contest and some deserving players often get left out, this still is not a good sign when it comes to the talent level on the Dolphins roster because aside from Howard, the only players on the roster who have been selected to the Pro Bowl are cornerback Byron Jones and running back Phillip Lindsay — and both of them were selected in 2018 and Lindsay is a pending free agent who is no sure thing to return in 2022.
Yes, there are good players on the roster, including a few who might have deserved Pro Bowl consideration this year, but Howard was it. And that stayed true even after the AFC teams added five players as replacements.
And Holland was just one of the young players on the roster who certainly look like they might have a Pro Bowl in their future, along with Jaylen Waddle, Jaelan Phillips and Christian Wilkins.
But that hasn't happened yet and there's no guarantee it will.
What's fact is the Dolphins showing over the past four seasons, and it's not pretty in terms of Pro Bowl recognition.
This is the first time the Dolphins have not had more than one Pro Bowl selection in four consecutive years, and the only stretch that looked like this was from 1996-98 when Richmond Webb was the only selection in 1996, nobody was picked in 1997, and Tim Bowens was it in 1998.
As a fun fact, the last Dolphins players not named Xavien Howard selected to the Pro Bowl were safety Reshad Jones and wide receiver Jarvis Landry in 2017.
Of course, having Pro Bowl players does not guarantee success, any more than not having Pro Bowl players doesn't necessarily mean failure.
The Dolphins came actually pretty close to making the playoffs each of the last two years with only Howard as a Pro Bowl player, which could mean that either they got some good coaching, got lucky, maybe are not as close to being contenders as their record might suggest, their players didn't get the recognition they deserved, or some combination of all those things.
This suggests the Dolphins either need an infusion of proven talent to take the next step as a team or need for some of their young players — and they have a lot those — to rise to that level.
The odds certainly appear good, based on the promise the rookies showed in 2021, that it won't be Howard alone for much longer, and maybe it's a necessary step for the Dolphins to return to the playoffs for the first time since 2016 — when they had four players selected to the Pro Bowl.
As for having only one Dolphins player in the Pro Bowl game itself, who cares? But it would be fun to have a game like the 2016 Pro Bowl (after the 2015 season) when they had four players play and five selected or the 2003 Pro Bowl when they had seven players involved.
That would be a refreshing change.
