What the Dolphins Can Learn from the Final Four Teams
For a 30th consecutive year, the AFC Championship Game will come and go without the Miami Dolphins being involved.
Yep, it's been that long since the Dolphins' last AFC title game appearance, the disappointing 29-10 home loss against the Buffalo Bills.
This time, for a second consecutive season, it'll be the Cincinnati Bengals and Kansas City Chiefs that will play for the chance to represent the AFC in the Super Bowl, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out the biggest reason those two teams have made it this far again.
Their names are Patrick Mahomes and Joe Burrow, and any team having that kind of elite quarterback is going to have a shot at making a deep playoff run more often than not.
Of course, quarterbacks of that caliber don't grow on trees — as the saying goes — and it's just the Dolphins' luck that most of those young stars happen to play in the AFC.
Besides Mahomes and Burrow, the AFC also features Josh Allen, Trevor Lawrence and Justin Herbert, and Lamar Jackson isn't really that far off, either, though he's battled injuries in recent seasons.
Tua Tagovailoa had a breakout season with some impressive numbers for the Dolphins in 2022, but the reality is that he's on that same level yet, particularly after his play slipped in December before he was forced to miss the final two games of the regular season and the playoff game at Buffalo because of his second documented concussion.
The 2020 first-round picks became eligible for contract extensions this offseason, and the only questions with Burrow and Herbert involve how big of a long-term deal they'll get and when that deal will be finalized.
On the flip side, it seems highly unlikely, if not inconceivable, that the Dolphins will be signing Tua to a long-term deal this offseason. Yes, his injury history is a factor in the organization not committing huge dollars at this time, but it says here the situation would have been the same regardless because — as impressive as he was at times in 2022 — Tua still needs to show he's a bona fide elite quarterback.
For those who'll quickly point to his league-leading 105.5 passer rating, we'll counter by pointing to the fourth- and fifth-highest single-season passer ratings in NFL history — they belong to Nick Foles (119.2 in 2013) and Ryan Tannehill (117.5 in 2019), who never have been accused of being elite.
This isn't to suggest that Tua can't reach the Burrow-Mahomes-Allen level — and blaming Buffalo's loss against the Bengals on Allen is absurd when the whole team was badly outplayed — but the December performances left room for doubt.
The AFC Championship Game has featured either the Chiefs or the Patriots every year since 2011 — yes, it's getting old, but that's a different story for another time — and the common denominator here is Mahomes and Tom Brady before him.
And now it's two straight AFC title games for Joe Burrow, who has proven without a speck of doubt why he was worth the first overall pick in that star-studded 2020 draft class.
That Buffalo has won the last three AFC East titles is no fluke, either, because they have the one elite QB in the division with Allen.
Lawrence took a big step forward in his second season and looked like the guy who was the first overall pick in 2021. And Herbert helped get the Chargers into the playoffs despite a series of obstacles, including the lack of a running game, a mediocre offensive line and an offensive coordinator whose scheme was criticized by national analysts all over the place.
The Dolphins are going to need quarterback play of that caliber — or close to it — if they want to compete for a Super Bowl title anytime soon.
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THE DOLPHINS AND THE NFC PICTURE
Of course, one could look at the NFC and point to Jalen Hurts and Brock Purdy as the two starting quarterbacks and two players maybe not considered elite — regardless of what kind of season Hurts put together.
But then look at the NFC playoff teams and you'll see it wasn't a parade of young stud quarterbacks like the AFC, with the starters besides Hurts and Purdy including Dak Prescott, Daniel Jones, Kirk Cousins, Geno Smith and the now-46-year-old Brady.
So as good as the 49ers and Eagles are, the teams they had to defeat to get to the NFC title started Smith, Prescott and Jones at quarterback. That's not exactly like Mahomes, Allen or Burrow now, is it?
And then there's the other way of looking at the NFC title game participants, who very possibly have the two most talented rosters in the league.
While Purdy has been a great story as a rookie seventh-round pick — though he's got no business being a finalist for Offensive Rookie of the Year after starting only five games in the regular season — let's not forget that the 49ers have elite players at practically every position group: Christian McCaffrey at running back, George Kittle at tight end, Deebo Samuel at wide receiver, Trent Williams at tackle, Nick Bosa at defensive end, Fred Warner at linebacker, Talanoa Hufanga at safety.
We almost could say the same thing about the Eagles with WRs A.J. Brown and Devonta Smith, TE Dallas Goedert, T Lane Johnson, DTs Fletcher Cox and Javon Hargrave, OLB Haason Reddick, CB Darius Slay and S Chauncey Gardner-Johnson.
We also can't mention Lane Johnson without pointing out the Dolphins angle because Miami could have had him at the top of the 2013 NFL draft after they traded a second-round pick to the Raiders to move up from 12th to third overall. This was the draft with three projected elite tackle prospects — Johnson, Eric Fisher and Luke Joeckel.
The Dolphins definitely could have used an elite tackle at that time — Jake Long had signed with the Rams a month earlier — but after Fisher and Joeckel went 1-2, they instead selected edge defender Dion Jordan ... and we all know how that turned out.
But that was 10 years ago.
In the present, the Dolphins don't have to deal with or worry about Lane Johnson because he's in the other conference. In their own conference, it's the quarterbacks that are the problem for the Dolphins.
This conference championship game is just the latest proof.
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