South Florida Sun-Sentinel Palm Beach (Sunday)
It’s all about draft position
Loss against Redskins should benefit future
While I’ll acknowledge that it is tremendously unhealthy to be obsessed about a team’s draft order a little over a month into the NFL season, desperate times call for desperate measures.
The South Florida sports landscape desperately needs a savior, a player who can change the trajectory of one of our teams, and his name is Tua Tagovailoa.
I’m certain Tagovailoa will be the No. 1 pick in the 2020 NFL draft if he finishes this college season healthy, and declares for the draft. And I’m convinced he’ll become a transformative player in the NFL much like Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson is.
There are two ways to go about getting the No. 1 pick needed to land the Alabama standout, who is breaking all kinds of school records while trying to lead the Crimson Tide to the school’s third straight title game.
Miami can earn the No. 1 pick the old fashion way by being the worst team in the NFL this season, or the Dolphins can use their many draft assets (three first-round picks and two second-round picks) to acquire it via a trade.
I’m in favor of the Dolphins keeping all the assets they have acquired by trading Laremy Tunsil to the Houston Texans and Minkah Fitzpatrick to the Pittsburgh Steelers, and getting the No. 1 pick that comes with being the
NFL’s worst team.
But to achieve this, Miami must be bad this season.
The Dolphins, who haven’t been competitive in a regular-single game yet this season, have been doing their best to achieve this. Miami has been outscored, 163-23, this season, and has been outscored, 81-0, in the second half of games. But what coach Brian Flores’ team can’t afford to do is start winning games they shouldn’t.
Sunday’s game against the win-less Washington Redskins (0-5) happens to be one of those contests.
In situations where teams finished the previous season with identical records, the determination of draft position is decided by strength of schedule — the aggregate winning percentage of a team’s opponents. That means, the team that played the schedule with the lowest-winning percentage will be awarded the higher pick.
Miami’s opponents own a 25-35 record heading into Sunday’s games. Washington’s opponents own a 28-23-1 record, and the Cincinnati Bengals’ (0-5) opponents have a 25-29 record. However, at the moment — because the season is still so young — it is too early to forecast how the strength of schedule jockeying will play out.
If the teams have the same strength of schedule, division or conference tiebreakers are applied.
If the divisional or conference tiebreakers are not applicable, or ties still exist between teams of different conferences, ties will be broken by the following tie-breaking method:
— First, and most importantly, there’s head-to-head games, which is why a Miami loss on Sunday is so important because if the Dolphins beat the Redskins and these two teams finish 2019 with identical records, the No. 1 pick will likely belong to Washington.
— Then there’s best won-lost-tied percentage in common games, which could become important if there are three teams with identical records.
— And finally, strength of victory in all games.
There are other factors associated with tiebreakers, like best combined rankings among all teams in points scored, and points allowed, and best net points in all games, but the Dolphins won’t need these contingencies if they lose the head-to-head matchups.
Keep in mind, there are four teams in the running to be the worst in the NFL, which puts them in position to secure the No. 1 overall pick in the 2020 draft.
Fortunately, the Dolphins play all three of the other cellar dwellers since Washington, the New York Jets, and the Bengals are all on Miami’s schedule.
Miami plays the win-less New York Jets (0-4) twice — Nov. 3 at home and Dec. 8 in New York — because Adam Gase’s team is an AFC East rival. The Dolphins host the win-less Bengals on December 22, the week before the regular-season finale.
The Jets don’t concern me as much as the Redskins and Bengals do because New York’s got Sam Darnold, the team’s starting quarterback, back from his bout with mononucleosis, and that should help the Jets’ offense improve.
Gase, who led the Dolphins to a 23-25 record during his three-year tenure in Miami, will eventually sneak out a few wins, and with his inside knowledge of the Dolphins, he’ll likely try to embarrass his former team.
That leaves the Redskins, who fired coach Jay Gruden and replaced him with interim coach Bill Callahan this past week, and the Bengals, who are led by former Dolphins assistant Zac Taylor, as contenders for the No. 1 draft pick.
The Dolphins can’t even afford to finish this season 2-14, with those victories coming over of the Redskins and Bengals because that would lead to a nightmarish scenario if either of those franchises have matching records to Miami.
So while it is indeed unhealthy to root for the team you care about to lose games, it would be irresponsible to not keep the bigger picture in mind, and pull for the Dolphins to win a game that could put the franchise at a significant disadvantage.