With the Miami Dolphins Week 15 matchup scheduled against an AFC East divisional rival in the New York Jets, there will be a lot of noise and eyes on the team as they suffered a grueling loss to the Tennessee Titans last Monday night. With the game set for this Sunday, we will be making our Dolphins Week 15 bold predictions.
The Dolphins are still sitting pretty at the top of the AFC East at 9-4, two games in front of the Buffalo Bills who are at 7-6. However, with Miami losing a very winnable game against the Titans on Monday, the rest of the schedule is about as rough as it gets.
Even though this upcoming matchup against the Jets is good for the team on paper, especially since it's at Hard Rock Stadium, divisional games usually find a way to be competitive. After this contest though, the Dolphins will finish off the regular season by facing the Dallas Cowboys, Baltimore Ravens, and the Buffalo Bills.
These remaining games will set the true identity for this team after a great start, but Miami has a chance to prove the doubters wrong. With that being said, let's move on to our Dolphins Week 15 predictions.
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Dolphins offense back on track
While people are used to the Dolphins offense being explosive and putting up 70 points as they did against the Denver Broncos earlier in the season, they were anything but that last Monday night. Granted, there were significant injuries to the likes of superstar receiver Tyreek Hill and Dolphins offensive lineman Connor Williams that ultimately ruined the momentum for the team.
To start with Williams, it was announced by Dolphins head coach Mike McDaniel that the center will miss the rest of the season with a torn ACL. This is brutal news for Miami as he provided exceptional blocking in run and pass protection. Mixing that with the absence of Terron Armstead last game, it was bad news for Miami quarterback Tua Tagovailoa.
Tagovailoa has a knack of getting the ball out early and evading pressure, but it was too much to handle against Tennessee when the opposing team was coming in hot and Hill being out provided zero help. The team will monitor how Hill is but it isn't perceived to be serious.
In this case, the offense will look to get back on track at home this upcoming Sunday as this team has faced the talented Jets defense before and did find holes in their last outing. McDaniel and company could build a game-plan to mix in more quick plays to balance out with the deep or mid-field strikes to the likes of Hill, but expect a big game for Jaylen Waddle.
The key to this game will be the rushing attack as a flaw for McDaniel's play-calling last game was abandoning the run when it was working with Raheem Mostert and De'Von Achane. If you have those two in fantasy football, start them with ease.
Defense will have a good afternoon against Jets
The last time the Dolphins faced the Jets, Tim Boyle was the starting quarterback after they benched Zach Wilson. What resulted was the New York offense looking worse than usual. Fast forward to the present and Wilson will be back under center in what should be a tougher matchup.
How tougher? Well, not so much, but there's no doubt that Wilson has more to offer as the signal-caller than Boyle did, but this offense should still be sluggish despite the Jets most recent win against the Houston Texans.
Even though the defense will be without their star pass rusher in Jaelan Phillips, coordinator Vic Fangio will find ways to pressure Wilson and make him feel uncomfortable in the pocket. Players like Christian Wilkins, Zach Sieler, Emmanuel Ogbah, Bradley Chubb, and others can still find ways to get at the quarterback.
The unit still consists of star players in the secondary like Xavien Howard, Jevon Holland, and Jalen Ramsey, so the defense should find some success against a vulnerable offense like the Jets are.
Dolphins enter rough sledding with 10 wins
Expect the Dolphins to come out of this game with a victory putting the team at 10 wins up until this point. As said before, this team needs all the wins they can get as they face tough teams such as the Cowboys, Ravens, and Bills next.
While the first half of this game will be more competitive since it is a divisional game, the Dolphins should find a way to trail away in the second half and carry momentum into the home stretch of the schedule. Whatever happens in this game, there will be chatter if Miami are contenders or pretenders.
If they want to prove to the masses that it is the former, an exceptional performance against any of those winning teams can give them some confidence heading into the post-season. If there is one thing the NFL has shown this season, the AFC is open and ripe for the taking. The ball is in the court of the Dolphins to capitalize.
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