Every spring brings renewed hope in the NFL, when few teams have yet dealt with significant injuries, new faces look to make high impact in new places and no one's had any tallies go up yet in either the 'W' or the 'L' column.
For the Miami Dolphins, this offseason has already brought ample excitement and reason for hope - the free agent additions of Ndamukong Suh and Greg Jennings, the pilfering of Kenny Stills from New Orleans, and the draft selections of DeVante Parker and Jay Ajayi - and not to mention a fair bit of schadenfreude watching perennial AFC East division favorites, the New England Patriots, suffer through the Deflategate scandal.
Yet again, the Dolphins find themselves in a position to contend, especially with a potentially weakened Patriots team, but again, their success or failure hinges in large part on the production of presumed franchise quarterback Ryan Tannehill.
While Tannehill has yet to put it all together in his short NFL career, according to the latest report, the Dolphins believe 2015 will be the season Tannehill finally puts it all together and the team as a whole takes that big, figurative next developmental step.
"Miami feels like it has greatly improved the infrastructure of the team around the young quarterback and, with the former college receiver now entering his fourth season, this should be the year he takes off," writes Jason La Canfora of CBS Sports. "They believe they are ready to take a run at the Patriots, long chiefs of the AFC East. If that's to be the case, Tannehill will have to be more adept at getting the ball downfield and at least keeping opposing defenses off balance as to the scope and range of the passing attack."
Despite Tannehill's prodigious physical gifts, questions remain about his ability to lead an offensive attack with any semblance of diversity or variance. In three NFL seasons, he's amassed 11,252 passing yards and 63 touchdowns, but he's also thrown 42 interceptions, fumbled 15 times and accrued a passer rating of 84.0.
There's reason for the aforementioned hope in Miami this year though, and it's not just the improved supporting cast around Tannehill - Bill Lazor's spread offense allowed Tannehill to post career highs in completions (392), completion percentage (66.4), yards (4,045), touchdowns (27) and rating (92.8) while committing the fewest turnovers of his professional tenure last year.
Tannehill showed improved composure in the face of the pass-rush last season and better decision-making - if he can utilize the new and old weapons around him and the Dolphins defense can show some improvement with Suh terrorizing opposing offensive lines, Miami may finally be able to wrest control of the AFC's East division from the death-like grip of Bill Belichick, Tom Brady and the Patriots.
