Miami Dolphins: When To Call It A Successful Rebuild

With the Miami Dolphins turning a 5 win team into a 10 win team, everyone’s already on board with how quickly they’ve made a turnaround. Plenty of times last year they were labeled “ahead of schedule” after a complete roster rebuild and a winning season. Now the question is, how long before they’re satisfied with a rebuild?

The Dolphins were knocking on the playoff door last season but were completely decimated by their division rivals in the final game of the season. Do they have to make the playoffs to be considered contenders? With the Buffalo Bills poised to be in the mix, for some time and the Patriots spending freely if they don’t make the playoffs this year will they consider it a failure?

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Do they have to win a playoff game in order to say they’re done rebuilding? The AFC is full of competent and dominant contenders. The Titans have a stout run game, the Chiefs have their explosive pass attack, and there’s a handful of teams that could easily go deep in the playoffs each year. If Miami makes it and doesn’t win a game, are they failures then?

Will they have to make it to the Super Bowl in order for experts to take them seriously, or will they have to win it all. Surely going up against teams like the current champions Tampa Bay will present a challenge, then there are the teams like Green Bay and Seattle who are constantly on the road to a Super Bowl but never quite make it. Will Miami be compared to them or do they have to knock one of them off to be considered “turned around”?

Then there’s always the question, what happens if none of those things happen and the team regresses this season? Will last season be labeled as a fluke and they’re right back to square one? The Dolphins have been in such a state of a rebuild for the past two decades that it’s hard to gauge when they’ll be considered a success. There’s no bar or time limit and anything short of a Super Bowl will feel like a failure. Just how far are they from taking that major step?