The NFL has released its 2026 schedule, and to give you an idea of how bad they expect the Miami Dolphins to be, the League and its media partners have scheduled the team for exactly zero primetime games. Neither have they scheduled the team for any of the nine international games nor five holiday day games. The Dolphins will only play on Sunday afternoons between 1 and 4PM, where discriminating viewers can choose to look away.

In addition, the NFL has told Dolphins ownership that their stadium is no longer eligible for future Super Bowls because changes to the area since 2020 do not leave adequate "room for hospitality events around the stadium." Which sounds to me like a polite way of saying they don't want people to have to spend any more time than is strictly necessary participating in NFL football in Miami.

As a longtime Dolphins watcher, let me say: I strongly agree with them.

I have a whole category of posts here on my website under the heading "dolphins quarterbacks suck," but even by 21st-century Dolphins standards, the 2026 squad looks uninspiring. Quinn Ewers, Mark Gronowski, Cam Miller, and Malik Willis: If you recognize two of them, you watch far too much football, and I encourage you to seek professional help. Based on what I've seen so far, I suspect that only Ewers will be memorable, and only then as the answer to the trivia question "Who was the quarterback at Texas before Arch Manning?"

I think it's right kind of the NFL to spare its viewers from the nail-biting contest to find out which of them gets to be the one the Dolphins bench for whomever the team selects in next year's draft. Will I be hate-watching the 2026 Dolphins only to see if Arch replaces Quinn again? Signs point to yes.

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The headline in today's The Athletic begins: "Ted Ginn, Jr, ex-NFL receiver and UFL coach...". Ted Ginn Jr? Now that's a name I've not heard in a long time. A long time.

Ginn, for those of you who haven't wasted the past few decades following the rotting corpse of a once great football team called the Miami Dolphins, was the 9th overall pick in the 2007 draft. He played his college football for Ohio State, where he set a record for scoring on punt returns. I presume that's why GM Randy Mueller (who had been installed as something of a figurehead GM during Nick Saban's head coaching tenure only to find himself in over his head when Saban abruptly skipped town) drafted Ginn as high as he did. Ginn had great foot speed but hands of stone. He was an immediate bust.

I happened to be in the stands when Ginn finally scored his first NFL punt return touchdown following the Eagles' opening drive in week 11. The Dolphins were to that point winless on the season, and I had already soured on Ginn. My brother, an Eagles fan, knew it. So when Ginn scored, he immediately taunted me with "Who's your fav-rit play-er? Ted Gin Jun-ior!" He would repeat that whenever Ginn's name came up in NFL broadcasts in the following years.

Admittedly, the 2007 coach and roster Mueller assembled didn't do Ginn any favors. (Can you name any of the three quarterbacks who started for the Dolphins in 2007? There will be a quiz later.) But after just three years in Miami, he was traded to the 49ers. Thereafter, he spent equally short terms with the Panthers, Cardinals, Panthers (again), Saints, and Bears. That's actually a pretty good career by NFL standards, and he wouldn't be widely considered as a bust if he hadn't been drafted so high by a team that needed so much help.

Anyway, all that is what I think of when I read the rest of that headline: "...arrested on DWI charge in Texas." I have to say that it's nice to know that some things don't change. Nearly twenty years later, Ted Ginn, Jr. continues to disappoint.

Pop quiz, hot shot! The Miami Dolphins 2007 quarterbacks: Trent Green (5 starts), Cleo Lemon (7 starts), John Beck (4 starts). Lemon was the only QB on the roster when Ginn was drafted. Later-career Trent Green was signed in June on a one-year deal to shore up a terrible roster. John Beck was the rookie QB taken after Ginn with the 40th overall pick, after JaMarcus Russell, Brady Quinn, and Kevin Kolb. There's a reason 2007 is considered one of the all time worst QB classes.

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"Anomaly Detected" reports Google Analytics. It seems Google expected 9 visitors to Wriphe.com on Friday, and I got 38. Can I account for that difference? No. Maybe a whole bunch of people tuned in to read my take on What's New Pussycat? Come to think of it, maybe some 21st-century surveillance AI flagged me for putting the terms "student bodies," "having wonderful crime," and "murderers among us" in the same blog post. If so, whoops, I did it again.

I don't look at the site analytics often, and I would have thought that 38 was a huge aberration. (According to my phone, I literally only ever communicate with about a dozen people, and that includes my dogs' vet and "friend" Keith who said he was going to buy us tickets for today's Dolphins vs Falcons game in Atlanta then didn't and threw a party without inviting me instead. Not that I'm bitter. At least now I don't have to spend time and money on the Dolphins. So thanks, Keith! What a pal!) But looking at the year-to-date snapshots, 38 appears not quite so deviant. It looks very much like I commonly have over 20 visitors a day in 2025. I'm sure I have no idea who most of you are or why you would be interested in any of my pretentious whining about football or my so-called "friends," but you're welcome here

In fact, I had 345 visitors on August 17. I would assume that was the leading edge of a Denial of Service attack, although the day before I did post about my family's Scrabble history, so maybe that showed up in some Google News feeds, and I caught some stray boardgame fan lookie loos by accident. To those people I offer my sincerest apology (13 points).

Huh. Now that I really walk though the dashboard, I find I am getting a surprising amount of traffic (14% of all site hits) from China. To the best of my knowledge, I don't know anyone in China, so that does seem a bit weird. I don't think that I post a bunch about anything Chinese, but a quick search does reveal 32 posts matching the word "China." There are not quite 3000 posts in the history of this site, so that's a healthy 1%. Disproportionate to the number of hits, sure, but also more than I would have expected. In any case, ni hao to my China people!

The real question is whether any of these analytics serve any purpose. I think the answer is no, at least in regards to Wriphe.com. As you probably know if you're reading this, I don't tailor my blog posts to anyone's interests but my own, which is probably why Google thought I should have only 9 visitors. Seems to me that's still 9 more visitors than I deserve. More often than not, I wonder why I bother posting anything at all, and it's rewarding to know that at least 9 of you are paying attention. Or at least clicking through to see if I'm a murderer. Even if you're all just web crawling spiders, thanks for dropping by.

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I had hoped to wake up yesterday to find Stephen Ross had fired the head coach of his Miami Dolphins today. Ross likes to fire coaches on Mondays.

Ross bought majority ownership in the Dolphins in 2009, and even he doesn't like his own choices to lead the team. He fired Tony Sparano with three games remaining in the season (after a 26-10 loss to the Eagles) on December 12, 2011. He fired Joe Philbin with twelve games remaining on the season (after a 27-14 loss to the Jets) on Monday, October 5, 2015. He fired Adam Gase the day after the season ended (with a 42-17 loss to Buffalo) on Monday, December 31, 2018. He fired Brian Flores the day after the season ended (with a 33-24 win over New England) on Monday, January 10, 2022.

Side note: Sparano's mid-season replacement was Todd Bowles, who has gone on to have some success with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Philbin's mid-season replacement was Dan Campbell, who has gone on to have some success the Detroit Lions. I have to wonder who on the current staff, given a chance to be interim head coach, would go on to win elsewhere once they finally get out of Miami?

Side side note: I still think current head coach Mike McDaniel will make someone else a great offensive coordinator, and I wish him well in his future endeavors. He's just amply demonstrated that his skills are not a good fit for a head coach position, especially with the personnel he's been given in Miami.

Back to the matter at hand, the Dolphins disappointed me again. Despite being beaten Sunday 31-6 by Browns, who had managed only one win and never more than 17 points in previous games, the now 1-6 Dolphins did not announce a coach firing today. In fact, the first line of today's ESPN article reads "Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa will remain the team's starter, coach Mike McDaniel confirmed Monday, despite the worst statistical two-game stretch of his career." This despite the fact that the Dolphins are currently projected to have the second overall pick in the 2026 NFL Draft. Sadly, that's the point.

You may have noticed that the only coach Ross has fired after a win was Brian Flores. That was no accident. After Flores was fired, he accused Ross of trying to bribe him to lose games, an accusation the NFL upheld (among other proven charges including that Ross had tried to tamper with other teams to steal their quarterbacks and coaches). As punishment the Dolphins were forced to forfeit draft picks in 2023 and 2024.

So Ross has learned his lesson and will now just leave a bad coach in place to secure the pick. Too bad for us fans. If history is any guide, Ross will ruin that, too.

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Not so long ago, qz.com reported a statistical analysis of broadcast NFL games revealing that an average broadcast of 3 hours and 12 minutes contains only 11 minutes of actual action. One hour of the broadcast is commercial breaks, about 20 in all with a total of 100 commercials.

So about two full hours of NFL broadcasts are players just standing around. Somehow, that was the best part of watching the Dolphins lose their opening week game 33-8 to the Indianapolis Colts.

It also bears mentioning that the Colts hadn't won a season opener since 2013, and even more impressively, according to ESPN, no team had scored points on all 7 of their offensive possessions since 1978. (The last team to do it? The Baltimore Colts.)

Another year, same old shitty Dolphins.

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Almost a whole week in, and so far this Wriphe.com Football and Superman month is a little light on both.

Why is that, you ask? I have to admit that's partly because right now I'm pretty sure everything in the world sucks. And if the NFL's 2025 "You Better Believe" Kickoff Campaign bandwagon "Ride the Float" commercial is any indication, I'm right.

The NFL won't let me embed their shitty AI-generated commercial here, but here's a screencap and the top rated comments on the video so far:

youtu.be/N7auEg6XUOI

That's what 2025 has driven me to: reading (and agreeing with) the comments on YouTube. Sigh. To paraphrase Billy Joel, "we'll all go down together."

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The annual NFL Draft starts tonight. Who will the Miami Dolphins select? It doesn't matter. They'll still be the Miami Dolphins.

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1) The average NFL team goes 3-and-out on about 20% of their drives. (Even the best offenses still go 3-and-out about 10% of their attempts.)

2) The chance of recovering an onside kick in the NFL these days is under 8%.

Therefore, there isn't any reason to ever onside kick unless the time remaining in the game is something less than two minutes.

[My actual formula is that the onside threshold should be 39s x (3 - timeouts remaining). But that's a little nerdy.]

The point here being that there is less and less reason to attempt an onside kick, which I think is a shame. If there's no real chance for a team down 9 or more points to score, recover the ball, and score again inside of the final two minutes of a football game (barring an unlikely fumble or head coach looking for a reason to get fired), that disincentivizes the audience to continue watching.

Let's get this fixed, NFL. If injuries on kickoffs are such a problem, let's just get rid of them altogether. Teams could either surrender the ball to the opposing team at the 25 or attempt the equivalent of a 4th and 20 from their own 25 to retain possession. (NFL teams make plays of 20+ yards about, you guessed it, 8% of the time.)

I assure you that solution isn't any stupider than modern overtime rules.

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In 2023, only 22% of all NFL kickoffs were returned. That's boring TV, so for 2024, the NFL revamped the rules, creating a complicated mess they are marketing as the Dynamic Kickoff™ rule. So far, it's working. After 3 weeks, nearly 33% of all NFL kickoffs have been returned. Take that, going to the kitchen for snacks!

What is supposed to make the Dynamic Kickoff™ dynamic is that teams are forced to return the kicks. Assuming the ball lands in the newly designated Landing Zone™ (between the 20 yard line and the goal line), the new rules say you have to try and advance it. (Well, you have to unless the ball rolls into the end zone where you still cannot fair catch it but can surrender yourself to move your starting position out to the leading edge of the Landing Zone™. Oh, the technicality!)

However, if you are the kicking team, why would you ever willingly give your opponent the opportunity to return the kick? If a ball lands in the end zone or deeper, the receiving team gets the ball at the 30 yard line. This season NFL teams are averaging 26.8 yards per return (which is a smidgeon better than the 23 yards teams averaged in all of 2023 and a smidgeon worse than the 28.7 they averaged in 2022). Therefore, putting the ball on the 30 yard line is only a marginally worse outcome than the expected average return and has the added bonus of never surrendering a kickoff return touchdown.

As a matter of fact, even when touchbacks only brought the ball out to the 20, kicking it out of the back of the end zone was always the better strategy. A 0% chance of giving up a touchdown is always the best play, and the Dynamic Kickoff™ hasn't changed that calculation. I suspect that the 11% increase in returns is some combination of teams testing the new rules and kickers who are not capable of reliably hitting the end zone from 65 yards away. The first group is made of coaches who trust their guts over math; the second is a bunch of players who should be replaced with stronger legs. I expect both will get whittled down as the year goes on.

If it's not clear yet, I think the Dynamic Kickoff™ is a lousy rule. It does little to encourage teams to attempt returns and does nothing to repair the long-broken onside kick that has decimated the drama of late game come-from-behind attempts. It's a "solution" instituted by traditionalists who recognize a problem (danger of injuring players + boring mandatory change-of-possession plays) but are unwilling to take real steps to fix it. What it has given us is 11% more returns to the 26 yard line. Anyone need anything from the kitchen while I'm up?

UPDATE 10/1: Though 4 weeks, 18 of 32 NFL teams have a better kickoff touchback percentage than they had in 2023. Boy, that new Dynamic Kickoff rule is really doing it's job!

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In 2020, Tua "If It Ain't Broke, Break It" Tagovailoa fell to the fifth overall pick in the NFL draft because scouts decided he was fragile after he broke his hip at Alabama. He missed 6 games in 2020 because of that hip and a busted thumb, 4 games in 2021 with broken ribs, and 4 games in 2022 with some pretty serious concussions. Last year was the first year he made it all the way through the too-long NFL season without missing any full games, and the Miami Dolphins, for the most part, looked pretty darn good. (At least until it got cold. Dolphins hate the cold.) If this was the new Tua, things were looking up.

Well, perhaps you've heard: in just the second game of the 2024 season, Tua had another severe concussion that left him stiffly lying on the field like... well, a player who's had a severe concussion. Nothing looks quite like the fencing response. Trust me, once you've seen it, you'll recognize it forever. And Dolphins fans have now seen it multiple times from Tua Tagovailoa.

In hindsight, "fragile" might be a polite way of putting it.

I don't mean to kick Tua while he's down. It's been proven in recent years that he gives the Dolphins their best shot at winning games. But winning really isn't everything. If it was, I wouldn't still be a Dolphins fan

I'm no doctor, and I'm certainly not getting paid $53 million a year to sacrifice my body for public spectacle, so I won't even pretend that I'm in any position to tell Tua what to do. What I will do instead is quote an infamously six-fingered man: "If you haven't got your health, then you haven't got anything." It's good advice no matter how many fingers you see.

UPDATE 09/17: Tua has been placed on Injured Reserve, which means he will miss at least 4 games because of this latest concussion. That's 8 full games (plus parts of 4 others) over the course of 2 calendar years (39 games) for concussions. That's a very, very bad trend.

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