Who Is The Dolphins Most Improved Player So Far?
Credit: Paul Rutherford-Imagn Images
About a week ago, “Locked on Dolphins” host Kyle Crabbs made a video titled: Which Miami Dolphins Players Are Performing Above Or Below Expectations Through First Five Weeks? The premise was pretty straightforward. Crabbs picked a handful of players who overachieved relative to expectations prior to the season, and another handful of guys who have underachieved. Spoiler alert: A lot of his nominees are new additions to the team. Jaylen Wright, Calais Campbell, and Marcus Maye, just to name a few.
But hey: what about some of the mainstays on the roster? Where’s the love for them? Let’s go over some of the Dolphins’ most improved players so far this season, which means we won’t be talking about are in their first year with the team. The goal is to shine the spotlight on players who have improved from the 2023 season or have outperformed expectations.
Here are the four nominees:
OT Terron Armstead
This might be cheating a little bit, but hear me out. Yes, Armstead has been far and away the best player on the Dolphins offensive line this season. He’s a proven veteran who has been one of the best players at his position for most of his career. So why is he on this list?
Part of it is a lack of candidates, because Miami’s offense has been putrid without Tua Tagovailoa under center, which makes it harder to justify nominating a skill position player, or god forbid, one of the backup quarterbacks. However, Armstead has also had a jump in his analytics.
Per PFF, Armstead is the highest-ranked Dolphins player not just on offense, but the entire team with a 90.4 overall grade. In 2023, Armstead was still pretty good by PFF’s standards, with an overall grade of 79.3, which means his already solid grade has improved by 11.1 points. With that year-to-year improvement, he is now the highest-graded tackle in the NFL right now. Going from “really good” to “the best player in the league at his position” makes him worthy of being on this list.
OT Kendall Lamb
We just got done nominating a star left tackle, but why not highlight another tackle who has been a star in his role? Kendall Lamb is the Dolphins’ swing tackle, and that role brings with it a lot of uncertainty. He’ll never know when his number will be called upon until the very last minute. When he does see the field, it could be at right tackle, left tackle, guard, you name it. Such is the life for a backup offensive lineman, but Lamb has taken full advantage of every opportunity he has gotten.
Lamb is currently the second-highest-graded player on offense behind Armstead, with a 78.0 mark from PFF. That’s a significant drop-off from Armstead, but where Kendall has really excelled is in pass protection with a 86.2 pass-blocking grade, which leads all players on this Dolphins team. Last season, Kendall Lamb was fairly mediocre in pass protection with (67.1 pass-block grade), so it’s really nice to see him improve in that regard, even if his snaps have been limited because of his backup status.
DT Zach Sieler
Entering the season, Sieler was the player I had the most questions about. Not because he’s been bad or anything — as a matter of fact, he was solid in 2023. The main concern was that his production would drop off significantly without Christian Wilkins there to take on all those double-teams.
As it turns out, Sieler doesn’t need Wilkins to be effective. Sieler is currently the Dolphins’ third-highest-ranked defender, boasting an overall PFF grade of 73.1. What’s notable about this is that he’s been the most productive as a pass-rusher, which isn’t something anyone expected from a former seventh-round pick. Nevertheless, Sieler has massively exceeded all expectations for him this season, and his overall PFF grade improved slightly from last year, so he makes the list.
OLB Emmanuel Ogbah
Last but not least, we have Ogbah, who signed with the team this summer following the unexpected retirement of Shaq Barrett. Ogbah was only supposed to be a rotational player behind Jaelan Phillips, but he has instead taken on the mantle as the veteran leader of the Dolphins’ linebacker room following Phillips’ season-ending ACL injury.
Not only that, but Ogbah has shown new life in Anthony Weaver’s defense. Over the past couple of seasons, Ogbah hasn’t been very effective on the field, but this year he’s been an important glue guy for the Dolphins pass-rushing unit and has performed the most above expectations on a snap-by-snap basis, taking over 200 snaps taken amongst Miami’s edge rushers.
And The Award Goes To…
Ogbah! To me, he’s the player who best fits the criteria for this list. If we’re just going off of whose PFF grades improved, then Armstead would be the winner. However, we already knew that Armstead was good, so it doesn’t feel right to have him win this. Lamb has been a nice swing tackle, but he hasn’t played enough snaps to solidify his case either. As for Sieler, he only showed slight statistical improvement from last season in a year where he played fairly well.
Ogbah went from a guy who got paid big money, to an underperformer, and now he’s back with a chip on his shoulder. It’s a great story and an unexpected contribution, which is why he’s my pick for the Dolphins Most-Improved Player so far this season.
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