Is New England the New Model for Miami?

That the Miami Dolphins have failed to win the AFC East title for a 17th consecutive season is disappointing. That they're likely to miss the playoffs for a second consecutive year and seventh time in nine seasons is equally disappointing, if not more so.

For some of their fans, though, what makes everything worse is that the New England Patriots look like they'll be the team to end the Buffalo Bills' run atop the AFC East after suffering through back-to-back 4-13 seasons.

Just like that, the Patriots' post-Tom Brady hangover appears to be over, meanwhile the Dolphins continue to spin their wheels.

And the question becomes: If New England can produce this kind of dramatic turnaround or quick rebuild, however you want to frame it, what can't the Dolphins?

More significantly, should the Dolphins try to copy the New England 2.0 model?

EXAMPLES FOR DOLPHINS TO FOLLOW

Because the NFL is a copycat league, it's always simple to look at the franchises that enjoy consistent success to try to find the secret recipe and, if possible, replicate it.

So it was that the Philadelphia Eagles provided one clear model last season when they won the Super Bowl with a good, but hardly elite, starting quarterback but the best O-line/D-line combination in the NFL.

There's been the San Francisco 49ers model, which has yet to produce a Super Bowl title under Kyle Shanahan but has the team in contention just about every year despite also using a starting quarterback who's good at what it was without being elite, first Jimmy Garoppolo and now Brock Purdy after Mac Jones did a very good job in relief while Purdy was sidelined.

There's the Detroit Lions model, which features a high-energy, bite-the-kneecap mentality embodied by the head coach combined with hit after hit in the draft — and again a quarterback who doesn't get mentioned as belonging in the top tier.

We could look at the Denver Broncos model, which entailed swallowing a lot of cap space to move on from an aging and decreasing quarterback while building up a Super Bowl-caliber defense.

Then we get to the Kansas City Chiefs, Baltimore Ravens and Buffalo Bills model, where everything is centered around an all-world quarterback, whether it be Patrick Mahomes, Lamar Jackson or Josh Allen, all of them MVPs.

Which brings us to how the Patriots got to where they are, needing simply a victory against the Bills in Week 15 when they return from their bye OR victories against the lowly New York Jets and Dolphins in the final two weeks to secure the AFC East title for the first time since 2019 when they won it for the 11th consecutive time with the hard-to-beat Brady-Belichick formula.

The two key factors in New England's rise — and, yes, the Patriots have played a soft schedule, but it doesn't change the fact they're 11-2 — obviously have been the hiring of Mike Vrabel as head coach and the performance of 2024 third overall pick Drake Maye in his second NFL season. But the Patriots also hit in their 2025 draft with two starting offensive linemen (Will Campbell and Jared Wilson) and they've gotten a lot of production out of their free agent class, led by DT Milton Williams, OLB Harold Landry and WR Stefon Diggs.

THE DOLPHINS' BEST OPTION

So which route should the Dolphins take next offseason (assuming they don't go on a crazy run to finish out the 2025 season and make the playoffs)?

The KC, Baltimore and Buffalo models always will be difficult to duplicate because guys like Mahomes, Jackson and Allen don't grow on trees, and the Dolphins also aren't likely to select high enough in the first round of the 2026 draft to land a bona fide franchise QB, even somebody like a Drake Maye.

The Dolphins did start to focus on the line of scrimmage the past two drafts with the selections of Chop Robinson and Kenneth Grant in the first round and Patrick Paul and Jonah Savaiinaea in the second round, and their continued development and eventual emergence as difference-makers will be key for Miami if it hopes to ride the Detroit, Philly or San Francisco recipe.

The Dolphins also could go the Denver route with Tua Tagovailoa, but moving on from him would be even more cap-damaging than what the Broncos endured with Russell Wilson (with $99 million of dead cap space compared to $85 million), but whether they can bring in a Bo Nix as a replacement is questionable and dumping Tua for the sake of dumping Tua without an equal or better alternative just doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

Whatever route the Dolphins choose, there are building blocks to be added, for sure, and getting back to contention won't be — especially since it's likely they'll now have two difficult teams with which to deal within the division.