Dolphins Midseason Awards

Recognizing the best (and worst) for the first half of the Miami Dolphins' 2024 season.

Oct 27, 2024; Miami Gardens, Florida, USA; Miami Dolphins defensive tackle Calais Campbell (93) enters the field before the game against the Arizona Cardinals at Hard Rock Stadium. / Sam Navarro-Imagn Images

One of the things that happened when the NFL went to a 17-game regular season schedule in 2021 is that the actual halfway point for every team became foggy.

The best way to do it is through weeks of the regular season, which puts us there for the Miami Dolphins, who have played eight games and had their bye.

The Dolphins' first half of the 2024 season was rather forgettable, which probably would win an award for biggest understatement.

How about we turn to on-the-field midseason awards for the 2024 Dolphins?

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TEAM MVP

There may be no bigger point to illustrate the team's struggles than it's actually difficult to come up with a clear MVP. In the past couple of years, there could have been a debate between Tyreek Hill and Tua Tagovailoa, but now it's simply a matter of coming up with a worthy candidate. Four names jump out for us: Calais Campbell, Terron Armstead, Jalen Ramsey, and De'Von Achane, though Zach Sieler would have been added to the list had he not missed the past two games. Achane has been the biggest weapon on offense, but it's impossible to go with an offensive player when the team is next-to-last in the NFL in scoring. That eliminates Armstead as well. In a close call, the choice here is Calais Campbell.

The Choice: Calais Campbell

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ROOKIE OF THE YEAR

Again, there is a troublesome lack of candidates. The Dolphins have seven rookies on their active roster, including draft picks Chop Robinson, Patrick Paul, Jaylen Wright, Mohamed Kamara, and Malik Washington, along with undrafted free agents Storm Duck and Andrew Meyer. Of those seven, the only one who has gotten an even remotely decent number of snaps is Robinson, though he has yet to make much of an impact. Wright has been the one who has flashed the most (he's got a five-yard rushing average), though he's averaging less than 13 offensive snaps per game.

The Choice: Jaylen Wright

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MOST IMPROVED PLAYER

Stop us if you've heard this one before, but we're still trying to come up with a good candidate here. That, of course, helps explain the team being 2-6. The one player who jumps out is cornerback Kader Kohou, who's actually played a lot better than his brutal Pro Football Focus (PFF) grade. Pro Football Reference (PFR) is a lot kinder to Kohou and has his opponent's passer rating when targeted at 59.9, which is very good and a massive improvement over his brutal 131.0 of a year ago. Beyond analytics, our eyeballs tell us that Kohou has played a lot better this season.

The Choice: Kader Kohou

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BEST OFFSEASON ACQUISITION (OTHER THAN CAMPBELL)

Since he's our team MVP, Campbell obviously would be the choice, but we'll go ahead and recognize cornerback Kendall Fuller, who has quietly been very good. To show how metrics can change from one outlet to another, Fuller has a very good PFF grade here, but his PFR opponent passer rating is almost 100. Again, the eyeballs tell us he's been solid.

The Choice: CB Kendall Fuller

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SECOND-HALF BREAKOUT PERFORMER

Tyreek Hill would be a cool answer here, considering his first-half performance was so far beneath his standards, but we'll go in a different direction here. Very slowly but surely, it does look like Chop Robinson is coming on, and we get the feeling he could be in for a strong finish to his rookie season.

The Choice: Chop Robinson

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BEST TEAM PERFORMANCE

Yet again, there is not much to choose from, and the answer here doesn't even involve a win. The reality is that the victory against Jacksonville in the opener could have been more impressive, especially looking back now at how bad the Jaguars have been. We won't even mention the one in New England. But even while losing at Buffalo, the Dolphins played well enough offensively to create some optimism for the second half — and that performance no doubt was a factor in the decision to stand pat at the trade deadline.

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LOWLIGHT AWARDS

Most Disappointing Team Performance

The Monday night loss against Tennessee.

Most Disappointing Individual Performance

This would have to be Tyreek Hill because of the standards he set the past two seasons.

Most Heartbreaking Play

Jaelan Phillips tore an ACL in his fourth game after working all offseason to return from his torn Achilles.

Most Overhyped Acquisition

Wide receiver Odell Beckham, Jr., but only because it was revealed so late he had offseason knee surgery and didn't figure to be ready at the start of the regular season all along

Most Disappointing Stat

The Dolphins have had four different quarterbacks attempt at least 15 passes, the first time that's happened since 1966, the first year of the franchise's play in the AFL.