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Uncredited/Associated Press

Why would Branden Albert be the most important player on the team?

For starters, look at what's behind him: either Jason Fox or Ja'Wuan James, which would be a nightmare that's still a possibility (per Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald). The preference would be for James to play right tackle, a position he's played since high school and played well in his first eight games as a Miami Dolphin. We'll get to how he did as a left tackle for Miami later.

Secondly, we saw the nightmare of Ja'Wuan James at left tackle, which moved Dallas Thomas to right tackle. It was not a pretty sight.

Just looking at some stats, it didn't seem that bad without Albert in 2014. Ryan Tannehill completed 69 percent of his passes and threw for 1,934 yards, 12 touchdowns, five interceptions and a quarterback rating of 96.4 after the Albert injury. Prior to the injury, he completed 62 percent of his passes for 1,454 yards, 14 touchdowns, six interceptions and a quarterback rating of 83.3.

He did get sacked more post-injury, as he was sacked 17 times with Albert protecting his blind side and 26 times without Albert.

The run game doesn't look like it suffered either, as the team averaged 4.8 yards per carry and scored six touchdowns both before and after the injury.

Note: Not included in either of those stats is the Detroit Lions game where Albert got hurt.

However, look at the record of the Dolphins: Prior to Albert's injury, they were 5-3 but after the injury, they went 3-5.

Along the offensive line is when it really got bad. Albert graded out at 12.6 in pass block and 6.3 in run block for a grade of 17.5 overall, via Pro Football Focus. Unfortunately Albert and Billy Turner—who only played 19 snaps all season—were the only offensive linemen to finish with positive Pro Football Focus grades.

The rest of the offensive line combined to grade out at minus-76.7 in pass blocking, minus-51.4 in run blocking and overall graded out at minus-131.

Now look back at Tannehill's stat line and how impressive it is, especially when you factor in that he was only sacked 17 times when Albert played (with Albert allowing only three sacks and five hurries), but he was sacked 26 times without Albert despite throwing 10 less pass attempts.

For those reasons, I named Miami's 2014 MVP.

Albert is not only Miami's most valuable player, but he's its most important. If anything happens to him, the Dolphins might as well install a turnstile at the left tackle position.

Advanced Statistics provided by Pro Football Focus. Statistics provided by NFL.com.

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