Adam Gase’s first season as Miami Dolphins head coach, back in 2016, went as well as anyone could have reasonably hoped. The team won 10 games, earning its first playoff berth since 2008. Four Dolphins made the Pro Bowl that year: Jay Ajayi, Jarvis Landry, Ndamukong Suh and Cameron Wake. Times were good.

Today, entering the third season of the Gase era, things are a bit different. The team is coming off a 6-10 season. Ajayi and Landry were dealt away and Suh was released.

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Last year’s offense was mostly miserable, as Jay Cutler replaced an injured Ryan Tannehill at quarterback. Miami ranked No. 28 in the league in scoring (17.6 PPG), No. 28 in yards per pass attempt (6.3), No. 29 in rushing (86.8 YPG) and dead-least in third-down conversion percentage (31.7). The Dolphins’ average yards per play fell from 5.8 in 2016 to 4.9 last season.

So it would be fair to say that 2018 is a huge year for Gase — and for Tannehill, and, generally, for this franchise. After being linked to pretty much every buzzy quarterback in the 2018 draft class, Miami selected none of them. Tannehill, coming off ACL surgery, will be backed up by Brock Osweiler. What could go wrong?

Ryan Tannehill is (finally) ambulatory, back in the game for Miami

We can forgive Cutler’s underwhelming performance last season, because he didn’t sign with Miami until August, having previously agreed to broadcast games for Fox. He was a placeholder QB for a team that still imagined it had the pieces necessary to remain competitive without Tannehill. Cutler was of course familiar with Gase’s offense, as the coach had been Chicago’s OC in 2015. The renewal of their partnership produced one of the season’s most ridiculous moments but very few explosive plays. Only two of Cutler’s 429 pass attempts resulted in gains of 40-plus yards.

View photos Ryan Tannehill will be directing the Dolphins offense again after a season lost to injury. We’ve seen this show before and it’s … well, it’s fine. Meh. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee) More

And now Tannehill is back at the controls. Two seasons ago, he produced career highs in completion percentage (67.1), touchdown rate (4.9), yards per attempt (7.7) and passer-rating (93.5), so there’s little question that his work with Gase was promising. But his 2016 season ended in the second-half of a three-touchdown performance against Arizona in Week 14, when he suffered a multi-ligament knee injury. And then the rehab/re-injury/surgery fiasco happened, which gave us the Cutler experience.

Tannehill will enter his age-30 season having not taken a meaningful snap for 21 months. He’s delivered only one top-12 positional finish in his career (2014), so there’s no reason fantasy owners should expect anything more than, say, a 3900-24-12 line in a healthy season. To date, he’s proven to be competent if not inventive or spectacular; he’s been a capable runner, though he has just six rushing scores over five seasons. Post-injury, he’s not a QB to specifically target in any format. Superflex owners can certainly do much worse than Tannehill. He’d be easier to sell if any of his receivers were at all exciting.

Jarvis Landry is gone, leaving 160 targets up for grabs

Landry led the NFL in receptions last season (112), yet he somehow finished with just 987 yards. Only four players in league history have caught 100 or more balls yet gained less than 1000 yards; three of those players are running backs (Forte, Centers, Tomlinson), and the other dude is Landry. Let’s not pretend the Dolphins had to replace some dynamic, thrill-a-minute freak of a receiver when Landry was dealt to Cleveland. Still, he did finish with nine TD receptions last season, and he was peppered with targets throughout his career in Miami.

Much of Landry’s old workload should shift to new acquisitions Danny Amendola and Albert Wilson. Reporters close to the Dolphins seem to feel Amendola is going to be a volume receiver…

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