MIAMI GARDENS — Here’s what we know about the 2023 Miami Dolphins — they’re 4-1 after playing three teams with losing records, one team with a .500 record, and one team that’s above .500.

And on Sunday, they face possibly the worst team on their schedule, winless Carolina (0-5).

The Dolphins’ first six opponents have a combined record of 8-21 (.276) heading into the NFL’s Week 6.

In other words, we don’t know much about the 2023 Miami Dolphins at this point.

We haven’t yet found out how much progress they’ve made over last year’s team that went 9-8 and lost at Buffalo 34-31 in the wild-card game.

We know this year’s team is better, but we don’t know how much better.

We’re about to find out.

Forget about Sunday’s game. 

The Carolina Panthers are terrible. You’ll learn absolutely nothing about the Dolphins from this game regardless of the score.

You just want the Dolphins to stay healthy so they can face Philadelphia, last year’s Super Bowl runner-up, at full strength in two weeks, and then face Kansas City, the defending Super Bowl champions, at full strength in four weeks.

Sandwiched between those two games is a possible “trap game,”  a home affair against New England (1-4).

These three games will serve as a good midseason measuring stick for the 2023 Dolphins.

Look, I like and respect what the Dolphins have done so far.

Their offense has the most yards in NFL history through five games (2,568 yards, 513.6 yards per game).

We know this team is fast. It’s incredibly fast among wide receivers Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle, and running backs De’Von Achane, Raheem Mostert and Salvon Ahmed, to name a few.

We know the offensive line has kept quarterback Tua Tagovailoa upright, one of the most important goals of the season.

This is a good football team.

How good?

We have no idea.

The offense is solid against sub-.500 teams.

The defense remains suspect.

Special teams are iffy.

The Dolphins were hammered by 28 points on the road by the best team on their schedule (Buffalo).

They edged out the second-best team (Los Angeles Chargers, 36-34). But the Dolphins get extra points for that victory because it was a road opener against a playoff team that beat them soundly last season.

Buffalo and the Chargers, the toughest teams on the schedule to this point, and two teams who will both be regarded as good teams at the end of the season, are a combined 5-4.

After that there’s been a slew of stat-padding games against bad opponents.

The Patriots, Broncos, Giants, and Panthers are a combined 3-17.

That’s not a knock on the Dolphins. They don’t create the schedule. All they do is play games in the order in which they occur.

They’ve handled their opponents impressively, for the most part.

I gave them an ‘A’ for the first quarter (first four games) of the season.

The five-game second quarter includes the Giants, Panthers, Eagles, Patriots and Chiefs. The Dolphins have already beaten the Giants and you assume they’ll beat the Panthers.

If the Dolphins can split the Eagles and Chiefs games they’ll likely get an ‘A’ for the second quarter of the season.

If the Dolphins sweep the Eagles and Chiefs games, they’ll likely get an ‘A+’ for the second quarter of the season.

And if they lose both games, well, if that happens let’s see exactly how it happens.

The 2023 Miami Dolphins are clearly better than the 2022 Dolphins, but we won’t have an accurate idea of how good they are until midway through the season.

We’ve to grin and bear it through one more bad opponent. After that, it’s game time.