There’s no must oversell this. There’s no must fairly up the Miami Dolphins’ subsequent sport with dramatic phrases or historic themes like how it might be their largest regular-season victory since clinching their final AFC East title on the New York Jets on the final day of the 2008 season.
That’s 14 years, by the best way.
That 12 months was an oasis within the bigger twenty years of swill, too.
You may say that is larger, too, as a result of beating Buffalo on Sunday wouldn’t signify an overachievement like that 2008 season was. It would unlock the creativeness in a way Dolphins followers haven’t been allowed to do for soccer generations.
But, once more, with the conclusion there’s no must hype Sunday’s sport between the 2-0 Dolphins and the 2-0, two-time defending AFC East champion Buffalo Bills, right here’s what’s at stake: If the Dolphins win, you possibly can take into account them a contender.
That’s proper.
Let’s pause to consider that.
When’s the final time you can think about the Dolphins as a contender? Don’t say once they squeaked into the playoffs in 2016 or the aforementioned 2008 season. Making the playoffs have been these ceilings — and false ones, as the next years proved.
Don’t say the final time you imagined the Dolphins as a contender was when Sports Illustrated picked them as a Super Bowl crew in coach Nick Saban’s second 12 months in 2006. That was blather. That season drove Saban to Alabama.
Coach Jimmy Johnson had an getting older Dan Marino and the league’s finest protection in 1998. But even Johnson didn’t assume they have been a top-end contender.
Don Shula’s final nice crew? Some would say the 1994 season, once they blew a 21-6 halftime lead at San Diego and have been knocked out of the playoffs 22-21. Some would say the 1992 season, once they superior to the AFC Championship Game, then misplaced 29-10 when Buffalo ran the slip-screen to Thurman Thomas each different play.
That’s three many years in the past. Buffalo has misplaced 4 Super Bowls, gone a pair many years with out the playoffs and rebuilt itself into the AFC East’s gold normal since then. The Dolphins? They’ve wandered by means of the desert the previous 20 years.
Now comes a defining sport within the third week. Sure, it’s early. It’s nonetheless September. But it’s not too early to push the Dolphins into the dialog of contenders in the event that they win this.
Should the Dolphins be favored? They have some issues going for them. They’re at house within the September warmth. They gained with suffocating protection in opposition to New England and with electrical offense at Baltimore. Buffalo is on a brief week, too, after dismantling Tennessee on Monday night time 41-7.
But there’s no likelihood the Dolphins needs to be favored to win this sport. That’s not simply because they’ve misplaced seven straight to Buffalo. It’s as a result of Buffalo is that they’re finest crew within the NFL by means of two weeks. They beat the defending Super Bowl champions within the Los Angeles Rams and the defending No. 1 seed within the AFC by a mixed 72-17.
You can also love quarterback Tua Tagovailoa’s coming-out occasion within the fourth quarter in opposition to Baltimore, if it’s seemed again as that sometime. But Buffalo has Josh Allen. He makes Buffalo a contender so long as he performs there, like Marino as soon as did for the Dolphins.
There have been instances over the previous couple of many years the Dolphins-Bills rivalry lacked juice – and never simply, “The Juice,” of O.J. Simpson. That was bitter stuff. The 1972 Dolphins stood throughout the road and cursed the Bills operating again as a result of his crew trailed three touchdowns and saved operating him to pad his stats.
“You chickens—,’ Dolphins linebacker Nick Buoniconti told him. “Look at the scoreboard.”
There have been different instances over the previous twenty years this rivalry lacked consequence, primarily as a result of New England gained 17 AFC East titles in 19 years and everybody else was enjoying for a participation trophy.
There even have been instances there’s been in-the-moment drama, like when video games at Buffalo knocked Joe Philbin’s 2012 Dolphins out of the playoffs and 2020 knocked Brian Flores’ Dolphins out. But nobody pretended the Dolphins have been constructed to contend these 12 months.
Win this one and the panorama modifications. Losing doesn’t imply both crew is out of something. Buffalo is a superb crew already. The Dolphins, with a win, will show they are often in that dialog, too.
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Source: www.bostonherald.com