Near the top of Sunday, as they mentioned their playoff berth, the Miami Dolphins gamers weren’t fairly prepared to show their consideration to what’s coming subsequent.
“I’m celebrating for a night,” quarterback Skylar Thompson mentioned after beating the New York Jets 11-6.
That was a good suggestion, as a result of on Monday the Dolphins woke as much as a distinct world. They’ve change into the loneliest workforce in sports activities, the one nobody’s rooting for, the one reverse a Buffalo Bills workforce everybody desires to hug and take residence.
The Dolphins clawed and crawled their approach to lastly attain the playoffs for simply the third time in 20 years solely to search out the nationwide storyline for this sport isn’t the playoffs. It’s not even soccer in a method everybody understands.
Sunday’s sport in Buffalo will likely be measured on the bigger scales of life and hope within the method Damar Hamlin sat in a Cincinnati hospital mattress Sunday, recovering from almost dying on a soccer subject six days earlier, as Bills followers despatched a video saying, “We love you, Damar!”
“I love you more,” the Bills defensive again tweeted.
Hamlin wanted CPR throughout a sport final Monday evening to remain alive. It was a chilling, on-field scene that made Football America weep. Non-Football America joined in prayer, too, in a way NFL commissioner Roger Goodell mentioned, “united not just the NFL, but united this country.”
The league had each groups’ gamers put on warm-up T-shirts Sunday studying “Love For Damar,” together with his No. 3. The Bills’ medical workers was honored earlier than their win towards New England. Buffalo quarterback Josh Allen noticed one thing bigger at work when a gap kickoff was returned for a landing.
“It was spiritual,” he mentioned. “It really was. Bone-chilling. It was special.”
He then associated in a quaking voice the way it was, “Three years and three months since the last kickoff return. So … pretty cool.”
This is what the Dolphins go up towards Sunday. Some sports activities moments transcend sports activities. Miami Marlins second baseman Dee Gordon hit a house run on the primary pitch after Jose Fernandez died. Green Bay quarterback Brett Favre threw for 399 yards the day after his father died.
Imagine Hamlin being nicely sufficient to attend Sunday’s sport. Who wouldn’t cheer as he’s launched to the gang? Who wouldn’t really feel the electrical emotion of that scene?
Everyone is aware of a sport doesn’t quantity to a pile of sand subsequent to Hamlin’s story of life and dying, together with the Dolphins gamers and coaches as they mentioned in its aftermath.
But they need to play a soccer sport — an enormous sport as video games go — the place nobody exterior their fan base will likely be rooting for them. No one will care about their offensive questions, or defensive issues or presumably even their scary story of well being and restoration.
That is determined by if quarterback Tua Tagovailoa performs Sunday. And that is determined by if he progresses by way of concussion protocol this week. Even then, the workforce and quarterback would have a choice about him enjoying. Sources contained in the Dolphins say Tagovailoa needed to play towards the Jets. That’s no shock.
Just the potential for the NFL’s two greatest well being scares this season being in the identical stadium should give Goodell the heebie-jeebies. The league’s concern would transcend their well being to the league picture of individuals linking the dangers of soccer from Hamlin’s coronary heart to Tagovailoa’s head.
And if Tagovailoa performs? Collective breaths can be held with each play that he wouldn’t endure a fourth traumatic head harm. No one desires to even take into account that.
Tagovailoa greeted his Dolphins teammates, beginning together with his substitute, Skylar Thompson, within the locker room on Sunday.
Monday introduced one other day. A uncommon playoff week.
For years, Dolphins followers have imagined the world and all its accompanying fates and furies have conspired towards their workforce. Now they go to Buffalo, attempting for this franchise’s first playoff win in 23 years, and discover out it’s true.
The world will likely be towards them Sunday in Buffalo. Everyone understands why, too. That gained’t make it any simpler being the loneliest workforce in sports activities.
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Source: www.bostonherald.com