Miami Dolphins Looking to Pull Off Biggest Win in Years
If you thought the Miami Dolphins victory against the Buffalo Bills in Week 3 was big, it’s going to look lame by comparison if they can pull off the upset at Highmark Stadium on Saturday night.
Matter of a fact, a win at Buffalo in what are expected to be nasty winter weather conditions would be huge. Big-time huge.
It’s actually almost impossible to overstate what it would mean.
It would be the most significant Dolphins win in a long, long time.
It’s not just that the Dolphins will enter the game as 8.5-point underdogs, according to the Sports Illustrated Sportsbook because they not only won as 8.5-point underdogs but blew out the 49ers on the road in October of 2020 and before that shocked the New England Patriots at Gillette Stadium in the 2019 season finale as 17.5-point underdogs.
It’s not just that the Dolphins would complete a season sweep of the team that entered the season as the overwhelming favorites to win the Super Bowl, even though it would represent the first Miami sweep of the defending AFC East champions since 2003 when they defeated the New York Jets twice.
It’s all those things put together, and more.
It’s the Dolphins upending the top seed in the AFC in a December game on the road, which would stamp them as legit contenders to come out of the conference to get to the Super Bowl because, let’s face it, if the Dolphins can win at Buffalo in December, it would mean they can win anywhere in January.
That still is in question, particularly after the Dolphins came up short against playoff contenders San Francisco and the L.A. Chargers the past two weeks.
And then there’s other major factor, maybe the biggest one of all.
Tua Tagovailoa.
The third-year quarterback has had, by all accounts, a highly successful season and answered a lot of questions that surfaced after his first two seasons in the NFL.
But, like it or not, there are still obstacles that need to be cleared before the Dolphins should feel 100 percent comfortable moving forward with him as the franchise quarterback for the long term.
One is performing in bad weather conditions.
Another is delivering a big performance in a clutch late-season situation.
Play well in a victory against Buffalo and Tua checks off those two boxes in one night.
And here’s what’s important to keep in mind: “Performing” and “delivering” does not mean throwing for 400-plus yards and/or six touchdowns like he did in Week 2 on the road against the Baltimore Ravens.
Is there a statistical measure for Tagovailoa’s outing to be considered a success? The simple answer is no.
So how will we know? Just think of the old saying, “You’ll know it when you see it.”
At the very least, though, it would mean the Dolphins winning because of Tua, not in spite of Tua or even him having an inconsequential outing.
If the weather conditions get really bad, as expected, it’s unrealistic and unfair to ask any quarterback to put up big numbers, but there will come a time when a big pass has to be made, a big third down has to be converted.
This is Tua’s task in this game.
There was a similar opportunity for him last season at Tennessee or in the 2020 season finale at Buffalo, but he came up short both times.
The thing is that Tua wasn’t as good in either of those two seasons as he’s been in 2022 and he’s also got a lot better supporting cast and a lot more creative play designs to help him.
No, this is not a make-or-break game for Tua; it’s more like make or continue waiting for that career-boosting performance.
And this would be a huge win regardless of Tua’s performance, though it obviously would make it that much more significant.
A loss obviously would be disappointing as it would make the Dolphins 0-for-3 on a road trip many saw as the litmus test for just how good this team can be.
But in terms of the playoff outlook, it would not be devastating because the Dolphins still will control their fate — victories against the Patriots and Jets in the final two games assures the Dolphins of making the playoffs. Besides, the Dolphins are expected to lose (based on the betting line).
Bottom line here is that a win would be much more meaningful in the big picture than a loss would be damaging.
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DOLPHINS SIGNATURE VICTORIES
So we mentioned earlier this would be the biggest Dolphins victory in a long, long time.
But just how long?
Well, let’s examine this.
The Dolphins last made the playoffs in 2016 and the victory that got them in, coincidentally, came at Buffalo in December. The only problem there is that it was backup Matt Moore who was in the game at quarterback and the Bills weren’t a great team at the time.
We could go back to the 2008 season and the famous Wildcat game because it was a 25-point rout of the team that had gone 16-0 the previous season and also because it sparked the run to the AFC East title.
The 1998 Monday night win against Denver in the next-to-last game of the regular season was pretty significant because the Broncos were on their way to their second consecutive victory and because Dan Marino outdueled John Elway in this game, but it lost points because the Broncos had lost the previous week to end their quest for a perfect season.
The 1994 opener against New England was a signature win because of Marino’s remarkable performance in his first game because of his Achilles injury the previous October.
Then, of course, there was the Monday night win against the previously unbeaten Chicago Bears in December of 1985, a game that preserved the Dolphins’ standing as the only franchise to have a perfect season.
There were others before that, of course, particularly during the Super Bowl years, but this one at Buffalo on Saturday night would be big.
In terms of significance, it probably would be the biggest in not years, but decades.
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