Don’t ask.
No, seriously, don’t ask.
The last time the Miami Dolphins looked this certain to win the AFC East in November was 1993, and I asked tough-guy linebacker Bryan Cox how it felt to be 9-2 and staring at more than the division crown.
He stuck up his middle finger, as he often did in conversations, and said, “No one in here better talk like that.”
This was three decades ago and those Dolphins didn’t win another game the rest of the way.
But look around the AFC East right now. Go ahead. It’s all set up perfectly for the Dolphins. The division is them and three lumps of carnage. Remember back in August how the division was considered the toughest in football, how people wondered if they all could make the playoffs?
Now, the 4-5 New York Jets can’t score and coach Robert Saleh said he’d, “plead the Fifth,” on why Zach Wilson is still quarterback. How’s that for leadership at the top?
The 2-8 New England Patriots aren’t just the worst team in the AFC but the impossible looks increasingly probable with Bill Belichick answering weekly questions about being fired.
“I think we’re all disappointed in the season,” Belichick said to the latest such question after a 10-6 loss to the Colts in Germany. “But we’ll keep going here. Seven games to go. Be ready to go next week against the Giants.”
Isn’t it discouraging for a football generation that put up with “The Patriot Way” to see them so bad they’re not even hate-able?
Finally, there’s 5-5 Buffalo. The division champs the past three years sees the window slamming on them. They lost at home Monday night after having 12 men on the field on Denver’s last-second field goal attempt. The kick missed, but the penalty gave Denver a mulligan. The second attempt won the game, 24-22.
“Absolutely, absolutely,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said when asked if it was one of his most inexplicable losses. “We practiced that two or three times this week — the substitution from dime to field-goal block. At the end of the day, we didn’t execute it. So, it’s inexcusable.”
It’s the kind of inexcusable that gets a coach fired, and McDermott made sure it wasn’t him. He fired offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey on Tuesday. The Bills lead the league in turnovers. Quarterback Josh Allen looks liked he’d fumble a handshake. So Dorsey goes.
You know what all of this means: The Dolphins have a chance to fill a power void unlike in any season in two decades. They’ll also have a tough time quieting the talk about not beating a good team before the playoffs considering there’s only two such games left on the schedule — Dallas and Baltimore.
So what? Should they apologize for beating up on no-account teams and having the inside lane down the stretch against a tin-can AFC East teams?
New England won that way for 17 years.
This isn’t to say the Dolphins have a victory lap to the division title. There’s any-given-Sunday opponents like Las Vegas, Tennessee and Washington. There’s two games left against the Jets’ defense. Buffalo isn’t dead, but all signs point to it being so when in comes to Hard Rock Stadium for the regular-season finale.
Say this, too: Overconfidence shouldn’t be a Dolphins issue considering the latest game against Kansas City and the fact they have done nothing more than beating up on lesser teams. There’s accomplishment in that. Just not satisfaction.
Coach Mike McDaniel seems to tinker more with X’s and O’s than the souls of his players, but there probably will be a moment in the second half of this season to tug at their souls. McDaniel, the history major, can say how this franchise hasn’t won a division title since the 2008 season or grabbed a home-field playoff advantage since 2000.
He can tell of Don Shula reciting three goals to his Dolphins team each year in training camp: Win the AFC East, get the home-field advantage and win your way to the Super Bowl.
Or maybe Cox’s middle finger would just suffice to all questions about the good position they’re in. There’s work to be done. But there’s an fertile opportunity considering the fate of the fallen AFC East.
When this season began it looked like there was no pushover in the division. Now three teams are pushovers. The Dolphins just need to give them a good shove.
