With international backdrop, Dolphins have chance to establish AFC supremacy vs. Chiefs
The last time the Dolphins played the Chiefs, in Week 14 of the 2020 season, Kansas City was — Kansas City.
The Chiefs were reigning Super Bowl champions, on their way to a second straight championship game amid a run of five consecutive appearances in the conference title game.
The Dolphins were 8-4 at the time, overachieving a bit under then-coach Brian Flores and a rookie Tua Tagovailoa. Miami lost 33-27 and eventually missed the playoffs by one game, but the defeat, in which the Dolphins cut into a 30-10 deficit, showed signs of growth for a team that had just stripped the roster a year ago.
“I think there’s a lot of things that are different,” quarterback Tagovailoa said this week.
When the Dolphins face the Chiefs on Sunday for the first time since that matchup at Hard Rock Stadium during the COVID season, not much will have changed for Kansas City. The team is once again reigning champs and now the standard in the NFL.
Miami, however, enters the game a vastly different franchise from three years ago and on equal footing with its opponent, with identical 6-2 records and similarly realistic goals of representing the AFC in the Super Bowl. The international backdrop — it’s the NFL’s first regular season game in Frankfurt as part of the league’s International Series — and a reunion for wide receiver Tyreek Hill, who was with the Chiefs for the first six years of his career, only add to the intrigue of a matchup with two of the conference’s best teams and a pair of Most Valuable Player-caliber quarterbacks.
The two teams are also tied with the Jacksonville Jaguars and Baltimore Ravens for the best record in the AFC, but whoever leaves Deutsche Bank Park with a victory will enter the second half of the season with the top spot in the conference.
The Dolphins have played multiple “measuring stick” games in the first half of the season, but maybe none as big as the one that pits them against reigning MVP Patrick Mahomes, All-Pro tight end Travis Kelce and future Hall of Fame coach Andy Reid.
“It’s exciting game planning for them, because it’s something that you kind of don’t see a lot,” safety Jevon Holland said. “It’s a unique challenge, so we’re definitely real focused on them.”
Shortcomings in matchups against top teams — most recently a prime-time road loss to the Philadelphia Eagles — have created a clear division in the public perception of the Dolphins.
In the eyes of some, Miami is a clear-cut contender who has risen to the top of the AFC East despite a litany of injuries to key contributors throughout the first half of the season. To others, the Dolphins haven’t arrived yet and can’t be taken seriously until they secure a win against an elite squad; all of Miami’s wins have come against teams with a losing record and both losses are to teams with a winning record.
The truth probably lies between both lines of thinking, but coach Mike McDaniel in recent weeks has acknowledged the talk about his team. He once again approached the topic in Frankfurt.
“There’s a week between each game so there are a bunch of narratives that occur, whether you win or you lose,” he said. “I’ll tell you what’s going to happen with the Miami Dolphins; they lose, we can’t beat good teams. We win, we’re going to win the Super Bowl. None of it matters. You have to be your best when your best is required and that’s when there’s elimination games. So you’re trying to build towards that and take advantage of every opportunity to best service yourself for the situation at the end of the season.”
The magnitude of the game and its potential ramifications are clear. A head-to-head win could mean the difference between hosting postseason games in Miami Gardens or going to Arrowhead Stadium with the season on the line.
McDaniel, though, has often preached a process-oriented mindset with his focus on the future, not the present. It’s the reason why, back in the spring, he decided the team would spend the entire week in Frankfurt, as opposed to the Chiefs, who arrived early Friday.
While McDaniel said arriving in Germany on Tuesday morning would allow players to spend their off day bonding in the European nation and give them more time to adjust to the new time zone, NFL Network’s Rich Eisen, who will call Sunday’s game, revealed another motive. Eisen said McDaniel also sought to replicate preparing for a game remotely — as a team would do for the Super Bowl, which will be held in Las Vegas in less than 100 days.
Ultimately, a win or loss won’t change the thinking of the Dolphins as they head into their bye week. Their sights will still be on winning the division and obtaining a high seed in the playoffs.
But with the team at the healthiest it has been since the start of the season and an interconference matchup against the team they’re trying to supplant, they have a chance to put it all together with the world watching — literally.
“I think there’s some sort of understanding,” fullback Alec Ingold said of the game’s implications. “We’re human beings, right? You can’t be robots that just only focus on the task at hand, but at the same time, the reason why. The goals and the mission are so big for this team and that’s so long-term. This is another really good measuring stick to prove to each other how bought in we are to the process and so I think whenever you talk about results or that it’s such a big game, I think it’s just an amazing opportunity to go against the best in the league.
“And I think that’s what we’re all here for. We’re all chasing to be in those games and to play meaningful snaps and make an impact. So to see guys succeed this Sunday, to have the plays that you go out and you practice, you go across the world and you travel together, I think it just brings everybody closer to really understand those circumstances and buy in for one another so that you’re sacrificing a little piece of yourself for the greater good of the team so that down the road we can continue to improve and be in these meaningful games, week after week after week, December, January, February.”
This story was originally published November 4, 2023 at 8:51 AM.
