The teams have been playing since 1966. But is Bills-Dolphins still a rivalry?
Mike McDaniel had a unique introduction to the Dolphins-Bills rivalry by way of a middle finger.
It didn’t come once he was hired. Or from one of his players. Or even on his first trip to Buffalo.
It came courtesy of famed Dolphins linebacker Bryan Cox, whose double-birded salute became a picturesque example of inter-conference hate.
“I was like, ‘Whoa, that’s intense’ when I was young,” the Dolphins coach recalled. “I hadn’t coached in the AFC East previous, but I knew about that rivalry from whenever that was – early 90s – as a kid and off the rip I was like, ‘That’s a different set of fan bases that are both very prideful, so stuff is going to pop off.’”
While it’s safe to say that Bills fans still harbor some level of eccentricity and animosity, the very visual hate between franchises that existed for decades might have dissipated. True, the Dolphins currently edge out the Bills in all-time wins by a small margin of 62-60-1, yet it’s worth wondering whether people still consider it a rivalry. The Bills have made it one-sided as of late: ever since they made a quarterback out of Wyoming by the name of Josh Allen the No. 7 overall pick in 2018, he has led the team to a record of 13-2, including playoffs.
“It’s a rivalry?” questioned Dolphins cornerback Rasul Douglas, one of the few players who have also suited up for Buffalo. “That’s a rivalry?”
When Tua Tagovailoa was asked, the franchise quarterback simply chalked it up to just good, ‘ole fashioned AFC East competition.
“I would say when I first got to the league, just in general, even when I wasn’t playing the first game against the Bills, when [Ryan Fitzpatrick] was playing, but I sort of looked at it as that’s how all the division games were,” Tagovailoa said. “When we played the Patriots that year and Fitz started, that’s what I felt like it was. The Jets, same thing and then also with the Bills. I just assumed they were all that way because it was divisional games.”
Even a simple question on X elicited a myriad of responses that downplayed the rivalry due to its recent lack of competitiveness.
“At this point it’s just abuse,” one disgruntled fan said.
This is a long cry from the days of Cox, who played for Miami from 1991 to 1995. When Cox flashed not one but two middle fingers as he strolled onto the field on the road, he forever cemented his place in the rivalry’s lore.
“The people in the stands were motivating the hell out of me,” he told the Miami Herald in 1993. “They were giving me the finger. I ain’t no sucker. I’m a man. These fans are ignorant. They throw things. Curse you. They even moon you. And when you’re looking for the police, they’re at the end of the line mooning you, too!”
That, however, is not where the rivalry began. For that, you have to go back to 1970 when the AFL-NFL merger became official — though the two teams first clashed in 1966. In the ‘70s, the Dolphins would beat the Bills 20 consecutive times.
Fast-forward to 1987, and the rivalry had changed tremendously. No longer was Dan Marino the de facto king of the AFC East. A year prior, Jim Kelly had reported to Buffalo and while he infamously lost four consecutive Super Bowls, he certainly had an Allen-esque domination of the Dolphins.
From 1987 to 1994, the Bills went 17-4 against the Dolphins. Of those four victories, none were more memorable than the Sept. 26, 1993, win that began with Cox’s magnificent display of hate toward Bills fans. Cox particularly had a good outing, sacking Kelly on the second play of the game to go alone with four tackles, an assist, a deflected pass and several pressures.
“If I didn’t, after everything I’d said, I would have looked like an idiot,” he admitted after the 22-13 victory. “Well, I backed it up. The whole team did. We gave them a complete whipping and annihilation.”
Beginning in 1995, the tides began to change. The days of a one-sided rivalry seemingly disappeared as it became a back-and-forth affair, with the Bills owning a slight 23-25 edge through the 2017 season.
And while the Bills have certainly owned the rivalry since, McDaniel doesn’t believe that one team can have power over another. That thinking, he continued, does “a disservice to all the people on both teams.”
“The individuals are always different,” McDaniel said, “and the more you can recognize that and take each game unto itself and alone, by itself, you won’t be shortchanging the process and won’t ultimately fall victim to it. You have to take each game, each opponent, each opportunity in the National Football League, solely focus on it and everything else makes you worse in focus, preparation and execution.”
Which is why Douglas’ final thoughts on the rivalry — one that he likely didn’t know existed — bears repeating.
“Rivalries have some back and forth,” he said. “I think it’s time for us to make it a rivalry ”
