Some teams may have done Dolphins a favor by underestimating them. Pittsburgh probably won’t | Opinion
.JPG "Buffalo Bills wide receiver John Brown celebrates his touchdown catch against the Miami Dolphins in the second half last Sunday")
The Miami Dolphins do not operate in a hermetically sealed vacuum. They operate, for the most part, in the open and so every other NFL team understands what Miami is doing this 2019 season.
So everyone saw Miami’s offseason moves. And the trading away of veterans. And the trading away of good young talent in exchange for future draft picks. And the signing of mostly unproven younger players.
And everyone saw the results of that approach in the regular-season opener -- a 59-10 loss to Baltimore.
After that? That’s when it happened. That’s when I believe I started to see something of a pattern among some Miami opponents.
I believe some teams started to underestimate the seemingly overmatched Dolphins.
I saw it from the New England Patriots in Week 2. Yes, the Patriots showed up and actually led 13-0 at halftime. But there’s no one who can convince me that group was fully charged in the first half. And the Dolphins, who had fallen behind 42-10 by halftime in the opener, looked better as a result.
The opponent malaise benefited the Dolphins.
Unfortunately for Miami, at halftime someone in the New England locker room must have decided their first half performance was unacceptable and the Patriots scored 30 points in the second half while shutting out the Miami offense.
The following week, I saw it again in Dallas. Facing a winless Miami team on Sept. 22 and with big games against New Orleans and Green Bay on their schedule in the ensuing weeks, the Cowboys didn’t come out six-shooters blazing that game.
They led only 10-6 at halftime.
And by sheer coincidence, I’m sure, something must have been said or done in that halftime locker room and Dallas scored 21 unanswered points in the second half to roll to a 31-6 victory.
The next week? Happened again. The Los Angeles Chargers, who came to Hard Rock Stadium believing themselves a playoff contender, were not sharp in the first half. Maybe it was the fact the game began at 10 a.m. on the west coast and the team’s collective body clock was off. Or maybe the Chargers underestimated the Dolphins.
The game was tight at halftime, as the Chargers led only 17-10.
And then, following the pattern of previous weeks, the Chargers defense shut down the Miami offense in the second half. Their offense put together a couple of scoring drives. And the Chargers walked away with an apparently easy, 30-10 win.
This is a clear pattern, folks.
The pattern took a week off against Washington on Oct. 13. And I don’t wonder why.
The Redskins stink. They stink every bit as much as Miami, except they have more talent and they’re not operating under the philosophy of tanking the season.
So the Redskins cannot take anyone for granted. And they played like that for three quarters, as they built a 17-3 lead.
But what makes this game interesting is that after taking the measure of the Dolphins the first three periods, it seemed the Redskins sort of relaxed. They went into lead protection mode.
The Dolphins changed quarterbacks to Ryan Fitzpatrick. And he rallied the team.
Miami barely lost, 17-16.
Last week, the familiar early game malaise returned. The Buffalo Bills, coming off a bye and with big games after Miami on the horizon, trailed the Dolphins 14-9 at halftime. In Buffalo!
: I think we just came out a little slow,” defensive end Trent Murphy said. “We talked about wanting to come out fast, we knew they were going to be ready to play. It just wasn’t there and it took us a second to wake up. We just need to do our jobs with a little more sense of urgency.”
Buffalo middle linebacker Tremaine Edmunds said the game was something of a lesson for the Bills to not look at an opponent’s record and too feel comfortable.
“You can never relax, man,” he said. “It’s the NFL so we have to bring our A-game each week and no game is going to be easy. You can’t look at anybody’s record, bring it every week and come ready to work.”
Yeah, no kidding. The Bills seemed almost surprised the Dolphins were competing in the first half. The problem is it’s a 60-minute game and the Bills showed up for the second half. They outscored Miami, 22-7 and went away with a 31-21 victory.
That brings me to the Monday night game at Pittsburgh.
I suppose the Steelers, a storied franchise with ongoing designs of competing for a playoff spot this year, could take the Dolphins for granted like others seemingly have. Miami is, after all, 0-6.
But there’s a small problem with that thinking. The Steelers are kind of stinky in their own right. They come to the game with a 2-4 record that impresses no one and entitles them to nothing. So this is not exactly a David vs. Goliath match.
“Are you familiar with our record and journey to this point?” coach Mike Tomlin asked incredulously when the subject of under-estimating Miami was raised. “You know, we’re not in position to overlook anybody. We’re a fragile group. We’re dealing with similar circumstances. From that standpoint, it’ll be a level playing field on Monday night.”
The Dolphins’ perspective is that it’s a level playing field all the time. They don’t believe anyone has underestimated them all year long.
“I can’t speak to whether or not another team underestimates us or didn’t underestimate. There’s no way for me to actually know that,” Miami coach Brian Flores said. “My opinion is that they’re not.
“I think every team, every coach, they’re trying to go out there and move the ball offensively and stop them defensively and win the field position battle in the kicking game. I don’t think anyone is not trying to do that or thinks that the other team is going to not go out there and play. I don’t think that’s the case. That’s my thought process there.”
Fitzpatrick is not exactly on the same page with his coach on this. But he’s on the same chapter. Because while he believes other teams must speak for themselves about underestimating an opponent, he realizes factors affect how they play, like they did at Buffalo for example.
“I think at this point, everybody that’s been in the NFL for a while, you understand that this is a competitive league and you’ve got to bring it every week,” Fitzpatrick said. “Sometimes – they were coming off a bye and whatever else, and sometimes some of that stuff plays into it.
“[The Bills] stepped up and we didn’t at the end of the game in the fourth quarter there.”
This story was originally published October 26, 2019 at 12:01 AM.
