Quick reaction: It’s been a long season and Miami Dolphins have come a long way
This one is a scream in the wilderness. It is a loud warning that maybe, just maybe, the Miami Dolphins are figuring things out.
Dolphins 27.
Patriots 24.
This is nuts.
This is also great for the Dolphins, if you’re not considering their 2020 draft status, which obviously was an issue earlier last week but not so much on Sunday. The Dolphins are locked into the No. 5 overall selection in the 2020 draft.
But put that draft projection stuff aside for a moment and let’s consider, well, the football playing.
The Patriots lost but move on to the postseason -- as they have done 17 of the past 19 seasons.
The Dolphins won but merely head off into their offseason with a 5-11 record, their worst record since going 1-15 in 2007.
But this isn’t about that. This is about what happened this season and this game, is a great illustration of that.
I remind you that on Sept. 15 these two teams met for the first time this season and the Patriots demolished the Dolphins. The score that afternoon was 43-0.
The Dolphins were rudderless at that point.
They benched Ryan Fitzpatrick after that game because he threw three interceptions. The Dolphins managed only 2.8 yards per rush that day with Kenyan Drake and Kalen Ballage on the ball club. The Dolphins did not cross into New England territory until the fourth quarter.
It was a disaster and it set the standard of how far from a good team the Dolphins were.
Compare that to Sunday when the Dolphins won for the fifth time in nine games. That’s right, after a 0-7 start, this team finished 5-4.
On Sunday Miami often seemed to be the better team.
And, no, the Dolphins are not, in fact, the better team. But they are seriously improved from that team that took the field at Hard Rock.
Consider that Miami led this game, 20-17, in the fourth quarter. And when the Patriots took a 24-20 lead with 3:53, the Dolphins didn’t wilt.
Consider the Dolphins outgained the Patriots,
And Fitzpatrick was masterful. He completed 28 of 41 passes for 320 yards, with one touchdown, that came inside a minute to play to give the Dolphins their margin of victory.
The Dolphins authored a 13-play, 75-yard drive in the final four minutes of the game to take the lead and account for the winning margin.
Fitzpatrick out-dueled Tom Brady in this one. Brady finished with 15 completions in 28 attempts for 221 yards.
Fitzpatrick also made the New England defense that people were talking up as one of the best in NFL history earlier this season seem quite pedestrian.
And this is the point: The Dolphins have come a long way in the past three months.
We can ask our friend Bill Belichick about that ... Bill, how much has this Dolphins team improved from the one you saw earlier this year?
“Yeah, I don’t know,” Belichick growled after the game. “They played well today.”
They’ve obviously improved even as their roster was decimated by injuries and trades continued to siphon off talent from the roster.
So what does that say?
It says the Dolphins accomplished one of the goals of this season. The goals were not to win more than they lost. Or make the playoffs.
The goals were not to embarrass themselves. Check.
The goals were to play with discipline. The Dolphins were one of the league’s least penalized teams. Check
The goals were to improve throughout the season. Check.
If you doubt it, check the result of this one.
This story was originally published December 29, 2019 at 4:08 PM.
