Dolphins Playoff Bound! (?)

By Ronn Burner • on October 20, 2009

Things certainly looked bleak for the Miami Dolphins after starting the season 0-3 and still staring at 13 games against the league’s most difficult schedule with 2 heartbreaking losses to boot not to mention losing their starting quarterback, Chad Pennington, for the year. As we all know, things can change very quickly in the NFL. Looking at the Dolphins remaining schedule and basing it on what has transpired this year already and all of the sudden things actually look pretty good. Chad Henne looks, albeit briefly, to be what we all hoped he could be, the Wildcat is clicking on all cylinders, the O-line has gelled together beautifully, Ted Ginn showed he is capable of making a big play, the Dolphins front seven has proven to be solid and what once looked like an unmanageable schedule now appears to be very manageable with teams being nowhere near as strong as expected. Now obviously the Dolphins need to take care of business sitting at 2-3 and this outlook is based on the likelihood that it will take at least 10 wins to reach the post season meaning a strong finish of 8-3, which on paper is easy enough to calculate by winning every game you “should” win while hopefully snatching a win or two along the way from opponents that are clearly playoff calibre and losing would hardly be deemed a sin.

2009 Schedule
Date	Opponent	Time/Result
Sep 13	@Atlanta	Lost 7-19
Sep 21	Indianapolis	Lost 23-27
Sep 27	@San Diego	Lost 13-23
Oct 4	Buffalo	Won 38-10
Oct 12	N.Y. Jets	Won 31-27
Week 6	BYE
Oct 25	New Orleans	4:15pm
Nov 1	@N.Y. Jets	1:00pm
Nov 8	@New England	1:00pm
Nov 15	Tampa Bay	1:00pm
Nov 19	@Carolina	8:20pm
Nov 29	@Buffalo	1:00pm
Dec 6	New England	8:20pm
Dec 13	@Jacksonville	1:00pm
Dec 20	@Tennessee	1:00pm
Dec 27	Houston	1:00pm
Jan 3	Pittsburgh	1:00pm

Now obviously there is no way to know how things will unfold and anything can happen via injuries, performance, funny bounces, fluky plays, underachieving, overachieving etcetera etcetera but based on that schedule and how it would appear right now I think it’s safe to say the the Dolphins will be favored to win at least six of these games and possibly more. (0-6) Tampa Bay, at (2-4) Carolina, at (2-4) Buffalo, at (3-3) Jacksonville, at (0-6) Tennessee and (3-3) Houston “should” by definition be Dolphins victories. We know the Dolphins are expected to lose this week in New Orleans (-6.5) and it’s probably safe to say that Miami will be expected to lose in (4-2) New England and in the final game of the year they host the defending Super Bowl Champion (4-2) Pittsburgh Steelers in a game that will probably matter a great deal to each team and I am willing to concede to the possibility that the Dolphins could be the home underdog. If those nine games followed the letter of the Vegas line law then after doing the math (adding their current 2-3 record to the 6-3 Vegas projected record over the 9 games mentioned) Miami would have an 8-6 acccumulative record slated, which is obviously out of order based on totals as opposed to a week to week wins and losses.

Since the goal is 10 wins that leaves two games remaining that we have yet to account for and as luck would have it’s November 1st at the suddenly reeling (3-2) New York Jets whom Miami has already beaten once and December 6th against the suddenly lethal New England Patriots who the Dolphins have yet to face. Splitting with the Patriots would be considered a very good thing, however, splitting these two games may not be good enough and will leave Miami at 9-7 and with what would be under these circumstances a 4-2 division record that may or may not be good enough for a tie-breaker situation and probably wouldn’t matter since I expect both the Patriots and the Wildcard eventual winner to be at least 10-6. Point being, win the ones you should, sweep the Jets, split with the Patriots and come January the Dolphins will find themselves at 10-6 and in the Playoffs.