Dolphins Making Playoff Soup out of Patriots

By Ronn Burner • on December 8, 2009

The NFL defies logic in every way shape and form. I don’t care what Denny Green says, when it comes to the NFL “they are not who we thought they were”! Walk with me here, teams we expected to be elite like the Steelers, Cowboys and Patriots are nowhere near as good as we once thought they were. The Raiders, Redskins and Titans are nowhere near as bad as we once thought they were. The Cardinals, Broncos and Chargers are much better than we thought they were and believe it or not, I do not think (which I realize is a complete oxymoron to the point) that the Colts, Saints and Vikings are not as good as we think they are and history agrees with me on this one. Well, maybe I’m agreeing with history but teams that have looked unbeatable in years past, got beat, and they got beat when it mattered most, in the playoffs. Remember when the unbeatable 98 Vikings, 01 Rams and 07 Patriots were all getting fitted for rings at this point in the season? Whoops.

It doesn’t stop there in this whacky “any given Sunday” league. What about the Bears, Panthers and 49ers who at one time had promise, now they have big off-season decisions to make? Are the Bengals, Eagles and a healthy Falcons team just smoke and mirrors? I think they are fool’s gold and there’s not one team in the league that is more afraid of them than teams that they hope don’t make the playoffs. Would you be overly shocked to see this seasons middle of the standings teams like the Jaguars, Ravens, Giants, Packers or Dolphins actually barely make the playoffs yet manage to be a force to reckon with in them? I promise the Chargers would rather face the Bengals than the Dolphins or Ravens and wouldn’t the Saints rather play the Eagles than the Packers or Giants? Even if they wouldn’t, it’s close enough to actually have this debate. If you took the 5 best players off the Saints and gave them to Browns wouldn’t Cleveland be a playoff team? That’s how close the NFL really is, which makes the draft, trades and finding hidden gems the difference between being the class of the league and being the doormat of the league.

Now let’s get to the Miami Dolphins playoff chances after Chad Henne’s Marino-esque afternoon in their big 22-21 victory over the New England Patriots. The Dolphins are alive. The Patriots are beatable. It was a huge win for many reasons but to quote the masterful Quentin Tarantino line in ‘Pulp Fiction’s’ for the astute Mr. Wolf, “Well let’s not start sucking each others @#&*% just yet, gentlemen”. First of all, the Dolphins don’t control their fate. They could win all four of their games and still miss the postseason entirely but we’ll get to that later.

Sure, Henne was Marino-esque, on his best day as a pro, he looked like Dan Marino on his worst day and before you start crying about how well Henne played think about what I just said. That’s a gigantic compliment I just paid him. Hey! I compared him to Dan Marino! That’s a big damn deal. It’s a start. It’s something that wasn’t worth the keyboard I typed it on before Sunday. He was 29-52 for 335 yards, 2 touchdowns and an interception. He missed throws, he actually missed huge throws but that will come with time but the thing to take away from this game was he was trusted and unleashed and showed every bit of what his teammates, coaches and fans thought he could be. On this day he was a leader, he was poised, he made good decisions and he showed he was capable of being our franchise quarterback for the next decade and beyond. Davone Bess was finally utilized exactly the way the Patriots use Wes Welker with 14 targets resulting in 10 grabs for 117 yards and a score, easily his best day as a pro, and I might add I’ve been complaining all season as to why Bess isn’t catching 8-10 balls a game for 80-100 yards moving the chains. Finally, they scrapped the Wildcat all together running exactly zero plays out of the formation and trusting in Henne. It proved to be effective as even Ted Ginn stepped up and made a great grab tip toeing on the sidelines for a huge first down. He finished with only 2 catches for 34 yards but he finally made it through a game without having a play the media and fans could rip him for and that’s big moving forward because Miami will need him if they are serious about this playoff run.

In reality the story was really more that the Patriots just couldn’t put Miami away after opening a 14-0 lead by failing on multiple 3rd and 1’s and even two 4th and 1’s and came away with zero points on two first and goal situations with a Vontae Davis pick of a Tom Brady pass intended for Randy Moss and another on the Dolphins stuffing a 4th and 1. That said, a win is a win and it pulled the Dolphins to within one game of AFC leading New England.

If the Dolphins win their remaining four games — and if the Patriots lose to one of three teams (the Bills, the Jaguars or the Texans) — Miami would retain the division title.

If the Dolphins and the Patriots win their remaining games, only one team — the Ravens — would stand between Miami and the AFC’s second wild-card spot. And because of Baltimore’s loss to the Packers on Monday, if Baltimore loses another game, Miami would control its own destiny in that regard, too.

Essentially, if the Dolphins win their final four games, they would have an incredibly solid chance, based on a few complex calculations of the wild-card landscape and the AFC East situation, to make the postseason.

But here’s why going undefeated down the stretch will push them so close.

• If the Patriots lose to the Bills and the Dolphins win their remaining four games, Miami would retain its title as AFC East champs based on its record within the division.

• If the Patriots lose to the Jaguars or the Texans and Miami wins out, the Dolphins would still retain their title as the AFC East champs because of a four-step tiebreaker process. The teams would have the same record (10-6), the same division record (4-2) and the same record against common opponents (8-4).

But the Dolphins would ultimately take the tiebreaker with a better conference record. Miami would finish 8-4 against AFC opponents, while the Patriots would be 7-5 with a loss to the Jaguars or the Texans.

• If the Patriots lose to Carolina, but win their other three games, this is where things get trickier: New England would still finish the year with a conference record of 8-4 (same as Miami) because the Panthers are in the NFC.

So the tiebreaker would then move to another level: Strength of victory. To determine the team’s strength of victory, it requires calculating the total winning percentage of all of opponents that Miami and New England have beaten.

It remains too early to forecast which team would have the edge in that category.

Now, onto the possibilities when it comes to the wild card:

The Jets, Steelers, Ravens, Jaguars and Dolphins are the five teams in the immediate hunt for the second wild card spot, while the Broncos (8-4) are currently set up to take the first spot.

But because the Dolphins can knock out the Jaguars this week and the Steelers in the season’s final week — and because they have already swept the Jets — only the Ravens could keep Miami from reaching a wild-card berth if the Dolphins win out.

That’s where the Ravens come into play.

So basically, if Miami wins its final four games, it would have an incredibly solid chance — based on calculations of the wild card landscape and the AFC East situation – to make the postseason.

Some things just pass through your vocal cords and come off the tongue in horrible ways. Like just saying the name “Ron Jeremy” is so filthy you feel like you need a breath mint immediately before someone asks you a question forcing you to open your disgusting mouth again. Well, that’s exactly how I’m about to feel because the Dolphins aren’t good enough to end their season on a 5 game winning streak against New England, at Jacksonville, at Tennessee, Houston and Pittsburgh. Miami is close and only a few players away but with that loss to Buffalo they’ve put themselves in a bigger hole than Tiger Woods after hitting that tree and 9 girls fell out of his Escalade.

The (7-5) Jacksonville Jaguars are that breath mint. If Miami can beat them they just may be close enough to the surface to see daylight.