. . . I have so much anxiety over this 8-4 team. 8-4!!!! Imagine what we'd have given to have an 8-4 team in December at any point in the last 20 years. We're forced to re-evaluate Tua after losing to the best Defence in the league without his starting Left Tackle and his #2 Receiver being banged up. "He wasn't up for the challenge" Throwing for 295 with 2 TD passes. He needs to beat the Chargers this Sunday. . . Essentially a must-win because they'll be in the Cold against the Bills next week. It'll be tough being 8-6 going into Packers, Pats, Jets to end the regular season. And even if they finished 10-7 or 11-6, that's underperforming to the expectations they've had to the season, to this point. They need to win 12 games for this to be a successful season now? All in the life of a Dolphins Fan. /rant
Its a good anxiety. Much better than apathy or disgust. I was anxious the last month of the season throughout the 90s and Wanny years. Its good to have that back. The amazing thing is that we can all but clinch a playoff spot this weekend if we win the the Patriots lose. Partly due to the team being better, partly due to the 17th game, partly due to the 7th playoff spot in each conference, and partly due to how top heavy the AFC is. We'd be 9-4 with four games to play, and a 3+ game edge on everyone who's currently on the outside looking in. We haven't experienced anything like that in more than 30 years!
I can't even remember the last time Miami clinched a playoff spot in week 13. Also, a while since Miami has been 8-3. The Wanny years were some epic collapse years. Needing one win and losing to the crappy Vikings and then the ****ty Patriots in the biggest collapse that almost destroyed my love of the game. Hopefully Miami will not collapse at this time. Injuries haven't been good this year and McDaniel is a rookie head coach. I disagree with the OP with being forced to reevaluate Tua. I don't know why Tua gets so much reevaluation when Josh Allen or Herbert or even Burrow can have terrible games and just be bumps on the road. The dude is #1 in the NFL in passer rating while being #3 in yards per game. His "terrible" game had almost 300 yards and two touchdowns. His efficiency numbers are still off the chart
In 2001, we were 9-3 after 12 games, while the Patriots were 8-5 (they had a late bye and only three games left, to our four). All we needed to do was go 2-2 while they went 2-1 the rest of the way, or beat them head to head in Week 15, and we'd win the division and earn a first round BYE. But of course that didn't happen. That's the closest we've come to feeling like we were in this position in that whole era.
I notes that his stats ended up being alright. Critics will say that lots of it came from 2 chunk plays. It's part of my angst about all this. Justin Herbert just lost to the Raiders, why aren't people questioning him?
That's pretty insane- I'm going to check out the playoff machine later today to see if you're right. It would be great to clinch this early!
We can't quite clinch, regardless. But we can be on the doorstop. If we win and New England loses, that would mean that we're sitting at 9-4, with four games to play. (Meaning we can't finish worse than 9-8). And so that would mean that we'd put ourselves in a position where if we win one more game or a number of other teams lose one more, we "clinch" vs that particular club. And we have the tiebreaker over several of them already as well. We'll see exactly what it looks like after this weekend, but we should be sitting really pretty for at least the 7 seed no matter how it shakes out. The 5 seed, which is far more desirable, is more complicated. But the injury to Lamar Jackson helps certainly. And either the Bills or Jets are going to lose.
Ultimately you only have to beat out 2 teams. You don't have to worry about the Chiefs, Titans or Bengals/Ravens. Let's assume the Bills win the AFC East, if the Dolphins don't. That leaves the Ravens/Bengals, Chargers, Patriots, Jets and Fins for the three Wildcard Spots. So the Dolphins would have to finish ahead of 2 of those teams. Pats and Chargers have 6 wins. If the Dolphins beat them and the Patriots lose, each would have to run the table and the Fins would have to lose out for them to jump the Fins. I think a Christmas Day game at home against the Packers is the only "easy" game the Dolphins have remaining. But I also can't see Mac Jones or Mike White carving this Defense up.
I think we outscore New England barring terrible weather and/or a ton of turnovers. Amd the Jets game could very well be meaningless to them if they've clinched the 7 seed. So we'll have to see what the circumstances are that week. If it's meaningful and we're healthy, then I think we score a lot and win.
Bottom line for us, if we win out, we’re in the playoffs. I can actually see Buffalo losing 1 and possibly 2 more games…the Bengals and either the Bears, Patriots or Dolphins. I can actually see the Chiefs losing 1, maybe 2 more games…the Seahawks and depending on WHICH team shows up, the Raiders. If my math is correct; if we win out, and the Bills & Chiefs lose 2 more games each, I believe that would put us as the number 1 seed. Everyone wants home field advantage throughout the playoffs but if Miami can secure that number 1 seed, teams coming to Miami would be sweating gravy, even in the January heat and humidity of south Florida. Even if we can secure the number 2 spot, that would definitely help the Dolphins make a deep playoff run
If we win out we win the division, doesn't matter what Buffalo do. It would be a case of actually wanting the Bills to beat the Bengals as they have the tie breaker over us. We would need KC to lose one more game as I think we would beat them on conference record.
We certainly don't need to win out to make the playoffs! Winning against LA, NE and NJ would almost certainly guarantee us a spot. In fact, winning two of those three probably would. There are even scenarios where we win any one of those games and go 1-4 down the stretch and we can still back in, though that would feel pretty deflating.
