The Phinsider
Monday Night’s Week 15 game was a make or break contest for the Dolphins.
As Enrique Martin so poignently asked: Do you really want it?
The Steelers said “Here we go! Ale ale ale!”
The Dolphins said: “No, no, no; no thank you, that’s okay!”
You know the drill: December game, away, in the cold, in prime time, the Dolphins’ playoff hopes (no matter how small) on the line.
If there’s ever been anything more sure than a Miami loss in those circumstances, I’ve never encountered it.
This time had the addition of a little Mike on Mike violence as Mike ‘Oh no, we should fire him because we only finish over .500 every year for our entire lifetimes, boo hoo’ Tomlin went against Mike ‘I will lose this and still be your coach for the next decade, just watch how bad this can get’ McDaniel battled it out from the sidelines.
People love to play up narratives in NFL games, probably because they run out of interesting things to say after roughly their third season of trying to come up with engaging commentary (which I would know nothing about since I am always innovative and delightful and all of my observations are fresh and new and SHUT UP JERK).
That said, people play them up because they often prove true. NBC flashed the career records of Tua and Aaron Rodgers in games below 40 degrees and, while I can’t remember Rodgers’ because it had too many big numbers involved, Tua’s was 0-5.
Of course, if temperature alone is enough to ensure a loss for you as a professional athlete making more money than some small nations, I would be forced to consider that kind of pathetic.
So.
There was no way that Tua and Company would so easily be defeated by something as innocuous as collective narratives spread by media talking heads with no meaningful perspectives to offer on game day.
Right?
Miami would obviously buck the trend.
The Fins would overcome the challenges.
Miami didn’t buck the trend. They didn’t defeat the narrative(s). They got thumped and played exactly as poorly as every version of the team you’ve ever seen that has encountered the same situation.
What was that ending?
WHAT WAS THAT ENDING.
Why huddle? Why drag ass like it’s the National Donkey Pulling Championship?
WHO WAS THAT FOR?
MIKE.
WHO. WAS. THAT. FOR.
I’m back in Pennsylvania for the holidays and it’s always so eye opening talking to people who aren’t Dolphins fans when the Dolphins play, especially when it’s against a local team.
The response is never gloating (since it’s always during or after a loss). It’s never “Man, we destroyed you guys! We rule and you got dominated!”
Instead, it’s almost always confusion: “Oh. Yikes. Are you guys, like, okay? What happened? Is that normal? That’s a full NFL team, right?”
What an embarassing conclusion to playoff eligibility.
Why...
