Brian Flores said it best a few days back: “Our playoff is this week against the Raiders.”

While the NFL postseason hasn’t yet begun, it might as well be kicking off Saturday for Flores’ squad. Dolphins vs. Raiders, Miami’s second primetime contest of the year, carries massive implications for this young team’s playoff aspirations. 

In case you haven’t been able to keep up with all the playoff scenarios that pertain to the Dolphins, allow me to shed some light on the subject…

If the Dolphins lose on Saturday, they’re likely out of the playoffs because the three Wild Card seeds would probably go to the Colts, Browns, and Ravens (the Ravens are currently the first team out after the Dolphins but would likely jump Miami with games against the Giants and Bengals coming up).

If the Dolphins win on Saturday, there are still no guarantees, but several paths exist for them to sneak in as the seven seed they currently hold. If either the Browns or the Colts drop their last two games to finish 10-6, the Dolphins will beat either team out by virtue of a superior conference record. So the Colts and Browns scenarios are pretty simple.

With the Ravens, however, things get trickier.

Without going into it entirely, here’s the gist of how the Dolphins survive: they likely need to win Saturday, then the Ravens would have to lose to the Bengals in the final week of the season. Miami retains the seven seed and beats the Ravens out for a playoff spot if both of those things happen.

OR, Miami could just beat both the Raiders and the Bills to end the season, finish 11-5, and make the playoffs without any outside help. That’s the ideal scenario. 

Additionally, there’s a chance that the Bills won’t have anything to play for week 17 and could rest their starters, exponentially helping Miami’s chances at winning that game.

(I also don’t think the Bills are unbeatable even with their starters if the Fins are healthy, but we’ll save that for next week.)

So there’s your abbreviated version of the Dolphins playoff picture. If you want more details or if I muddied the water, Barry Jackson wrote a great article on it here.

And on that note, let’s get into what to expect for this “playoff” game on Saturday, shall we?

For starters, fans should know one thing: Flores saying that this week is a “playoff game” seems out of character given his patented week-to-week approach, which gives us a clue into what the Raiders game might look like.

All the stops are getting pulled out.

All bets going off.

All hands on deck.

The team could be at almost full strength on Saturday — which is unheard of at this point in the season — and as a result, I’d expect some razzle-dazzle on offense and the kitchen sink to be thrown at Gruden’s offense all game long. It should be fun to watch.

Looking specifically at the Raiders, the big question is who will be starting at quarterback after Derek Carr suffered a groin injury last week against the Chargers. Gruden may keep the element of surprise up until game time, but Carr just participated in his third practice in a row as of this writing. Early in the week, I figured we’d see Mariota, but now it’s trending more towards Carr being good to go. 

Taking a step back and viewing the Raiders as a whole, one fascinating fact becomes apparent: they’re a team of opposites.

For almost every strength Las Vegas has, there is a corresponding weakness the Dolphins should try to exploit. Consider…

The Raiders are 11th in both yards and points per game on offense (26.9 points) but 25th in yards per game allowed and 29th in points per game allowed (30.1 points). 

They’re 2nd in both 3rd-and 4th-down conversion rates offensively — converting nearly 50% of their third-down attempts — but dead last in 4th-down conversion rate allowed and 31st in 3rd-down conversion rate allowed. While they make nearly half of their own third downs, they allow more than half to be converted against them. 

And lastly, a bundle of oddly incongruous stats: The Raiders are 9th in rushing touchdowns per game, yards per pass, and sack rate allowed, but far worse in the inverse of each of those categories. They’re 31st in rushing touchdowns allowed per game, 26th in yards per pass allowed, and 31st in sack rate achieved on defense. 

If that was too much in the way of stats for you, then maybe you at least noticed a theme in all those numbers. The Raiders have one huge tendency as a team.

Offense is good.

Defense is bad.

Especially after last week’s rousing rushing performance on offense, there are some weaknesses in those stats for the Dolphins to capitalize on this week. With Miami coming off a game in which they rolled up 250 yards on the ground at 6.0 yards per carry, a Raiders defense allowing 4.6 yards per rush could be very exploitable. Even better for the Fins is the fact that the Raiders allow the 2nd-most rushing touchdowns in the league. 

Additionally, the Raiders have the 7th worst turnover margin in the league while the Dolphins sport the 3rd best, thanks largely to an impressively opportunistic defense. Las Vegas is also a poor red-zone team, an area where the Dolphins were largely productive last week.

And, of course, your weekly reminder that the Dolphins are the number one scoring defense in the entire league. These guys are legit and should be able to give the Raiders issues throughout the game as long as Darren Waller and Josh Jacobs are held in check.

Despite some suspect stats, this Raiders team is no pushover — they’ve beaten the Chiefs and have a capable coach in Jon Gruden. This “playoff” game will show us plenty about this extremely young, hungry Dolphins team. If they can rise to the occasion, regardless of what happens around the rest of the league, fans will have even more reason to be excited about the future. 

If Miami can win the strength-on-strength battle between their third-down defense and the Raiders third-down offense, Flores’ team should walk away with a win and their playoff hopes still burning. Whether Gailey dials up another run-heavy approach or lets Tua air it out with most of his weapons back on the field remains to be seen, but a solid effort on that side of the ball should see the offense put up a respectable amount of points.

At any rate, enjoy watching the Dolphins on primetime with the rest of the county looking on. 

It is a playoff game, after all.

 

(Thanks for reading — for more content, follow me on Twitter @EvanMorris72)