The good news, bad news from this past Sunday led us into some more good news on Monday when it was discovered that Ryan Tannehill didn’t tear his ACL but only sprained ligaments in his knee. Whether Tannehill plays again this year is questionable and probably depends on how Matt Moore plays these next couple games. Injury aside the only thing that matters now for the Dolphins is that they must win 2 of the next 3 games to have a shot at the playoffs.
The Dolphins must get to 10 wins this season if they want to get the 6 seed and be playing in the AFC playoffs. With back to back road games against division rivals the Jets and Bills coming up the task won’t be easy. Yes, both teams have had lackluster seasons but they would love nothing more than to knock the Fins out of playoffs and end their season. For those two teams the games vs Miami are their Super Bowl and playoffs. With nothing to play for they would relish ending the Fins season. In order to win Miami will need their “A” game all around.
With the Jets Miami will face rookie Bryce Petty. Petty wasn’t awful vs San Francisco this past Sunday but he wasn’t all that great either. SF is maybe the worst defensive team in the league so take Petty’s stat line with a grain of salt. Miami’s game plan for this game is to have Wake, Suh, Branch, Jones and company bring the pressure all night long vs Petty. Do not let the Jets offense do much of anything and keep this a low scoring game in the teen’s. Then pray to god Matt Moore can lead the Fins on a couple scoring drives and win a 16-7 type game.
With Buffalo the task will be harder. There are reports the Bills are days away from firing Rex Ryan and benching Tyrod Taylor in favor of Cardale Jones. If Jones is at QB that favors Miami obviously. I’m not so sure if Rex is fired that helps the Dolphins. Usually when an interim coach gets a job the players go out and play hard for him his first game. So if Rex is canned and they promote Anthony Lynn like reports suggest then we might see a motivated Bills team. With the Bills you know what you will get; a team that will run the ball all day long (and Miami isn’t strong with it’s run defense) and they will try to have Sammy Watkins use his speed to get behind guys like Tony Lippet for big plays. Being the game is on Christmas Eve expect bad weather for this one and expect the Bills to blitz the hell out of Matt Moore on every play.
I won’t go into the Patriots game as that game might be meaningless come Week 17, but we know what we need. Win 2 out of 3 with the Jets and Bills being the easiest path to get those 2 wins.
The Dolphins season hinges on keeping Matt Moore healthy (because there truly is nobody behind him on the bench at this point who gives us a realistic shot of beating anyone) and hoping Moore doesn’t turn the ball over.
It won’t be easy but the Fins are still alive and it will take a total team effort two more times to get two more victories.
