MIAMI — It is halftime in the NFL, nine weeks in and nine still to go in the regular season. It is a time when fans across the league take stock and recalibrate expectations for their team.
In Miami, the midpoint reckoning takes the form of a question: Dare you dream, Dolfans? How big? How high?
Tua Tagovailoa, asked about the growing hype around his Dolphins, said, “We’re not afraid to talk about Super Bowls around here.”
It was a revelation. This franchise’s mediocrity and irrelevance during most of the past two-plus decades have rendered the conversation moot. Now, you have the quarterback who has lifted the conversation into plausibility actually saying those two words aloud.
My wife happens to be the biggest Dolfan I know. Her bona fides include being at the airport with her mother and brother very late on Christmas night 1971 to welcome the team back from The Longest Game in Kansas City — Miami’s first ever playoff victory.
I asked her about Tua’s quote the other day, after the shootout win in Chicago made the Dolphins 6-3.
“I can’t get carried away,” she said.
“Why?” I said. But I knew.
The woman I married has spent about the past 20 years being a fatalist, expecting the worst of her team, the optimism beat out of her. Because the Miami Dolphins have spent the past 20 years letting her down.
Hope is free and in limitless supply and it can feel so good. But it leaves a fan vulnerable when that hope is applied to a sports team that never seems to earn the faith.
This feels different.
Since 2001, the last year Miami stopped regularly being a playoff team, this is only the second time the Fins have been 6-3 after nine games. Now, favored this Sunday at home vs. Cleveland and with a visit by Houston following, an 8-3 record looms as likely.
You know when Miami was last 8-3 after 11 games? In 2001.
You know when the Dolphins last had an offense this dynamic and fun?
Circa mid-1980s to early ‘90s, when Dan Marino was in his prime and pitching to the Marks Brothers, Duper and Clayton.
Now it’s Tua, leading the NFL in passer rating because Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle are tearing up the league and rendering ridiculous the two years of doubting whether Tagovailoa was good enough. All three should share the team’s midseason MVP award.
Miami is 6-0 when Tua isn’t out with a concussion, and 12-2 in his last 14 starts. Hill is on pace for 144 catches 2,085 yards receiving, which would make him the first ever to reach the 2K plateau. Waddle is on pace for 1,534 yards, lead the league with 17.3 yards per catch and already has done his end-zone penguin dance six times.
The complementary running game needed to get better and did with the trade-deadline deal to get Jeff Wilson Jr. from San Francisco. Paired with speedy Raheem Mostert, Wilson had an impressive debut vs. the Bears.
The offensive line still is not great, but it is improved, because the big-spending offseason included getting tackle Terron Armstead, the No. 1-rated free agent.
Am I trying to sell Miami as some dark horse Super Bowl favorite? No. Nooooo.
I do not argue with the betting odds that today have the Dolphins the fourth favorite in the AFC, after Buffalo, Kansas City and Baltimore.
The Fins already have beaten the Bills and have the firepower to maybe hang in a shootout with Patrick Mahomes. (Baltimore could pose a special problem with running-QB Lamar Jackson — after the way Chicago’s Justin Fields just trampled Miami for an QB-record 178 yards rushing last week.)
Miami is far from perfect. But the Bills, Chiefs and Ravens all have shown flaws, too.
Miami’s defense is a subpar 23rd in yards allowed, 25th in points allowed, and 27th in third-down conversions allowed. The unit has talent, with Xavien Howard, Jevon Holland, Christian Wilkins, Jaelan Phillips and more.
Trading for Bradley Chubb should be huge; he’s third in the NFL in pass rush win rate. Melvin Ingram has made some big plays. Byron Jones’ return from injury, perhaps in December, will help.
The defense has plainly underperformed and been an unexpected disappointment. Results on that side need to catch up to the talent in the second half of the season for Miami to continue being a team with a chance to make a run at the Super Bowl.
It will brutally difficult, even if the defense improves and the offense continues at its recent high level. After the next two home games the schedule toughens appreciably and ends with four of the last six games on the road. A late scramble for a wild-card spot could very well be where this is headed.
For now, though, at midseason, at 6-3, hope is justified. It has been earned. New coach Mike McDaniel has been a gust of fresh air, his quirkiness a joy, and Hill and Waddle have helped make this season one of well-deserved redemption for Tagovailoa.
It isn’t usual, what is happening around here. Matter of fact it has been quite rare over the past 20-plus years.
The Miami Dolphins are fun and entertaining and interesting and relevant again, with a passing game that is exciting and must-watch. And, yes, you are allowed to mention this team and “Super Bowl” in the same sentence without it seeming like you must be joking.
