It's easy to lose sight of it this strange Dolphins season but someone's got to say this: The Miami Dolphins are winless and it would be good if the team would win a game.
With all respect to vying for the top draft pick next spring and setting up the roster for next fall, it would be really cool if the 2019 Dolphins would offer some actual results this winter.
Like, this week.
Sunday.
It would be extremely satisfying if the Dolphins got that win against the New York Jets _ a team older Dolphins fans remember as a rival back in days when games between the teams mattered.
And it would be amazing if the Dolphins got that win against former coach Adam Gase.
Take that, Adam!
Winning, if you recall, is fun. and this would be a great week to do it for the first time this season.
And now perspective: Losing stinks. The Dolphins are 0-7 and the previous two times since the 1970 NFL merger that happened in Miami, the head coach was fired.
But it tells you something about where the Dolphins' newfangled mindset is now that current coach Brian Flores has job security. He's at this stage in no imminent danger of being fired after this year, according to a highly placed club source.
This roster is not good and that is primarily the reason the Dolphins are stuck in a mire of inconsistency and failure. But despite the poor roster and the plan to rebuild, the idea of losing every game the first two months of the season must have been incomprehensible to Flores when he took the job.
"You go into any job, any situation, and you never really know what's going to happen," Flores said Wednesday. "Good, bad, middle of the road, you never know. I think � you've just got to deal with every situation the way you feel best.
"In this situation right now, the goal for me is to help this team improve on a week-to-week basis. I think that is happening, and we'll just keep going out there practicing. I think this team is getting closer to getting to the point to where we can pull out a ballgame."
The Dolphins were embarrassing the first two weeks of the season. But for the last three weeks the team has been representative. Miami lost by one point to Washington Redskins and had halftime leads at Buffalo and Pittsburgh.
So, yes, closer.
"I think we've had opportunities," Flores said. "Unfortunately we haven't taken advantage of them. I think if we just continue on the process we're on and continue to improve in practice and start fast like we did last week, and string some things together, I think we'll get to where we want to get."
But what's missing? What is keeping the Dolphins from even one misery quenching win?
"Any time you lose, there is something that is missing in that particular game," Flores said. "Last week we turned the ball over, the week before it was the same thing _ we turned it over in a critical situation.
"I'd say in this league, not just for us but for every team, turnovers are the difference between winning and losing a lot of games. We need to get that fixed. At the same time, I want this team to be aggressive, and be aggressive to go and win games as well. That's what was missing last week and previous weeks."
That's fair. But the Dolphins need more than that. They need a player to deliver some heroics. Miami lacks productive playmakers because the ones on the roster haven't delivered a big play in a key moment. That matters.
"We need two or three more plays that have to be made," Flores said. "I don't know where they will come from. Maybe it's _ we missed a block on a punt return in Buffalo that we may spring one. Nobody knows that, but that's a big play in the game. T
"There are small plays like that, I guess the masses don't know or they don't see those plays. If you make one of those, the outcome is different. I think the big ones is the turnovers; but there are other plays in the game (where) we could actually overcome some of the turnovers (and) we're not making (them)."
The bright side for the Dolphins is neither are the New York Jets.
Gase's team has struggled with multiple injuries, including mononucleosis to quarterback Sam Darnold, which kept him out three games. The Jets lost all three games.
Free agent signing C.J. Mosley has missed multiple games with a groin injury. Tight end Chris Herndon hasn't played all season. And the New York offensive line is a mess, in part because of injuries, but also because of poor work by the personnel department.
So the Jets, teetering with a 1-6 record, are ripe for the picking.
"Our focus right now is really us getting better, us focusing on winning this game however we need to win it _ putting a good week of practice together, making sure we're on what we need to be on on Sunday and play a lot cleaner than what we've been playing," Gase said. "We've played maybe a half of complementary football with all three phases. We have a lot to work on.
"We have a lot of problems of our own we need to get corrected and really, for us, it's about us more than anybody."
For the Jets it's about themselves. For the Dolphins it has become about getting a win. Just one.
Could this be the week?
