MIAMI _ This was either the Miami Unmiracle.
Or the Miami Miracle II.
It all depends on your world view of the current Miami Dolphins season, where sometimes losing is good and winning is bad and sometimes winning is good and losing is bad. Yeah, confusing.
Anyway, the Dolphins were well on their way to a victory Sunday afternoon. They led the Cincinnati Bengals 35-12 with 6:11 to play in the game. And then the Bengals rallied.
They scored and scored again and recovered an onside kick and scored as time ran out in the game. Then they completed a two-point conversion to tie the game at 35. The Bengals actually scored 16 points in the final 29 seconds.
It was absolutely bonkers.
And the game went into overtime. And on Miami's third possession of overtime, kicker Jason Sanders kicked a 37 yard field goal as time in the extra period ran out.
Dolphins 38.
Bengals 35.
I'm exhausted.
Anyway, the Bengals have clinched the first pick of the 2020 NFL draft _ after a season they basically just stepped into a pile of (stuff) and lost all but one of their first 15 games.
And the Dolphins have now won four games and will at best be picking the second-best quarterback in the 2020 draft, assuming the Bengals do what now seems obvious in picking Joe Burrow No. 1 overall.
The shocking thing is the Dolphins tried to be the Bengals before the season began. They wanted to lose. They made offseason moves setting themselves up to have the first overall selection. They set their roster to that goal and then even after the season began, made the roster weaker by trading away good players.
And yet somehow the Dolphins are still better than the Bengals. Way better.
This is a two-edge sword, folks.
The Dolphins appear to have a solid head coach in Brian Flores and his staff seems mostly capable at this stage. The Bengals, on the other hand, screwed up their coach search last offseason, hiring Zac Taylor who clearly is over his head.
The former Dolphins quarterback coach under Joe Philbin seems as lost on the sideline as his team looks on the field.
So good for the Dolphins in getting that coaching search right _ far as we can tell at the moment.
But Flores was never fully bought in to the tank. He took the job knowing it was happening. And then he did everything he could to convince you and me and his team it was not the plan.
And he's done a heck of a job in that regard.
No, the Dolphins aren't good. But they're not the NFL's worst team, which obviously was the plan.
And why are the Dolphins merely a bad team at 4-11 rather than an embarrassing bad like the Bengals?
Start with quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick. He's lifted the offense. He's lifted the entire team, really.
He's functional. And that's enough to make a team with all those "no-names," as Stephen Ross called them weeks ago, into a representative team that belies its lack of other talent.
Fitzpatrick lit up the Bengals.
He completed 31 of 52 passes for 419 yards, with four TDs and 1 interception. His quarterback rating was 103.
Fitzpatrick is part of the reason DeVante Parker is having his best NFL season. Fitzpatrick is part of the reason tight end Mike Gesicki has risen from likely bust to solid player.
Parker caught five passes for 111 yards against the Bengals with one touchdown. Fitzpatrick threw him 12 passes. In other words, when it wasn't working, Fitzpatrick kept firing to Parker.
No other Dolphins quarterback has ever done that.
Gesicki caught five passes for 68 yards with two touchdown passes. One of Gesicki's scoring catches was a 50-50 ball in which he out-dueled the defender by simply having quicker reaction to the ball.
Fitzpatrick, by the way, threw for 252 yards in the first half. It might not sound impressive to you but that is the second-most yards by a Dolphins quarterback in the first half of any game.
Dan Marino holds the record of 318 in the first half of a game against the St. Louis Cardinals on Sept. 30, 1984.
Fitzpatrick has 19 TD passes this year to 13 interceptions. He has eclipsed 3,000 yards for the season.
That's ironic.
Because the Dolphins, so desperate to use this season to find a franchise quarterback in the future, instead found a solid quarterback this year.
And that will affect their ability to find that future quarterback in next year's draft.
