Putting the Dolphins in any sort of Super Bowl context might at a glance seem ludicrous. That’s first because Miami is coming off a 6-10 season, and second, because when the Dolphins last won a Super Bowl, fans wore coonskin caps and rode to the game in cars with engines you cranked to start.
OK it was the 1973 season, but it seems like ancient history. Heck, Miami hasn’t even been to a Super Bowl since 1984. People not born then have children now.
Patience. I’m going somewhere with this. I’m trying to be optimistic and come with a positive spin. Work with me.
The Dolphins lost to the Patriots 38-24 in this season’s opener but had 488 yards of offense and were thrillingly in the game deep into the third quarter.
The Dolphins lost to the Pats 27-24 late in the season but led 17-0 and didn’t trail until the final score.
In between, the Dolphins lost to the Giants 20-17, but, again, led the entire game until giving up a late touchdown.
This is me reminding you how stoutly Miami could compete with (if not quite beat) the NFL’s two Super Bowl teams.
This is me seeing a glass that is not only half full, but that is rose-colored!
Now this is me ending the good-news portion of our column and getting real:
The Patriots and Giants are deservedly in Indianapolis for Sunday’s game because they are brilliantly coached, exceptionally quarterbacked, laden with talent and full of weapons in a way that Miami is not.
New England has Bill Belichick and Tom Brady. New York has Tom Coughlin and Eli Manning. Miami has a rookie coach in Joe Philbin and Question Mark & The Mysterians playing quarterback at the moment.
Brandon Marshall would not be the best, second-best or maybe even third-best receiver on either of the teams playing in Sunday’s game.
I’m not sure Cameron Wake would even be one of the five best sack men in this game.
Pro Bowl nose tackle Paul Soliai is OK, but he isn’t Vince Wilfork someday.
Of course it all starts with quarterback play, and this isn’t knocking Miami as much as it is praising the Pats and Giants and this match-up.
Brady (5,235) and Manning (4,933) combined for 10,168 passing yards this regular season, shattering the old combined-yards record of 8,888 set two years by big bro Peyton Manning and Drew Brees.
If team momentum were as easily measurable, this Super Bowl might set a mark there, too.
New England has won 10 games in a row, its last loss in Week 9, to the Giants. The Giants have won “only” five games in a row, but each has a been a pressure-filled elimination scenario. The Pats have defined excellence all season. The Giants have defined clutch when it most mattered.
The rematch factor adds to Sunday’s intrigue, with New England trying to avenge its Super Bowl loss to New York four years earlier — the game that spoiled the Pats’ perfect season and wrought high-fives and exhales from the ’72 Dolphins.
Sunday makes Brady and Manning only the third set of quarterbacks to have a personal Super Bowl rematch, the Cowboys’ Troy Aikman and Bills’ Jim Kelly in 1992 and ’93 (Aikman won both), and the Steelers’ Terry Bradshaw and Cowboys’ Roger Staubach in 1975 and ’78 (Bradshaw won both).
Consider for a second the six quarterbacks named in the above paragraph.
Aikman, Kelly, Bradshaw and Staubach all are in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Brady will be someday with 100 percent certainty. And Manning — less and less just the “other” brother — is beginning to build a case for Canton, Ohio, to inch closer to elite, and a win Sunday would add so much ammunition.
Great quarterback play makes receivers look great, not vice versa. Brady is why Wes Welker was just pretty good as a Dolphin but became all world in New England, and why a tight end named Rob Gronkowski is a sudden star. Manning is why an undrafted second-year receiver named Victor Cruz is a phenom doing the salsa in the end zone.
Those three regular-season results meant Miami was good enough to be competitive with the Patriots and Giants, but the difference between competing and beating is what gets some coaches to Super Bowls and other coaches fired.
Much of the difference between the Pats or Giants and the Dolphins is minor or surmountable.
But here is what isn’t: They have Tom Brady and Eli Manning, and Miami doesn’t. Not nearly.
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