After this weekend the AFC’s playoff picture is clear. All of the division leaders have a 2 game advantage with 6 games left to play. For practical purposes the current division leaders are all but guaranteed of making the playoffs. For any of the division leaders to fail now will require a pretty epic collapse and the contenders to win out as well. Then you have the Chargers at 7-3, behind the 9-1 Chiefs, who have a 2 game advantage over the remaining WC contenders. Again barring an epic collapse, which the Chargers have been known to do, that gives them a pretty solid lock on the first wildcard. After that you have five teams at 5-5. The Dolphins, Ravens, Bengals, Colts, and Titans locked in a life or death struggle for the remaining WC slot. You also have the Broncos at 4-6 but because they have to leap frog 5 other teams their chances are almost certainly over. So what does this mean for the Phins? 1) 4-2 is the minimum for a shot at the last WC slot. It wouldn’t surprise me if 5-1 ends up being the mark. 2) Head to Head record is going to be incredibly important in solving the anticipated logjam if 9-7 qualifies you for the WC spot. 3) The colts game becomes our defacto superbowl because we have no other opportunity to gain a tiebreaker in head to head matchups in the rest of the season.
One team always seems to fall, so I don't know if I'd call a 2-game lead a lock with six to play. But yeah, it's do or die time for the Phins.
Win vs the Colts, and we're alive, still stuck in the log jam with the other mediocre teams fighting for the #6 seed. Lose, and we likely fall back to the #10 or 11th place in the AFC, and on the brink of elimination, with our fate absolutely out of our own hands. It would be nice if our starting QB were back for this huge swing game. We last scored a touchdown on offense back on October 25th...
Well I guess 20 teams will be firing their head coach, GM and QB if the owners share the same philosophy as our fanbase. Anyone with a 5-5 or worse record sucks according to some
I don't think head to head will come into play. For ties among three or more teams, head-to-head is only applied if there is a head-to-head sweep; i.e., if one club has defeated each of the others or if one club has lost to each of the others. If 3 or more teams, not including the division winners, end up tied, conference winning% will most likely be the first tie breaker. Then common games. Then SoS.
It's tough road for Dolphins. The Colts have played very well these past few weeks, and Luck is in top form. The Patriots are the Patriots. Jaguars look weak on paper, but the Phins offense could still get suffocated by theJags defense. Bills at home should be a win, but there are no guarantees in rivalry games. Last two games are on road which is bad as the Dolphins are only 1-4 in road games this year.
It's going to be ugly. But you know, now that we've claimed this as a beat down the Dolphins will win or lose by 2 points. lol
Seriously LOL. The two teams couldn't be anymore opposite right now though. That Colts team is hittin' full stride on both sides of the ball. Luck looks phenomenal, which is crazy given all the scrutiny there was about his arm thru the first couple of weeks. Eric Ebron, Jack Doyle, and Marlon Mack (who I love btw) are going to be too much. Wouldn't shock me if TY rubs it in with a TD or two as well.
Bottom line is we need to take it one week at a time and win. I want to see the defense play up to its potential. I know the unit isn't perfect but there is no reason for teams to put up 30+ PPG on us. We need to be closer to 20 ppg with the current state of the offense. On the flip side we need to offense to sustain drives. Even if they don't result in points at least keep the ball 4+ minutes a drive so the defense can pretend to rest. If that means feeding Gore, feed the man.
We currently sit at a 13.6% chance to make the playoffs. http://www.sportsclubstats.com/NFL/AFC.html Our probability increases +18.7% with a win in IND. Our probability decreases -6.1% with a loss in IND. http://www.sportsclubstats.com/NFL/AFC/AFCEast/Miami.html These numbers look a lot more bleak compared to the fact that we're actually tied for the last wildcard spot.
In the last two years, any road wins vs anyone except the Jets have been by either 2 or 3 points. So yeah, probably.
Let's hope the defense minimizes the mistakes. If we can stay disciplined we can keep it manageable and therefore winnable
It would take Tanny coming back and playing well to get us to 9 wins. With Brock, I see a win versus the Bills and the rest of the games are losses, so a 6-10 record. The math will say we are still alive for the playoffs even at 6-6 in a couple weeks, and I'd love to pull off a win versus the Pats somehow, but the final month of this season is going to be ugly.
The really important thing for the Dolphins is we cannot expect the Pats to fall. Maybe if it were the Steelers or Chargers we could have a hope that they would collapse but the Bill Belichek patsies have been immune to late season collapses. So if the Steelers or Texans fall it will move up another team in their division and place us in a fight with them for the last WC spot.