Same Opponents, Different Directions
There will be a lot of stake when the Miami Dolphins face the Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday, just as there was when the teams faced each other in December of last year.
But the stakes will be much different.
And the rematch will offer a stark contrast in how two struggling franchises have progressed over the past year.
This is good news for the Dolphins, who find themselves in a playoff race just one year after a loss in that Week 16 game against the Bengals would have put them in position to land the first overall pick in the 2020 NFL draft.
As it was, the Bengals clinched that pick in that December game at Hard Rock Stadium when the Dolphins pulled out a 38-35 overtime victory — after Cincinnati had scored 16 points in the final minute to erase a 35-19 deficit.
The Bengals made good use of that first overall pick by selecting Heisman Trophy winner Joe Burrow, who certainly looked like a franchise quarterback before he went down in Week 11 with a knee injury severe enough that there are questions as to whether he'll even be ready for the start of the 2021 season.
But even Burrow couldn't prop up a Bengals team that appears headed for another top five selection in the next draft.
The Dolphins, meanwhile, took Tua Tagovailoa with the first of three first-round picks in 2020.
They might get another top 10 pick in 2021, but that would be only because they own the Houston Texans' first- and second-round selections.
The Dolphins' own pick won't be an early one; on the contrary, the bigger question now is whether the team can complete its remarkable one-year turnaround by earning a playoff spot.
The Bengals and Dolphins clearly represent two franchises headed in different directions.
While the 2020 season might be just the start of something big for Miami, ripe with draft capital again next year and with a solid young nucleus, there are question marks everywhere when it comes to the Bengals.
They start with head coach Zac Taylor, who Dolphins fans might remember closed out the 2015 season as the team's offensive coordinator under interim head coach Dan Campbell.
He was hired in 2019 despite never having been a full-time coordinator in the NFL and has a 4-22-1 record in his first 27 games.
Taylor had a simple answer during a conference call with Dolphins writers Thursday when he was asked what has gone wrong this season: “Closing out games in the fourth quarter. We’ve had the lead in a lot of games and just haven’t found a way to make that final play. That’s something we look at every week when we start coaching the week, what we’ve got to do to close out these games. We’ve had plenty of opportunities right there and we have not done a good enough job closing out games in the fourth quarter, and that’s something we’ve got to get fixed quickly.”
It's too late for this season because the Bengals aren't going to make the playoffs.
They have been reduced — along with trying to set a tone for 2021 — to playing the role of spoiler, starting against a Dolphins team that's clearly passed them (maybe even lapped them) since that December 2019 meeting.
Think about it.
When the teams met last year, the Bengals had a much, much better roster than the Dolphins.
Since that time, the Dolphins have made good move after good move, while the Bengals failed in their most basic task: providing Burrow with a good offensive line that he didn't get pounded every week.
Dolphins head coach Brian Flores, like Taylor, was in his first season in 2019.
But a year later, Taylor is among the coaches with betting odds as the next to be fired, and Flores is the second-favorite to be named Coach of the Year.
It's far too early to tell how things will play out in the long run when it comes to the two franchise quarterbacks each team got in the 2020 NFL draft; what is obvious is that the Dolphins have succeeded where the Bengals failed in quickly turning their fortunes around.
