King's Farewell Column Includes Nod to Dolphins

The legendary NFL writer announced his retirement in his Monday column

Legendary NFL writer Peter King announced his retirement in his weekly column Monday, with a career retrospective making up the bulk of his final written work for NBC.

He did include some team-related nuggets, though, and one of those was giving props to the Miami Dolphins and mentioning them as a team to watch in 2024.

As part of the "10 Things I Think I Think" section of the always-lengthy — and fabulous — column, King devoted number 8 to the Dolphins: "I think there’s one thing that was going to die in my notebook because I never got to it this season, but I decided to include it here under the heading of “Team I Think you Might Be Overlooking for 2024.” The Dolphins."

King proceeded to describe a conversation he had with head coach Mike McDaniel after their Friday practice ahead of the Nov. 5 game against the Kansas City Chiefs in Germany.

The highlighted passage dealt with a Tua Tagovailoa touchdown pass to running back Raheem Mostert in the Week 6 victory against the Carolina Panthers after tight end Durham Smythe went in motion in the backfield, stopped and then moved ahead after the snap to block a linebacker.

King then explained that McDaniel told him that the Dolphins had practiced the play 11 times without succeeding — for one reason or another — every single time, but nobody blinked an eye when the play was called against Carolina, nor did anybody go crazy on the sideline after it worked.

The lesson of the story was told by this simple line from McDaniel: "(The players) trusted the coaches, we trusted them.”

And then King concluded with his assessment of the Dolphins.

"That’s modern football," King wrote. "That’s the brains of the game trusted by the talent of the game. That’s why I think Miami will rebound this year and give Kansas City and Buffalo and Baltimore and whoever a very tough go."