The 10 Most Frustrating Dolphins Super Bowl Shortfalls

For a 41st consecutive season, the Miami Dolphins will not be part of the Super Bowl, and for this 2025 season they weren't even remotely close to getting to the big game.

But there have been so close games and near misses in all those seasons since the Dan Marino-led Dolphins faced the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl XIX in Palo Alto, California, the most notable of which happened the very next year.

So as we get set for a full week of previews and analysis of the matchup between the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks for another game in the San Francisco area, here is our ranking of the top 10 most frustrating seasons in terms of the Dolphins falling short of the Super Bowl goal:

1. 1985, 12-4 record, lost in AFC Championship Game

The defending AFC champion Dolphins came into the playoffs hot, having won their last seven games of the regular season, highlighted by the Monday night win in December against the previously unbeaten Chicago Bears. But they had a tough time in the first round before coming back to defeat Cleveland and then gave the AFC title game away with six turnovers and a missed field goal in a 31-14 loss against the New England Patriots at the Orange Bowl. The loss spoiled a Super Bowl rematch between Miami and Chicago.

2. 1994, 10-6 record, lost in divisional round

The Dolphins probably never let a playoff win slip away the way they did at Qualcomm Stadium when they blew a 21-6 halftime lead against the Chargers, then lost when Pete Stoyanovich missed a 48-yard field goal attempt in the final seconds — after two long incompletions when they had the ball at the 30-yard line with 17 seconds left and two timeouts. Making this worse, San Diego won at Pittsburgh the following week to advance to the Super Bowl — which was being played in Miami. Whether the Dolphins would have been able to upset the 49ers that season is debatable (probably unlikely), but they almost certainly would have put up a better fight than the Chargers did in the 49-26 49ers blowout victory.

3. 1990, 12-4 record, lost in divisional round

The 1990 season remains the last time the Dolphins reached 12 wins and this was a Super Bowl-caliber team, except that the best team in the NFL was Buffalo. Still, the Dolphins had a great opportunity to turn the game around trailing 30-27 early in the fourth quarter when linebacker Mike Reichenbach got his hands on a Jim Kelly pass but dropped the interception. The Bills then drove for a touchdown, recovered a fumble on the ensuing kickoff and the Dolphins were done. Buffalo annihilated the Raiders in the AFC Championship Game, and there's no reason to think the Dolphins wouldn't have defeated them.

4. 1992, 11-5 record, lost in AFC Championship Game

While this was one step away from the Super Bowl unlike 1994, this wasn't quite as frustrating because Buffalo simply was the better team — and that wasn't the case against the Chargers in 1994. It was, however, a shame to waste getting the AFC title game at home after No. 1 seed Pittsburgh was upset in the divisional round.

5. 2000, 11-5 record, lost in divisional round

We don't need to tell Dolphins fans that season was the last time the team won a playoff game, and while they were shut out, 27-0, at Oakland the next week, let's remember that Miami drove to the Raiders 16 on its first possession after the defense forced a three-and-out. So maybe the game plays out differently if the Dolphins score to take the lead instead of having Jay Fiedler throw a 90-yard pick-six.

6. 2002, 9-7 record, no playoffs

Yes, it probably sounds weird to bemoan a lost season that didn't even include the playoffs, but this was a year without a great team in the AFC and the Dolphins had the running game and defense to make some noise in the playoffs. The problem is that Miami went 2-4 while Fiedler was out with injuries and the Dolphins squandered an 11-point lead in the final five minutes at New England in their season finale.

7. 2023, 11-6 record, lost in wild-card round

The Dolphins sure looked like Super Bowl contenders heading into a Week 17 matchup against the Baltimore Ravens with the No. 1 seed in the AFC playoffs on the line. But things started to unravel after Baltimore turned a 14-13 lead with 3 minutes left in the first half into a 56-19 rout. The Dolphins failed to clinch the AFC East title the following week when they lost against Buffalo at home, and by the time they went to arctic Kansas City for the playoff game, the defense was running out of players and the offense was stuck in neutral.

8. 1993, 9-7 record, no playoffs

This was the year Marino was lost to an Achilles tendon injury in October, and we can't help but wonder how far the Dolphins could have gone a year after reaching the AFC title game and after getting off to a 4-1 start. As it was, Miami was 9-2 after its upset of the Dallas Cowboys on Thanksgiving, though even thinking Super Bowl at that time seemed a wild idea.

9. 2008, 11-5 record, lost in wild-card round

This was the last time the Dolphins won a division title, but we can't put this season higher on the list because of how easily the offense was handled by the Baltimore Ravens in the wild-card playoff game in Miami.

10. 2016, 10-6 record, lost in wild-card round

This really wasn't a Super Bowl type of team, but we're including it simply because of the uncanny talent of this team for finding different ways to win in the regular season. An 18-point loss at Pittsburgh in the first round of the playoffs quickly erased any notion of a magical playoff run.