Week 16 of the 2020 Miami Dolphins season will go down as one of the more memorable come from behind victories for the franchise in recent memory. The knockout blows exchanged in the final 5 minutes of the contest made for great television and drama — and the Dolphins ultimately came out on top thanks to a late field goal from Jason Sanders and a miraculous heave by Ryan Fitzpatrick. The aftermath of the game, which was the Dolphins’ final win in 2020?
Pandemonium. Chaos. And a whole lot of happy Dolphins fans and players.
But for every ecstatic Dolphins player, there was absolutely a dejected Raiders player. And now, with the season put behind us, we are finding out that the Miami Dolphins broke the Las Vegas Raiders. More specifically, the Miami Dolphins pushed WR Nelson Agholor over the edge and to a point you very rarely see a player on a contract year be so willing to go. The story comes courtesy of Vic Tafur of the Athletic, who described a postgame scene that featured Agholor calling his teammates that they “sucked” and “quit” throughout the Dolphins game as well as their previous two games, both of which were losses.
Jon Gruden called the play that cost the Raiders the Week 16 game against the Dolphins the "most horrific play" he'd ever seen.
Nelson Agholor shared his own set of words in the locker room after.
From @VicTafur: https://t.co/dGQNA46zNN pic.twitter.com/B3s2YlXi3S
— Jimmy Durkin (@Jimmy_Durkin) January 29, 2021
Considering some of the locker room conflicts the Miami Dolphins have endured over the years, such as Jeff Ireland versus Joe Philbin, Brent & Miko Grimes versus Ryan Tannehill, Adam Gase versus everyone & etc., it certainly is nice to see the friction fall on the other side of the field for once. And even in the offense chance that Brian Flores’ Dolphins locker room experienced such a rift, the odds of hearing about it would probably be slim to none. The Dolphins may not have qualified for the playoffs this season but they did get to serve as the grim reaper for two separate teams in consecutive weeks — officially ending the Patriots and Raiders’ playoff hopes in back to back weeks.
And, at least in the case of the Raiders, Miami’s presence seemed to break the whole locker room open, too.