The Miami Dolphins will enter Week 2 of the NFL regular season with a pristine opportunity to make a lot of noise. The Dolphins can further legitimize themselves as a contender with a win at home against the Buffalo Bills — and in the process push the Bills into a very unappealing position at 0-2 and 2.5 games out of first place after the first two weeks of the season. It counts as just one of seventeen regular season games, but the big picture view of what can be had with a win on Sunday is enormous.
And don’t forget about revenge.
The Dolphins were eliminated from postseason play in Week 17 of 2020 thanks to an embarrassingly loss to the Bills — a game that saw Buffalo’s starters pulled at halftime and Miami still losing by 30 points.
The players are trying their best to leave last year in the past. At least publicly.
“Last year is last year. We watched the film. We saw what we did wrong. We are a whole new team now. We’ve got a whole new mindset. We watched it but at the end of the day, it was last year,” said linebacker Jerome Baker on Thursday. Defensive end Emmanuel Ogbah echoed Baker’s sentiments during his own press availability.
“It definitely left a bitter taste in our mouth last game; but no, we take every game the same way. Same approach.”
That’s fine. It’s the right way to handle the buildup to such a big moment in the public eye. The Bills don’t need any added motivations entering into this football game. But Miami, privately and within their locker room, should absolutely be talking about revenge. They should be talking a lot about the feeling they felt in the locker room in Orchard Park in January after giving up 56 points to the likes of Matt Barkley, Antonio Williams and Isaiah McKenzie.
It’s hard to call the Bills and Dolphins too much of a rivalry in recent years, with Buffalo winning 7 of 8 entering into Sunday’s contest. But historically, these two teams were built to despise one another. And that’s honestly an approach Brian Flores should embrace a bit. Not to play emotionally or irrationally. But to channel those feelings from January and apply them into the preparation and execution of Sunday’s contest against the Bills.
Because while it is a brand new year, there are no shortage of incumbents on this roster who had their seasons ended in Buffalo this past January. And that shouldn’t be suppressed or ignored. That hardship should be embraced and used as fuel to feed the hunger to not find themselves there again in a few months.
A win on Sunday would certainly help that cause.