Dolphins’ ‘Mountaineer Shot’ gaining fanfare as an all-time great fake

The Miami Dolphins’ fake field goal against the Philadelphia Eagles is gaining traction as an all-time great play.

Magical things happen when the Miami Dolphins wear these uniforms in front of a December crowd at Hard Rock Stadium, it is officially a fact. 357 days from the anniversary of the Dolphins’ miraculous walk-off win against the New England Patriots courtesy of the Miami Miracle, Brian Flores and company successfully drew up a miracle of their own — a punter passing the rock to a kicker for a touchdown.

The play is called “Mountaineer Shot”, and it’s gaining legs as the next all-time play pulled off by the Dolphins. Analysts were swooning over the play yesterday as reactions poured in from NFL Week 13 action and Miami’s fake, rightfully, takes the cake.

This play didn’t have the stakes of a “Philly Special”, which the Eagles used to help knock off the Patriots a few years back in the Super Bowl. And the fact that a (then) 2-9 Dolphins team broke this out in a December contest will water down its claim for all-time great status. But from an Xs and Os perspective, this play is a work of art. It was so crazy even Dolphins QB Ryan Fitzpatrick hesitated to think this thing would actually work.

“Danny Crossman is crazy! Like what is he dreaming up? This is the NFL,” said Fitzpatrick when asked what his first reaction was to the play.

“Like, that’s not – that doesn’t happen. And I saw – they worked on it multiple times (in practice), so we had seen it, but for it actually to be called in a game, I didn’t think it would ever be called in a game. But pretty cool – pretty cool that it worked.”

Pretty cool indeed. Dolphins fans can find t-shirts with the play design written up — just in time for Christmas. No matter how this season ends for the Dolphins, they’ve once again given fans the gift of an all-time memorable play, one they’ll be able to look back on for years to come and say they remember where they were when it happened.

And, fittingly, they came in those darn throwbacks once again.

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