The NFL is transitioning from a prolonged Week 5 into Week 6 this evening — but the Miami Dolphins are full steam ahead preparing themselves to battle the New York Jets next Sunday at Hard Rock Stadium. This wasn’t Miami’s initially scheduled opponent, but it is the hand Miami has been dealt courtesy of some COVID-19 rescheduling tweaks. The hatred between the Jets and the Dolphins runs deep, even as the teams have fallen out of relevancy in recent years.
With former Dolphins head coach Adam Gase still prowling the Jets’ sideline and passive aggressively taking shots at his own players, the rivalry has a little added spunk. There is little doubt the Dolphins are in better shape than when Adam Gase left the Dolphins after the 2018 season. But how much better? And how much worse are the Jets than where they started when Gase took control.
That’s a complicated question, mainly because the 2020 New York Jets are really, really bad.
The Jets, at 0-5, are one of three winless teams in football. The team is 32nd in scoring offense and has allowed more than twice as many points (161) than they’ve scored (75) through five games. The team has managed to scratch out just six offensive touchdowns in five games. Worst of all, the Jets are one of just four teams in the last 30 years to lose their first 5 games by multiple scores — the team isn’t even close. Not even the 2019 Dolphins were able to achieve that feat.
That’s where Sunday’s matchup with Miami becomes a big test. The Dolphins have won two games this season, handily beating both Jacksonville and San Francisco. The test for Miami will be to see to it that they do not play down to the talent level of New York. Miami has done well to rise to the occasion against lesser teams this season — but they must avoid the trap of letting their guard down against an untalented roster with bad coaching and poor discipline. The path back to .500 is clear: beat the Jets, enter the bye and reattack the remaining 10 games on the schedule. It’s all in front of the Dolphins at this point in time.
But a horridly bad Jets team is a potential trap that Miami must not fall for. In a perfect world, Miami handles the Jets in similar fashion to how the Dolphins’ Week 5 opponent, the 49ers did. San Francisco beat the Jets in Week 2 by a score of 31-13. It was 21-3 by halftime. There’s no reason Miami, who has performed well against lesser teams this season, to not attack this game in similar fashion. If they do that, Dolphins fans should be plenty energetic about the remaining 10 games on the schedule in 2020.