In a post from last week, I asked a question about our Miami Dolphins’ biggest rival:
Who, in your mind, are the Dolphins’ biggest current rival in the AFC East, and why? Beyond that, who do you believe are the Dolphins’ other rivals outside of their division and why?
Below are some of your thoughts and answers-
sdphinsfan believes that the current free agency setup and the collective bargaining agreement have ruined rivalries.
FA and the CBA have ruined rivalries in the NFL. But back in the day, the Fins and Raiders had a pretty good rivalry going, and it was probably my favorite.
Alpha6 sees the rest of the division as our biggest rivals.
Patriots, Jets, Bills in rivalry order. Jets, Patriots, Bills in hatred order. Screw the Jets all to hell.
Miami7 is here for the camaraderie.
And….I gotta say….this is one-a THE very best ‘replies’ groupings from the brethren/sisters here overall to a topic I’ve seen (JMO of course) in a long, long time.
Props to the ‘brother-sisterhood’
………..with such good female posters here I gotta say I’m not sure what’s ‘appropriate’? Are the females offended if I call this grouping a ‘brotherhood’ or is that not right? If so….teach my old behind what IS please.
Bill Moody sees the seemingly constant string of injuries as the biggest enemy of the team.
Dolphins biggest rival is the injury bug. Damn thing gives us trouble every year, we just can’t seem to beat it.
Jptapt says the team is its own worst enemy.
I think their biggest rival is the Dolphins. They quite often are their own worst enemy, it seems.
dedstrk316 doesn’t believe the concept of a rivalry exists until both teams are winning on a regular basis.
There are no real Rivals. I am of the school that Rivals both need to be Playoff winning teams for several seasons and are not constrained to Divisional boundaries but are always in the same Conference. Both need to win against each other, sometimes one only wins in the regular season. The belligerents are capable of winning at the other’s home field at any given time.
If the W/L records are lopsided, it isn’t a rivalry, it is a relationship much like a hammer and nail have an inextricable relationship.
A Divisional opponent does not necessarily make a Rival.
Yarganaught says it’s the Jets! I agree, or at least hate that team more than all the others.
It isn’t the Patriots. And while the Bills’ fans talk a lot… a LOT… at least their team is winning. And both the Pats and Bills fans seem to be able to speak rationally about football, in general.
I think it has to be the Jets. Their fans are always obnoxious, always in that “this is OUR year” mode, and yet the team is always 1 match away from a dumpster fire.
j-man is with me and Yargnaught.
what about the jets btw i read don Shula book and i really like the man he kind of gets little respect now of days
cyberflea has a solid point. Not much to talk about until the Dolphins can consistently defeat the Bills and contend for the division.
Easy question my brother James, It’s obviously the Bills. The Dolphins won’t be relevant until they can knock them off their pedestal and win the division. The chances of winning a Super Bowl as a wildcard is greatly diminished as only seven teams have done it. As for other rivals, there is no specific one, it’s every team in the AFC because they are the ones that you are competing with for a playoff berth.
Miami7, like CyberFlea, believes rivalries stem from winning.
Frankly…rivalries generally evolve over competitive play and the Dolphins really haven’t entered that distinction in quite some time. They are ‘kinda/sorta’ in a recent window of illusory competitiveness. They are MUCH better than they’ve been for 25 years or so but still sit outside the window of true contention. Today – I guess we’d have to say the Bills are their biggest rival because we can’t beat em’ and the other two in division stink. The Dolphins true, distinctive rivalries have diminished over our years of mediocrity & sub-standard play. We’re like the old Bills teams that thought there was some great ‘rivalry’ betwixt us-them when we pretty much owned them for years. We want to believe we have rivalries, but it’s not really a rivalry when it’s so one-sided, that’s just created fallacy in myopic desire to compete on a more even basis.
Maybe this year we can re-gain some of that 23’ momentum & build toward creating a TRUE rivalry with the Bills, who stand alone atop the mountain & kinda laugh at the suggestion of a rivalry existing when they just absolutely dominate the scoreboard?
That’s our selection of ten comments for tonight. Thank you again for the responses to the question of the day. I was surprised that this one did fairly well. It seems there is no consensus, except that this team needs to learn to win the tough games against top NFL teams. Please join us tomorrow evening for our Victory Of The Week Post, Saturday for another answers post, and this coming Sunday for our Miami Dolphins/Chicago Bears live thread.
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