Examining the Historic Dolphins Debacle Against Buffalo

Now that the NFL trade deadline, the Miami Dolphins are going to get back to the business of actual games this week with the seemingly impossible task of trying to take the Buffalo Bills.

There are many things that have gone wrong for this Dolphins organization to contribute to a playoff victory drought that's basically guaranteed to extend to 25 years this season, and one of those has been the inability to handle the Bills, more specifically the Josh Allen Bills.

The perfect illustration of just how painful it's been for Miami is the Dolphins never had a 15-game stretch as painful as the one they're going through against Buffalo against any other team — and that includes the Tom Brady New England Patriots.

The numbers should be well known by now, how the Dolphins have gone 1-14 against Buffalo since they defeated the Bills in Allen's first start against them as a rookie in 2018. This top their worst 15-game stretch against New England, which was 3-12 from 2006-13, or even their worst stretch against the New York Jets, also 3-12 (from 1998-2005).

This, though, has been next level.

THE SAD NUMBERS AGAINST BUFFALO

Over those past 15 games against Buffalo, including the playoff game at the end of the 2022 season, the Dolphins have been outscored by an average of 33.6-19.7.

The 31-21 Bills victory earlier this season marked the 12th time in those 15 games that Buffalo reached the 30-point mark.

The Dolphins have done it one single solitary time during that same span, and that came in that playoff game when Skylar Thompson started at quarterback with Tua Tagovailoa out with a concussion and Miami lost 34-31.

The biggest factor — no duh — here is Allen, who has abused the Dolphins above and beyond what he's done to other teams during what is looking like a Hall of Fame career.

The numbers truly are staggering.

In 15 games against the Dolphins, including that first start when Miami won 21-17 but excluding the playoff game, Allen has completed 66.9 percent of his passes with 40 touchdowns and only eight interceptions with a passer rating of 110.3.

His overall career passer rating is 94.2 and his touchdown-to-interception ratio is 2:36-to-1, a far cry from the 5-to-1 he's got against the Dolphins.

WHEN THE DOLPHINS BEAT ALLEN

In that 15-game span, the one Dolphins victory came at Hard Rock Stadium in Week 3 of the 2022 season in a game where Miami hardly contained Allen.

The Dolphins won 21-19 that day despite being outgained 497-212 and the key became Buffalo leaving points of the field, the most crucial example being a goal-line stand late in the fourth quarter.

The Dolphins got a blocked field goal attempt by Emmanuel Ogbah along with the first half clock running out on the Bills after Allen botched the snap on a spike with 3 seconds left, forcing him to throw a completion.

There have been close calls in other games as well, including the first matchup this season at Highmark Stadium when the Dolphins were driving for a potential game-tying touchdown when linebacker Terrel Bernard picked off Tagovailoa.

The Bills also won on last-second field goals in 2022 and last season in Buffalo.

But it's been misery for Miami.

“I’ve been on both sides of a divisional rivalry that has skewed one way or the other," head coach Mike McDaniel said. "Being on both sides you learn to be very, very careful not to care at all about whatever that is. Why? Because these are two different teams, even from earlier in the year. In the National Football League, if you try to play a former version of a team, you will get some hard lessons. They’ve beaten us because they’ve scored more points and done the right football things longer than we have in those games that we lost. I think that’s the measure of a good football team is being able to win. Particularly there’s been a couple of one-score games as of late that they’ve won and we’ve lost. What’s critical is that you don’t have your ‘wish you could have them back’ plays in the fourth quarter, anticipating that regardless of how well you play or whatever they do, they generally do a great job of keeping the game, at least worst case scenario, within reach. A lot of times they have leads, but you know you’re not winning this game until the fourth quarter is over.

"I think playing good football throughout four quarters, I think us banding together through the ebbs and flows, not getting too high, not getting too low in a game that you really want to win is pretty critical. But as far as streaks, records of former teams and our record for that matter, I don’t really see – if our record was inverse flipped, I really don’t see a difference in this game. If we’re 7-2, we’re still trying to beat the Buffalo Bills who won our division the past nth times. You have to do the right things during the week each and every day, and then you build to the spot where you can go execute that. They don’t give it to you, you have to earn it. Until you’re able to do that as a team throughout the entire work week into the game and play four quarters, they make it extremely tough to beat them. Fortunately, we have a game on Sunday that I should probably get back to preparing for.”

THE FLIP SIDE

Of course, if we're going to mention Buffalo's recent dominance of the Dolphins, we have to talk about what Miami did to the Bills in the 1970s.

Yes, it was a long time ago, but it remains truly remarkable to this day.

A 1-14 stretch against one opponent really is bad, there's no two ways around it, but it doesn't compare to an 0-20 run.

That's what the Dolphins did to the Bills when they swept them in the 1970s.

Yes, an entire decade.

And when the streak finally ended in the 1980 season opener at Rich Stadium with a 17-7 Buffalo victory, the celebration though looked like the team had just won the Super Bowl.

We won't see that kind of celebration if the Dolphins can pull off an upset Sunday afternoon, but there most definitely will be a sense of satisfaction greater than a normal victory.