Gloria Clemente’s Fable as Miami Goes 1-0

Gloria Clemente’s Fable as Miami Goes 1-0 Almost two years ago, I traveled south through the snowbound Swedish countryside, from Sundsvall in Västernorrland County to the capital, Stockholm, on the trail of a long-forgotten serial killer. The journey took almost five hours, much of it spent in darkness, through that time of the Scandinavian year when daylight barely has time to announce itself before surrendering once again to the night.

I had a window seat and spent the first hour or so staring out of the window into the gloaming, contemplating the story I was making. Occasionally, pinpricks of light would flash past: small, remote enclaves in the wilderness that felt cut off from the rest of the world by the heavy snow that fell like a veil.

Bored, I went to the buffet car and bought a tea and some köttbullar – the traditional Swedish meatballs – and decided that, when I returned to my seat, I’d lose myself in a movie to help the time pass. Scrolling through Disney+ trying to find something to watch, I stopped at Ron Shelton’s 1992 classic, White Men Can’t Jump. One hundred and sixteen beautiful minutes of misconceptions and desperation, language and loyalty.

Perfect.

I began to watch as places like Kvissleby, Gnarp, Hudiksvall, Enånger and the interchange town of Gävle slipped past outside. Beside me sat a middle-aged Swede, a few years older than me, who was clearly a fan of the film. Every so often, I caught him smiling in my peripheral vision at certain moments that he could see but not hear: the ‘Chump’ hustle; ‘hearing Jimi Hendrix’; and the story Wesley Snipes’s character tells of Michael Jordan coming down to the park to play against him, and how he “took Jordan to the hole”. He clearly loved it as much as I did.

Towards the end, there is a famous scene in which Rosie Perez’s character, Gloria Clemente, the sharp-witted, trivia-obsessed live-in girlfriend of Woody Harrelson’s aw-shucks hustler, Billy Hoyle, sets out her rules in direct contrast to his own.

“Sometimes when you win, you really lose, and sometimes when you lose, you really win, and sometimes when you win or lose, you actually tie, and sometimes when you tie, you actually win or lose. Winning or losing is all one organic mechanism, from which one extracts what one needs.”

It’s delivered in Perez’s gloriously combustible blend of quick-witted feistiness and sass. Although Billy doesn’t know it, he got the scoreboard win, but is about to lose what truly mattered. Although the film is thirty-four years old, Perez could have made that statement yesterday around 4.03pm EST to swathes of Miami Dolphins fans, some ecstatic at the first win of the season, others upset by it, and plenty somewhere in between.

Why?

In any season that contains few wins, it’s only natural for minds to wander to April and the hope that the NFL Draft offers.  The opportunity to select a generational talent doesn’t happen very often, and for a good portion of Dolphins fans, losing out on taking Ohio State’s incredible receiver Jeremiah Smith to win one or two games simply isn’t worth it. Any long-term reader of this column, listener to my 3YPC podcast, or listener to my weekly Dolphins Talk podcast appearances with Mike, or anyone who follows me on Twitter, knows where I stand on that point. Winning one or two games only to lose out on the chance to draft Smith would, all things considered, be pretty abject.

And yet……..

Yesterday was magical. It’s simply impossible not to be caught up in what this team is doing. Miami had an astonishing fifteen rookies active against the Jets: Jacob Rodriguez, Chris Johnson, Michael Taaffe, Rodney McGraw, Caleb Douglas, Kadyn Proctor, DJ Herman, Chris Bell, Will Kacmarek, Kevin Coleman, Seydou Traore, Kaytron Allen, Justin Joly, Max Llewellyn and Kyle Louis. Thirty-one percent of the active roster were first-year players.

THIRTY-ONE!

This isn’t an ordinary team, and frankly, this isn’t — remarkably — a team that should be 1-5. Despite everything, despite the tear-down, the rebuild, the gutting of the roster, this team, these players and these coaches are doing something unthinkable. They’re putting out a product that makes you feel great about the future.

Not just good. But great.

There’s third-round ‘reach’ — my words, not yours — Caleb Douglas, winning the game with a sixty-three-yard catch and run for a touchdown, his second of the day; ‘undersized’ Michael Taaffe, yet again showing his worth with an interception as smart as you’ll see all season; Chris Johnson, locking down Jets star receiver Garrett Wilson and almost recording his first career pick; 12th overall pick Kadyn Proctor, out front, kicking ass in the run game so that Olly Gordon can gallop for 103 yards; third-round ‘reach’ Will Kacmarek — your words, not mine — doing the same; Bell, Coleman and Traore getting six targets between them; Jacob Rodriguez playing his usual game as the green dot of a complicated defense; DJ Herman, the converted linebacker, leading the way inside and out; Rodney McGraw with two tackles; et cetera, et cetera.

And that’s just the rookies. Vets made big plays all over the field: Jordyn Brooks was everywhere, as was JuJu Brents. Aaron Brewer had his best game of the season, as did Zach Sieler who was one-third of a terrific goal-line stand, along with Chop Robinson. Josh Uche continued his fine form. And Malik Willis was excellent, underlining how important patience is.

Was it perfect? No.

Was there stuff to clean up? Yes.

Was it hopeful? Absolutely and unequivocally.

There was a moment after the game, amid the wild celebrations in the locker room — because God knows, this game is grueling enough without being able to celebrate the wins – when General Manager Jon-Eric Sullivan walked into shot and gave his friend, Jeff Hafley, a sort of side hug, leaning his face into that of his head coach. They stayed like that for a second or two before Sullivan quietly whispered, “I’m proud of you, man.”

He should be. Not just of Hafley, but of himself. Together, they are building a team and a culture that might just wash away the ghosts of the past that have followed this franchise since January 13th, 1974, when Larry Csonka carried the ball 33 times for 145 yards and two touchdowns to win Super Bowl VIII.

To contextualize that: this season will mark Super Bowl 61. I will turn 53 just before that game. I was three when we last won it all.

“It’s just the New York Jets,” as someone tweeted me yesterday. And they’re right. It was. And that should mean something. For Joe Namath beating Miami in our first-ever match-up in 1966; for Sal Alosi purposely tripping Nolan Carroll in 2010; for 51-45 in 1986; for Jumbo Elliott and the Monday Night Miracle in 2000; and for every moment of pain in between.

But also for another reason: Every journey to glory begins with a single step.

There is a long road ahead for this team, these coaches and these players, some of whom won’t be part of it. But it felt like every single employee helped lay the first brick yesterday at MetLife. And in doing so, they tore at the foundations of the hated rivals, who might fire beleaguered head coach Aaron Glenn as early as today.

I finished White Men Can’t Jump about twenty minutes before my train arrived in Stockholm, the snow still falling outside. I waited whilst my seat-mate retrieved a heavy bag, meaning that we were two of the last to get off, and as we stepped down onto the platform, I nodded a goodbye for the air we’d shared across five hours. He looked at me, wisps of hair poking out from under his hat.

“Thanks for letting me watch the movie”, he said in accented English.

I smiled. “No problem at all.”

“Sometimes when you win,” he continued, parroting the famous line, “you really lose, and sometimes when you lose, you really win, and sometimes when you win or lose, you actually tie.”

The pair of us laughed heartily and went our separate ways, out into the snow.

I don’t know what Miami’s win means for the dream of Jeremiah Smith. Maybe they really lost by winning.

But if they did, it damn sure felt good.