The Dolphins Make Me Cry.com - Forums

...and we're the underdog, according to Vegas.

With a tough start to the schedule, you absolutely have to beat Cleveland, and then hope to steal another game in the next 4, to be 2-3, through the hardest part of the schedule.  If we lose this first game, there's no way we pull ourselves out of that hole.

Week 1 is essentially a playoff game for us.

Cleveland hasn't shown anything special.  I find it hard to believe this team is an underdog.  That being said, I do agree that losing to them would put this team in a hole they may not be able to get out of.  And if that happens and the Dolphins end up having another season like the past four, Ireland is out the door.

Week 1 = must win!

So I guess your point is that if Miami doesn't win in week 1, they should immediately start playing backups for the rest of the season to see who is worth keeping around next year?

I can only hope this thread was in jest.

I agree with Dave, but also disagree, kinda. 

A week 1 loss to Cleveland potentially puts you 0-5 going into the bye.  The next 4 games are against league juggernauts.  Who makes the playoffs after starting 0-5?  Then the wheels fall off, fans start wanting to bench Tannehill, fire Philbin, fire Ireland, and burn down the training facility because it must be bad luck.

Well, if you look at the rest of the schedule, its feasible they can still pull off 9-7 after an 0-5 start.  That combined with a lot of suck from other teams means you have a shot.

I guess what Dave is saying is that Cleveland is one of the easier opponents on the schedule, so you have to come home with the W.  If you can't beat Cleveland on the road, you won't have much hope to beat anyone.

Week 1 is never a must win.  It isn't even against a division rival.  Week 7&8 are your must wins. 

A win against Cleveland potentially puts you at 1-15 for the year.

This line of thinking is dumb.  0-1 is not even remotely close to 0-5, no matter who the first opponent is.  Winning the first game will not make @IND any easier, and losing the first game won't make @IND any harder.

If MIA loses to CLE but beats the other 4 teams, is the season still over?  Of course not.  This is why "must win" claims in the first half of the season are absurd.  When four of the last six Super Bowl champions have finished the season with 10 wins or less, the idea of a must-win game in Week 1 is frankly ridiculous.

Think about the reverse scenario:  if Week 1 were at SEA, would winning that game mean that we should all start printing up 2013 World Champion t-shirts?  Of course not.  One game is one game.

Is everybody forgetting that Miami beat both Seattle and Cincy last year? Those 4 games after Cleveland aren't easy, but Miami definitely should not go 0-4 and even 1-3 would be a disappointment. Lets wait to see how those games fall out before declaring the season over even if they should lose to Cleveland.

Miami went 2-3 in the preseason? Season over...

;)

Dave's "week 1" claim is based on the assumption that all of the next 4 opponents are potential playoff teams and BETTER than Cleveland.  So, it follows that if you can't beat Cleveland, you can't beat the others.

Week 2-5 is the toughest stretch of the schedule.  All of those teams are better than Miami.  If you lose to Cleveland, you need a miracle to overcome the next 4 games.

dolphins will start 5-0

I always get a kick out of people overreacting to every win (Playoffs, baby!) and every loss (we suck, season is over).   So preemptive overreacting before the first game of the season is played takes the greatness to another level.   ;D

Here is our typical debate about what equates to a must win game. I'll save everyone my usual response that nothing as part of a game is a "must" (but I will slide it in this way  :)

If we do not beat Cleveland I expect this section of the board is going to get pretty busy. If we do beat Cleveland we still have several tough opponenets coming up in a row. This still is not a team that I see winning the division so we really need to rack up some quality wins against teams that we may be competing with for a Wild Card (which Indy and Baltimore could potentially be). That is why Hoddie's comment about division rivals is off the mark I think.

I don't think this should be the teams's thinking but in honesty we are not really competing for the division. We are ultimately in a competition for a wild card.

I am not being facetious.  I really believe that if you want to make the playoffs, you can't fall too far behind.  Considering the difficulty of our schedule, this Cleveland game is one you have to get.  Of course it's mathematically possible to lose the first game and rattle off several wins afterward, but that's just not realistic.

I think that if we lose our opener, considering how difficult the next stretch is, the season is over before it begins.

And if you don't think that fans' attitude affects the team, you're wrong.  Every day the media members are in the locker room directly asking questions to players that fans are commenting and discussing.  Your opinions get to the coaches and players via various sources.  So, when the team is 0-5 and the fans want everyone fired, that attitude will permeate through the franchise and the snowball will continue.

0-5 is the worst thing that could happen to this team. 

Does beating CLE make ATL worse?  Does losing to CLE make NO better?

One loss is one loss.  If you really think the "season is over," then should MIA start playing backups?
No?
Then please stop saying things that even you don't believe.

In a way, yes. 

Cleveland is assumed to be far worse than ATL and NO.

If you lose to Cleveland, the Dolphins are probably far worse of a team than we all expect, making the skill gap between ATL and MIA even larger.

If you can't beat the league's cupcake teams, you can't expect to beat the league's elite teams.

So if we can't beat ARI, we can't expect to beat SEA, right?
Or maybe you mean that if we can't beat NYJ, then we can't beat CIN?

This is stupid.  One loss is 0-1, no matter who it is.

^^^ If you lose to a team perceived as bottom of the barrel how can you expect to beat the better teams in the league.

In 2012:

- SF could not beat STL in two tries
- SEA lost to ARI and DET
- BAL lost to PHI
- ATL lost to NO and CAR

One loss is one loss.

On paper, if you get beat by a bad team, then good teams should beat you.  Fortunately, football isn't played on paper.   ;D    Last year the Dolphins got beat by Arizona in Week 4.  Arizona went on to have a 5-11 record.  So in theory, Seattle (who went 11-5 and was a playoff team) should have soundly beaten Miami.  But they didn't.  Miami beat Seattle. 

I can't believe this topic is being debated before the season has actually even started.  A new low for pessimism.

I can't believe no one has brought up this point:

A team "gels" throughout a season. If they lose in week one to an inferior opponent, doesn't mean they would lose to that opponent say week 10.  A lot of teams improve as a season goes along.

^^ Or in the case of the 2012 Arizona Cardinals, start out 4-0 including beating New England in their house, and then lose 11 of the next 12.

Yes, and if we played Cleveland in week 10, maybe we'd beat them.  But the schedule has us playing them in week 1.  If we lose that game, mark my words -- no playoffs.  We'll start slow and it will be an insurmountable hole.

New England and Seattle both lost to Arizona in the first 2 weeks of the 2012 season.  Didn't seem to hurt them too much.

actually out of the first 5 games the easiest opponent MIGHT be Indy Week 2.

Weaker defense and o-line than Cleveland. Reggie Wayne ended the season poorly last year and some think he is finished. And if he isn't a legit #1 WR anymore that offense will struggle.

Cleveland isn't a pushover by any means and a loss to them in Week 1 doesn't end the season, that's silly talk!

Why not? Miami lost to Buffalo and Tennessee last year and then beat Seattle and Cincy. In the NFL every single game can be won or lost, it's just a matter of whether you play better than your opponent or not. Teams are all so close. Cleveland isn't that much worse than any of the other teams in the NFL and Atlanta isn't that much better. If Miami plays poorly at Cleveland, but plays great at home against Atlanta, there a very good chance they lose to Cleveland and beat Atlanta. It's VERY realistic, just not probable. If it were that easy to predict wins and losses, Vegas would have to shut down.

Well there is this thing called the spread that they also deal with.

And what is the spread on games typically? A couple points. That right there speaks to how close teams actually are. A FG seperates the favorite from the underdog in a lot of cases. Even when the game has a 10 point spread or more, the underdog wins those games straight up occasionally. It's not nearly as easy to predict the outcomes of games even straight up as people think. The point spread pretty much just ensures that Vegas can cover the betting.

Dave, you are a pretty smart guy, but this has to be the craziest shit I have ever seen you post on here. We lose the first game if the season, and our year is over?  Come on man!  I am convinced you are trolling right now.  We are winning this first game, and big. 

He'll freezes over and we lose to the Browns.  One game out of 16.  Just because a team sucks doesn't mean they suck that day.  Game plans, players playing beyond expectations, etc.  teams can have a bad day.

Pretty sure your playing Devil's Advocate because JoeTex hasn't done his job in like 3 years.

(Post written on iPhone, please excuse typos)

Yay! The season isn't over!

Got a good laugh out of me there...very nice. ;D

I stand by my original thought.  But, since we won, carry on.

Renewed hope after Week 1 is always a good thing...let's face it, if you lose to the Browns are you really expecting a winning season? 

Win the next one, especially 2 in a row on the road and things really begin to look promising this season!

To carry on this thought, I think that you need to win 1 out of the next 4.

Being 2-3 isn't great, but if you're through the meat of your schedule and can have a late run, you've got a playoff chance.

Indy and Atlanta present the best chances of that happening. 

If you can pull out a win against Indy, you're playing with house money and are really in the driver's seat.  That gives you three weeks against better teams (on paper), but with nothing to lose.  You can play loose and take risks.  I'd love to be in that position.

After yesterday, I feel better about the Indy game than I did a week ago.

we'll lose to the saints and that's it .. we beat atl, indy and baltimore

Miami is capable of winning any of those 4. I expect them to win 2.

If Miami starts the season 2-3, they're in fairly good shape for a WC shot. I don't see how they can't win one of the next 4 games. -EK