What is in Miami's best interest tonight?

[dolphins4life]

Bengals or Ravens?

Edit:  Renamed the thread

I'd say the Ravens winning is best because it hedges Miami's playoff bets if they can't win the division.

[Phishfan]

I hate the Ravens

[CF DolFan]

We need Bengals to win as Miami is tied in the loss column with Ravens record and Bengal's are behind us.

[Spider-Dan]

MIA will have an opportunity to deal with BAL directly.  They won't have that option with CIN.

[Dave Gray]

Late to the party, but I think that a Bengals win would have been the better outcome.

We are in position to win our division, to the point that it is likely.  If that's true, all this wildcard stuff doesn't matter at all and we're interested in having a higher spot that other division leaders, namely Baltimore right now.

There is a secondary benefit to the Bengals losing in that it probably increases our general chance of making the playoffs, but at the cost of harming our BYE possibility or playoff seeding.

[Spider-Dan]

I disagree.  If CIN would have won, they would have been just 1 game behind MIA in the loss column, and the Dolphins would have very little control of their own destiny on that tiebreaker (besides "just win every game").  In contrast, with BAL the head-to-head game looms large.  Not only that, but as it stands, MIA doesn't want to end up tied with KC - as MIA loses that tiebreaker outright - and would benefit from a 3-way-tie for the #1 seed.

[Dave Gray]

I disagree.  If CIN would have won, they would have been just 1 game behind MIA in the loss column, and the Dolphins would have very little control of their own destiny on that tiebreaker (besides "just win every game").  In contrast, with BAL the head-to-head game looms large.  Not only that, but as it stands, MIA doesn't want to end up tied with KC - as MIA loses that tiebreaker outright - and would benefit from a 3-way-tie for the #1 seed.

Tiebreaker for what, though?

You don't need the tiebreaker if you win your division.  I am more worried about besting an 8 win Ravens team than a 6 win Bengals team.  We'd have to beat the Ravens head to head just to get to where we already are with the Bengals, had they won.

[Spider-Dan]

Tiebreaker for playoff seeding.
If you're already of the mindset that MIA should be looking beyond a Wild Card spot, then you should be comparing the Dolphins to other potential division winners.  If CIN wins the AFCN and loses to KC, that means KC has a sweep against MIA and CIN in case of a 3-way tie.  Since KC and BAL do not play each other this year, that means a 3-way tie with MIA/KC/BAL takes KC's win against MIA off the table (provided MIA beats BAL).

Put another way: losing to BAL in week 17 will be very bad for MIA regardless, but the Ravens' win yesterday means that a MIA win in week 17 could have tremendous upside (like "#1 seed" upside).