Miami Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel greets quarterback Tua Tagovailoa as players warm up before the start of a Nov. 6 game against the Chicago Bears in Chicago. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh) (Nam Y. Huh, AP)
Once upon a time, way back in November, the Miami Dolphins were a nice little story about reinvention and redemption as everyone framed it. You know, a modern sports fable with a dash of allegory on the side.
Now it’s December and everything’s different. Starting Sunday in San Francisco and running through season’s end, they’re no fable. Their season is no allegory. You don’t have to explain them any more than you do a sunrise. You just watch.
It’s football now, just football, starting with the Dolphins’ top-rated quarterback, Tua Tagovailoa, against San Francisco’s top-rated defense in the game of the season — at least the season thus far. It’s only Week 13.
“Their scheme is going to make it difficult on us early,’ San Francisco defense end Nick Bosa said. “We just have to stop the run and eliminate some of the early options for [Tagovailoa] to throw and hope we get home.”
It’s been a fun ride so far, but it’s a voyage of discovery starting Sunday that arrives with some preconceived ideas to prove or disprove. Look at this past month. A win streak has been made of lesser teams. A big trade awaits a verdict. And the quarterback the franchise tried to dump last offseason headlines it all.
The Dolphins?
No, that’s the 49ers.
See, the Dolphins aren’t the only team trying to prove something in games like this. Oh, the Dolphins have made good noise of late with the help of a cushy-soft schedule, their past five opponents combining for a 16-39-1 record and defenses that both bend and break.
The last five defenses the Dolphins have played rank in the bottom 10 of the league for points allowed. The games also were played in a football biosphere of perfect weather as the Dolphins transformed from a question mark into The Greatest Show on Surf.
Coincidence? That’s what Sunday starts to answer.
Rain is expected in San Francisco on Sunday. That’s one change. So is the 49ers’ defense, which ranks first in fewest points allowed (15.7 per game) and first in fewest yards allowed (281.4), as well as first in analytic favorites like opponents’ points per play (.262) and red-zone trips per game (2.3).
And yet.
Hold the same mirror to San Francisco’s schedule. Their biggest trophy is a November win against the Los Angeles Chargers, who have the 30th-ranked defense and were missing three Pro Bowl players on offense. That day was part of a four-game win streak in which the 49ers haven’t allowed a point in the second half. The other three opponents rank in the bottom half of the league in scoring.
So each of these teams is good. December starts to say how good. Health is part of that, and Dolphins star left tackle Terron Armstead probably is out Sunday with a pectoral problem that has fans in a tizzy, especially with Bosa lining up on the other side.
Buffalo’s left tackle was out and his backup played hurt Thursday against New England’s Matthew Judon, the NFL sacks leader. The Bills won easily. Tennessee, the New York Jets and Chargers have been without star left tackles since September. They’re still in the playoff mix.
One injury doesn’t crush NFL seasons. Armstead’s absence shouldn’t, either. Smart coaches adapt, and not by putting a career right tackle like Brandon Shell in at left tackle, as the Dolphins did last week against Houston.
These coaches are the other fascination to Sunday. The staffs are cross-wired. It’s not just Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel, who worked under San Francisco coach Kyle Shanahan on offensive staffs at Houston, Cleveland, Washington, Atlanta and San Francisco.
Assistants in this game have worked both sides of the aisle, including San Francisco offensive line coach Chris Foerster. He was a groomsmen a few years ago in McDaniel’s wedding and, before that, the cocaine-sniffing Dolphins coach outed on a social-media video by a Las Vegas, uh, model. Time moves on. People, thankfully, too.
At the center of Sunday are the quarterbacks, Tagovailoa and Jimmy Garoppolo, neither of whom were wanted by their respective organizations last offseason. Now Sunday’s winner will be discussed in terms of a Super Bowl quarterback. Sunday’s loser might, too, depending how it all plays out.
It’s that big a December game starting a consequential stretch run the Dolphins haven’t seen in years. Go ahead, pinch yourself. Who expected this in August?
Actually, don’t pinch yourself. We’re past that point of redemption and reinvention. It’s football now, just football, as it always is for the good teams in December.
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Originally published at Tribune News Service