After Dolphins rout pool-noodle Jets 30-0, we’re about to find out how good Miami really is | Opinion

Playing the New York Jets to help the Miami Dolphins prepare for what’s next is sort of like you taking a couple of hits from a pool noodle to help you get ready to enter a UFC octagon.

The octagon comes next. Miami’s NFL regular season ends with a brutal three-game gauntlet, toughest finish in the league: vs. the Dallas Cowboys on Christmas Eve, at the Baltimore Ravens, then ending with a visit by the rival Buffalo Bills.

Sunday came the pool noodle or rather the opponent the Fins turned into that with an impressively perfunctory 30-0 rout of a New York team now 5-9 while Miami sits 10-4 for the first time since 2000, and reached 10 wins the fastest since that same year.

A sold-out crowd at Hard Rock Stadium included a good number of spectacularly quiet Jets fans.

The victory was no problem at all for Miami but also a necessary and thorough rebound — quick closure on last Monday night’s late collapse and 28-27 home loss to Tennessee.

Credit the resolve of a team that as bounced back from all four losses with a win.

“What we put out Monday was embarrassing,” quarterback Tua Tagovailoa said. “We didn’t want to feel that again. Could have gone either way. Could have felt sorry for ourselves. But let that go and moved on.”

Monday’s loss gave Sunday a must-win feel for Miami, as a second straight loss might have put the division title in some peril and a waft of panic in the air. Instead the Fins bagged their first shutout win and first at home since a 24-0 blanking of the same sad Jets on October 18, 2020.

“As proud as I’ve been of any performance,’” coach Mike McDaniel called Sunday’s game.

Now, only what’s next matters.

If the Dolphins are to win the AFC East and verify themselves as Super Bowl contenders, the coming three games will see them proving it for all to see, or being exposed as pretenders.

Not sure if Sunday foretold much.

Because the Jets are that bad, and lately downgrade to prop Planes when playing Miami. Sunday made it an 11-2 series run favoring the Fins, and an eighth straight win at home vs. NYJ.

The Dolphins led 7-0 early, and fittingly, on a Raheem Mostert 2-yard touchdown run wide left. I say fittingly because what Mostert does is score, and score again, and again — more than any Dolphin ever has for a single season, now officially.

Mostert’s 17th rushing TD broke Ricky Williams’ team record that had stood since 2002. His 19th score overall broke Mark Clayton’s record that had stood even longer, since 1984. (And he wasn’t even done with the end zone for the day.)

But it was defense that set up Mostert’s record-setting TD. Miami’s defense had scored a pick-six interception return TD each of the past three games, a franchise-record streak, and this time it was a strip sack by Bradley Chubb, and Zach Sieler recovering the fumble at the Jets 1. (Mostert cashed three plays later.)

“Its about how you move on from that,” Chubb said of his defense giving up 14 points in the last three minutes last Monday. “You can’t do anything about it ‘til Sunday. And we did.”

Jason Sanders’ 36-yard kick made it 10-0, capitalizing on a .failed fake punt by the Jets. (Two more field goals would follow.)

(Apropos of nothing, Usain Bolt attended the game up in a suite. He even looks fast while seated.)

Tagovailoa’s gorgeous 60-yard strike to Jaylen Waddle over beaten Jets cornerback D.J. Reed made it 17-0 to keep the party going. Tony Romo on TV called it a “big-arm throw.” Up in the owner’s box 83-year-old Stephen Ross was busting out his best penguin moves and doing the Waddle dance his player does to celebrate his touchdowns.

It was Miami’s 11th offensive play of 50-plus yards this season, five more than any other team.

Tyreek Hill being inactive Sunday with his ankle injury meant Waddle would be asked to step up. Consider it done. He had eight catches for 142 yards.

“Tough not having one of your star guys out there,’ but we have a lot of trust in other guys,” said Tagovailoa. “That’s what you saw out there.”

The Fins had beaten the Jets 34-13 just last month and rightly figured they could win again even sans Hill, who they will need more and at his healthy best for the next three games.

Meantime sitting out knocked Hill off pace in his bid to be the first receiver in NFL history to surpass 2,000 yards in a season. Stuck at 1,542 yards, his pace fell from a projected 2,016 yards to a current 1,872. He will now need 458 yards in the final three games to be the first man to 2K.

It was 24-0 just before the half on yet another Mostert TD, this from the 1. Later came another field goal.

The Jets meantime didn’t come close enough to the Miami end zone to see it without a telescope.

The Dolphins defense was dominant. Yes, the same outfit that six days earlier was whipped for 14 points in the final three minutes in that home loss to Tennessee.

This time the Fins had the turnover that produced the TD, forced four punts and had five sacks in the first half alone while holding the Jets to 4 (!) net offensive yards on 22 plays the entire half. And made Zach Wilson look so bad that either the Jets or a concussion benched him for Trevor Siemian late in the half.

Wilson spent last week masquerading as a decent NFL quarterback but reverted sharply to the norm Sunday, at his very Zach-iest in completing four of 11 passes fro 26 yards before his benching.

Miami would hold the Jets to only 103 net offensive yards.

The Jets defense wasn’t great, either

It was funny. Quinnen Williams, after a New York sack of Tagovailoa, did the Waddle dance to mock the Fins. Come to think of it, that was one of the few Jets’ plays worth celebrating all day.

Sunday, though, told us little about how good these Dolphins really are.

What’s next will tell us just about everything.

Cowboys. Ravens. Bills.

“We can have something really, really special this year,” Tagovailoa said.

As Mostert put it: ”Play in February. In Vegas.”

I believe they are right.

The Super Bowl feels closer for Miami than it has been in almost 40 years. But we still aren’t sure how close that actually is.

The unequivocal finding out comes next.

It starts on Christmas Eve.