First Super Bowl in nearly 40 years? Why Miami Dolphins fans are entitled to hope and believe | Opinion

A confession: I’m a homer when it comes to the Miami Dolphins. I try my best to disguise it with a professional sheen of neutral-journalist guy, but the fan in me is embedded deep, won’t ever leave and, it turns out, I have no say in the matter.

With this team only among all that I write about, there is a history that goes back to childhood because, like many in South Florida, I was raised by the Dolphins — and spoiled by their early success. Barely out of the old AFL expansion years, the team was winning back-to- back Super Bowls, one with a Perfect Season!

The Fins were on top of the football world and taking us with them to that summit. As a kid who didn’t know better (yet), it seemed easy. I figured the Dolphins would always be great.

My Dad and I were at the first ever game in 1966 (thank you, Joe Auer). I had an aqua-and-orange team pennant on my bedroom wall, back when people actually had pennants. I collected Dolphins player cards that Royal Castle used to give out. My poor father would get home from work, a carpenter, blue-collar tired, and I would hit him up to toss the football in the backyard before dinner.

I would make a sharp cut left at the lime tree and he’d hit me in stride as I darted around the above-ground pool as if it were a would-be tackler. (I was Paul Warfield.)

The woman I would marry — she was a bigger Dolfan then me. Found out she, her mother and brother were among the huge throng of fans gathered at the airport late on Christmas night 1971 to cheer the returning heroes after The Longest Game in Kansas City, the Dolphins’ epic, first ever playoff victory.

I asked the wife the other day, as I do every preseason to get a pulse read on her team, her expectations for 2023.

“We’re primed for total disappointment,” she said.

This is where the nice Sunday drive careens over an embankment, where nostalgia is slapped awake and becomes reality.

A friend volunteered the other day, “ I think this is the year ... because I think that every year.”

Most Dolfans have high hopes for this season — and should — but even the most optimistic Miami fans I know sort of hedge bets as a way to steel themselves again (inevitable?) disappointment.

Miami has not won a Super Bowl since 1973. Seventeen other franchises have.

Miami has not even been in a Super Bowl since 1984. Twenty-three other teams have.

Don Shula’s biggest regret? I asked him late in his life.

“That we didn’t get one more win,” he said, meaning another ultimate win.

The great coach spent the last 22 years of his career trying.

Dan Marino reached that ‘84 Super Bowl in only his second season and first as a full-time starter.

“I thought it’d be easy,” he said once. ”Thought there’d be a lot more.”

There were no more.

Winning championships in major sports is hard. That’s why when it happens, cities throw huge parades and players get gaudy-big championship rings and entire careers and legacies are minted forever. Because it’s so hard, so rare.

The Dolphins have won it all twice in 57 seasons. For the Heat it’s three in 35 years, and for the Marlins two in 31. The Panthers’ search for a first is turning 30. Hurricanes football has won five national titles but it has taken 86 seasons, by title percentage less than the Heat’s South Florida-leading 8.57 percent championship rate.

That summit in sports keeps getting higher, and steeper.

Here are the highest rates of Super Bowl appearances (wins or losses) since Miami’s inaugural season in 1966, with every team listed having been around all 57 years:

New England: 19.30 percent (11 appearances).

Dallas, Denver and Pittsburgh: 14.04 percent (all with eight).

San Francisco: 12.28 percent (seven).

Then Green Bay, Kansas City, Miami, New York Giants and Washington: 8.77 percent (all with five).

That’s not bad, right? Only five clubs have made more SB appearances in its time than Miami. But, of the 10 teams with more or as many as Miami since ‘66, all of the other nine have been to the championship game more recently — most much more recently.

The Dolphins’ SB drought of 38 years, since 1984, finds only Washington (last in 1991) and Dallas (1995) in the same neighborhood of overdue. Every other team listed above has been in a Super Bowl since 2010.

In other words, of the fan bases most accustomed to reaching a Super Bowl,. Dolfans are highest on the misery index and most challenged to test their memory to recall the last time.

So is this the year?

Arduous climb again, say the experts and the betting money.

Dolphins are tied for ninth-best Super Bowl odds but that’s third in their own AFC East behind Buffalo (third) and the Jets (tied for seventh). Miami’s wins over/under is set at 9.5, tied for seventh best, but there are nine teams at 9.5 or higher in the stacked AFC

Why it could happen for the Fins:

A healthy season from quarterback Tua Tagovailoa. The dynamic receiving duo of Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle. Creative coach Mike McDaniel settling in for Year 2. Adding a true defensive guru in Vic Fangio. Star cornerback Jalen Ramsey, eventually. A potentially great defense including rising stars such as Jevon Holland and Jaelan Phillips. A team most likely to have both its offense and defense in the league’s top 10. And the law of averages for cryin ‘ out loud. Hope feels good, it’s free, you can have all you want and this franchise is colossally due.

Why it might not be the year:

Tagovailoa’s ability to avoid injuries, especially concussions, will be a legit question until he makes it go away with a clean-slate year. The offensive line has a couple of weak spots. Ramsey’s injury hurts. And Kansas City and Buffalo are major impediments on Miami’s Super Bowl path.

I think the Dolphins with Tagovailoa healthy are going to be really good. Better than the Jets. Up to challenging the Bills for the top of the division. A playoff team and the first Miami has had win a playoff game since 2000.

Then again I’m a homer, remember? That aqua-and-orange pennant is long gone by now.. But pretty sure those old Royal Castle player cards circa late ‘60s are in a shoebox in a closet somewhere or dozing in a plastic tub on a high shelf in my garage and for the love of Wahoo McDaniel I will find them.