Dolphins and Bills have a longstanding bitter rivalry,
The NFL is operating in a dramatically changed world, with heat screenings and social distancing and stadium-capacity shrinking.
But has everything changed?
Do the Bills and Dolphins — the Hatfields and (LeSean) McCoys of the AFC East — actually each other now?
Nah …
“It’s a division rival game,” Dolphins safety Bobby McCain said. “They don’t like us, we don’t like them. They’ve got good football players over there. We know that. We have good football players here. They know that.
“It’s going to be a fight — not a physical fight but a fight in the game, each and every quarter, each and every play, each and every series, because like I said, it’s a divisional rivalry and they count for two.”
Well, maybe also a physical fight.
It wouldn’t be out of character.
If Sunday’s 113th edition of this spirited series is a calm, peaceful affair, maybe everything truly has changed.
Consider: The last eight meetings between these teams have featured a helmet-chucking, headbutting, season-ending melee; a vicious blindside hit by Jarvis Landry that effectively ended Aaron Williams’ career; an epic overtime clash on Christmas Eve that helped the Dolphins clinch their only playoff berth since 2008; a 25-point Bills’ rout on the second-to-last day of 2018 that sealed Adam Gase’s fate; and last year’s inexcusable interaction between McCain and a Bills fan.
A reminder of what happened last October in Western New York:
A Bills season-ticket holder said that McCain threatened to spit on a 13-year-old after the boy shouted, “You’re irrelevant,” at Miami players as they took the field before the game. The father of the 13-year-old later told The Buffalo News that McCain faked spitting at his son “five or six times.”
Dylan Wentland, the aforementioned seasonticket holder, told The Buffalo News he then chastised McCain — saying something to the effect of, “You’re a bad role model” — then essentially let it go once the game began. McCain, however, didn’t forget, and after the Dolphins loss, allegedly approached Wentland and spit in his face.
The next day, McCainn expressed regret about his actions — and didn’t deny what was reported.
As punishment, Flores benched McCain for the first quarter of the Dolphins’ next game.
(For good measure, the Bills would go on to sweep the 2019 season series by a combined 27 points, helping Buffalo qualify for the playoffs for the second time in three seasons.) So why all the bad blood? It’s not just one thing. Familiarity does breed contempt, but that doesn’t explain it all. Landry’s hit on Williams certainly escalated a decades-long feud. But the sense is it goes deeper than that.
For a generation, the Patriots have ruled the division, leaving the other three AFC East teams to fend for scraps. The Bills, Dolphins and Jets have basically been playing for second since the turn of the century.
That gets frustrating. And for the Dolphins, it gets even more frustrating to see the Bills — the Bills!
— pass them in talent, stature and success.
Sean McDermott has transformed Buffalo into not just a respectable franchise, but a dangerous one. The defense is loaded. And while quarterback Josh Allen still has plenty of skeptics, you can’t ignore his growth in Year 3.
“He’s a dog,” defensive end Shaq Lawson, who signed a free-agent contract with Miami in the offseason after five seasons in Buffalo, said of Allen. “I said that when I was there. The guy is a dog and that’s what you need at quarterback and things like that. He’s grown a lot. Just watching his film now, he looks a lot better than he was last year — 10 times better.”
Added Flores: “They are trending upwards. This is a good football team offensively, defensively and in the kicking game. They are well-coached. They are tough. They’re physical. Every game is important. It doesn’t matter who you are playing in this league, they are all tough.”
Sure, but this one carries added weight, particularly if the Dolphins intend on making any noise in the AFC East.
They’re already a game behind both New England and Buffalo, and a second loss to open the season would cripple any hopes for a first divisional title in 12 years.
“Everyone wants to make the playoffs,” Dolphins center Ted Karras said. “I think they’ve been obviously really good for a long time. This division obviously got shaken up a little bit this year, so there’s a lot of people vying for that spot. They’re coming to town in our first home opener at Hard Rock and we’re going to need our best performance when it counts the most Sunday afternoon.”
Sounds like we’re all in for a fight.