Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Hyde: Final toast to Miami Miracle
Play gave KC home-field advantage, could end Pats’ Super Bowl hopes.
By now, everyone knows the New England Patriots are where they always are in January. They’re in America’s mind and its TV sets. They’re in the AFC Championship Game for the eighth straight season and one step from another Super Bowl.
They’re also in Kansas City for Sunday’s game.
And, for this, I raise a glass of Funky Buddha brewery’s new “Miami Miracle” double-IPA, double-lateral beer in salute to your Miami Dolphins.
That’s right, there’s a special beer out for the one thing the Dolphins got right this season. Actually they did several things right, if you care to study the tape of the play that beat New England and possibly saved America from another Patriots’ Super Bowl. And who doesn’t care to study the play one more time?
That pass. That lateral. That double-lateral. That block by guard Ted Larsen 30 yards downfield that prompted teammates to chant, “Ted! Ted! Ted!” in the locker room afterward. That clumsy, clunky, oh-so-comical sight of Rob Gronkowski being the Patriots’ last line of defense.
That Kenyan Drake sprint to the end zone.
That heave-ho of the football by Drake into the stands that launched an all-points-bulletin search afterward. It turned up on Steiner Auctions website. A notarized statement said the ball was caught by a Patriots fan, bought for a “nominal fee,” by a venture sports capitalist who, naturally, wanted to profit from it.
Monday morning’s top bid: $9,663. Five days remain. Do I hear $9,664?
But I digress.
Back to the play. Back to its significance. Back to the fallout that included the Dolphins patenting the phrase “MiaMiracle” on shirts, toys, sporting apparel, paper goods, printed matter and, yes, jewelry. Nothing says love like a MiaMiracle diamond ring, right?
Unless it’s a toast of Funky Buddha’s brew to the play. It’s enough to bring a tear to your
eye. And that’s just from the 11 percent alcohol the beer has to carry fans through another long winter.
Yes, fans, linger over your lager and savor the memory that tastes doubly sweet today for banishing the Patriots to Kansas City for the coming championship game. The unlikely loss to the Dolphins slipped the Patriots to 11-5. It gave 12-4 Kansas City the homefield advantage.
This might be the Dolphins’ gift to America. The Patriots are 9-0 at home this year after Sunday’s playoff win against San Diego. They’re 3-5 on the road. You don’t need to think like Bill Belichick to grasp the implications of them going to Kansas City, which will look like Moscow on Sunday, considering all the red on display.
There’s not just national implications to the Miami Miracle. There’s local ones. The Patriots can hold the next Dolphins coach hostage for two more weeks with a win on Sunday. How else would you label Patriots assistant Brian Flores not starting on his staggering workload as the next Dolphins head coach?
It’s not that we in South Florida don’t admire the Patriots. We’ve looked up at them in the AFC East through this millennium. But will their dynasty never end? As former Patriots executive Mike Lombardi put it, they’re like Bruce Springsteen playing “Born to Run,” over and over and over, and somehow still finding the energy and motivation to make it sound like the first time.
You got a glimpse after Sunday’s win how quarterback Tom Brady stays motivated: He lies to himself. “Everybody thinks we suck and can’t win any games,” he said on the field after the win. Fact check: Patriots have been favored the last 69 games Brady started.
That’s a more remarkable streak than eight straight AFC Championship Games.
But Kansas City is favored by three points over the Patriots on Sunday.
America can thank the Dolphins for that. And the Dolphins can thank their one great play this season — the one, coach Adam Gase made sure to say, they practiced every Saturday. At half speed. With no defense. But, no sir, it wasn’t random luck.
Maybe, of course, the Dolphins should have practiced the rest of their plays that way. They lost their three games after that play. Gase has since been fired. The Patriots, meanwhile, won all their games.
The world, in other words, is spinning uniformly on its axis as another NFL season nears an end, except for one small point. The Patriots are in Kansas City on Sunday. And, for that, I raise my glass of Miami Miracle beer.