Mental toughness an important part of Miami Dolphins’ DNA
Whether he likes it or not, Jay Cutler continues to be the face of the apathetic quarterback and remains a punchline for NFL jokes no matter how well he plays.
Ndamukong Suh has a reputation for being one of the league’s dirtiest players and wears that scarlet letter like a crown no matter how many good deeds he does.
Not everyone is built to handle that type of criticism.
Jay Ajayi’s draft stock plummeted three rounds in 2015 because teams thought he had a knee issue, but that didn’t stopped him from shinning at Boise State and in the NFL last season when he turned into a Pro Bowler.
At least Ajayi knows why he fell into the fifth round. That’s something Pro Bowl safety Reshad Jones, a fifthround pick in 2010, never got an explanation for, and it continues to serve as motivation despite Jones beginning his second lucrative NFL contact.
Speaking of driving forces, Cameron Wake had to become the Canadian Football League’s Defensive Player of the Year before NFL teams would let the now five-time Pro Bowler play America’s version of professional football.
“Who cares,” Wake said when describing his mindset, which parallels the team’s to their consistent avalanche of adversity and criticism.
One minute it’s losing the starting quarterback to a season-ending knee injury, the next its Hurricane Irma displacing the team, which prepared for the delayed season-opener in California last week.
“You have to take your 30 seconds and cry, shut up and man up. Do whatever you have got to do to do your job,” Wake continued. “The whining and complaining, that kind of ended a long time ago.”
Too small for your position, like every linebacker on the field for the Dolphins during last Sunday’s 19-17 win over the Los Angeles Chargers? “Nobody cares,” Wake said. Figure it out, just like the Dolphins did when the defense held the Chargers to just 44 rushing yards, which is the fewest the team has allowed since the 2012 season, despite not having Lawrence Timmons available on Sunday because the starting linebacker went AWOL hours before kickoff.
Somehow these Dolphins manage to find a way to endure, if not excel, during their hardships.
Fueled by a resiliency encoded into many of the player’s DNA, the Dolphins somehow continue to suck-itup, and find a way, which helps explain why it seems coach Adam Gase’s team has a habit of staying afloat no matter what’s trying to weigh it down.
So when a player like Timmons disappears hours before Sunday’s kickoff, the Dolphins have a knack for figuring it out.
“That’s what this game is all about,” Gase said. “You just kind of figure out who you’ve got on the roster and make adjustments.”
Just like life. Play the cards you are dealt to the best of your ability.
That’s what the Dolphins did consistently last season, making the playoffs despite losing Ryan Tannehill, two Pro Bowlers in Reshad Jones and Mike Pouncey, and a handful of other starters like Earl Mitchell, Xavien Howard and Isa Abdul-Quddus for large stretches of the season.
“Adversity shows character,” said Wake, a nine-year veteran who clawed and scratched his way to the NFL when people at the Bally’s Total Fitness where he was training laughed at his football dreams.
“There are opportunities we could have thrown in the towel. Cried about this, cried about that,” Wake added. “But that’s not the way we’re built.”
These Dolphins continue to prove they are resilient, and that will certainly come in handy. We’re only one game into the 2017 season, don’t expect the Dolphins to start feeling sorry for themselves. Expect them to soldier on.
“That’s the way this team is built,” said safety Michael Thomas, a former practice squad player who is entering his second season as a Dolphins captain. “[The Chargers game] just shows the type of fight we have, the type of grit. We never feel like we’re out of a game. … We just want to give [ourselves] a chance to win it at the end of the game.”
On Twitter @omarkelly