Sunday, as a local reporter informed Mike McDaniel Wednesday, is a “hat and T-shirt” game for the Miami Dolphins.
As in, if you win, you get a hat and T-shirt because you’ve just won a championship.
In the Dolphins’ case, that title would be the AFC East for the first time since 2008.
(The Miami Dolphins’ playoff scenarios also include a division clinch and the home game that comes with it with a tie or a Buffalo Bills loss to the New England Patriots, although both of those outcomes are quite unlikely.)
Miami Dolphins Refuse To Entertain Playoff Scenarios
When asked about that dynamic on Wednesday, McDaniel might as well have put his fingers in his ears and screamed “la-la-la” at the top of his lungs.
“I didn’t know that, so let me process that,” McDaniel said. “That was an ultimate goal of the team’s, so they’d be very happy with that.
“It would be secondary in the moment to this game and winning this game,” he continued. “I found out in the locker room after the game against the Cowboys that we made the playoffs. You just told me about the division.”
“The main thing that is so terribly difficult for NFL teams to do is down the stretch of the season, narrow your focus to the opponent and nothing else,” he added. “… The ultimate outcome of the game will determine whatever, but the time you’re spending doing this, you’re not doing that.
“As I stand here at the podium, I think that would mean a lot to the team. However, I haven’t really looked at – the Baltimore Ravens have the best record, for good reason, in the National Football League. All three phases are playing at a very high level.
“How lucky are we and how blessed are we that as competitors, you don’t get into the National Football League to be like, ‘Hey man, I really want to be average.’ You want these types of games. You want to go against the best and that in itself, justifies 100 percent of our attention.”
Dolphins QB Tua Tagovailoa Talks Playoffs (Sort Of)
If McDaniel and his team truly don’t know what’s at stake this weekend — that the Dolphins would take over first place in not just the AFC East but the entire conference by beating the Ravens — they’re one of very few in the NFL unaware.
Dolphins-Ravens is the game of the week, even if CBS laughably kept it at 1 p.m. instead of swapping it with Chiefs-Bengals. The Ravens would clinch the 1 seed with a win, while the Dolphins would need just a win or tie or a Ravens win or tie in Week 18 to lock down homefield.
Tua Tagovailoa, meanwhile, wouldn’t even entertain the idea that this team is peaking at the season’s most important time.
MORE: Miami Dolphins Depth Chart
“I don’t think, for us as a team, we even think about that,” Tagovailoa said. “And I think that’s what has me convinced that we have the right guys in the locker room. I would say no one’s talking about like, ‘Oh, we need to beat this team to do this; we need to beat this team to do that.’
“… You know, we understand what’s at stake. But I think if you overdo it, it could get to a point where you start chasing ghosts in a way. Whereas, you know, you study the way you study, you do things the way you’ve done things, and then if you just add a little more, you know, each time on top of that, we could possibly be the team that we’ve always wanted to be since training camp, since OTAs.”
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