MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — One of two things will happen here Sunday night:
An inspired Miami Dolphins team will play their best game of the season, beat the Buffalo Bills, clinch the AFC East, and head into the postseason with a hurricane-force head of wind.
Or …
The Dolphins will be distracted and dejected after a brutal week — which got worse Wednesday when Tyreek Hill’s $7 million mansion caught fire — and lay an ostrich egg, sending them to Kansas City as the No. 6 seed in the first round of the playoffs.
At this point, there seems to be no in-between.
Can Miami Dolphins Rise Above?
Mike McDaniel lives by the saying, “Adversity is opportunity.”
Well, consider Week 18 a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Because no Super Bowl contender has a game this week with these stakes while simultaneously having these distractions.
Even without arguably their most important player rushing out of practice Wednesday to make sure his home and family were OK, the Dolphins would have their hands full this week.
They just lost by five touchdowns to the Ravens to set up Sunday’s division championship game against the Bills.
Two of their best defenders — Bradley Chubb and Xavien Howard — were just lost to injury.
They’re one loss to the Bills away from blowing a three-game lead with five games to play — a Bills team, by the way, which has won 12 of their last 14 games against the Dolphins.
Hard Knocks is in every meeting room, and — much to the chagrin of Tua Tagovailoa — broadcasting sensitive information about his health.
Then throw in Wednesday’s fire?
MORE: Miami Dolphins Depth Chart
It might be too much for any team to bear.
It’s up to the Dolphins’ leadership — McDaniel, Tagovailoa, and yes, Hill — to keep the fraying organization together.
“It does get tough [to maintain focus], especially when it comes to family,” Tagovailoa said Wednesday. “But you have to find your happy medium. Everyone’s different with how they find that and how they go about their business.
“It’s up to every individual, you know, with how they go about that process.”
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