Who Should Dolphins Fans be Rooting for During their Week 12 Bye?

Although 3 weeks ago it seemed mathematically impossible, the Dolphins have ignited fans’ hopes of making a run for the final playoff spot with 2 wins in a row. And although the odds are heavily stacked against them (they have a 0.5% chance of making the playoffs), there's still something to hope for.

What do we need to look at? The Dolphins are only in play for the final wild card spot, realistically. The division is long-gone with the Patriots looking like they’re going to take the division crown for the first time since 2019. In the wild-card, the 5, 6, and 7 seeds are held by the Chargers (7-4), Bills (7-4) and Jaguars (6-4), respectively. The Texans (6-5) hold the 8 spot, the Chiefs (5-5) are sitting at 9, the Ravens (5-5) at 10 and the Dolphins (4-7) sit at 11. The Chargers and Ravens both beat the Dolphins and thus have the tiebreaker over them, making the mountain even harder to climb since the Dolphins need to end with a better record than both those teams to squeak their way in. The Bills are TBD (as they split the season series and the next metric used for tiebreaking is division record [provided the teams are in the same division- which they are in this case]). The Jags, Texans, and Chiefs are TBD, too.

Now let’s take at look at this week's matchups which can have implications. The Chiefs play the Colts, so Dolphins fans who want to keep their slim hopes alive should be rooting for the Colts here. The Ravens play the Jets, so although fans may be very uncomfortable doing so, the Jets would be the rooting interest. The Jags play the Cardinals in Arizona, so the Cardinals are the pick here. The Texans already beat the Bills last night, so that’s done already.

All of this is, of course, literally against all odds, seeing how the Dolphins can barely afford to lose 1 more game the rest of the season and so many things have to go right for them in order for the pipe-dream to become a reality, but hey- at least they’re still in the fight, right? At least there's some hope! Let’s take it 1 week at a time and see how this all plays out. If the Dolphins can manage to make it to the last week of the season with even a chance to make it to the playoffs if everything goes right, that would absolutely be a win for me. Just think about your attitude a few short weeks ago- either before the Falcons game or after the Ravens game. If someone told you they’d still have an outside shot of making it by week 12 (and even week 13), you’d laugh them out of town! “Have you seen the Dolphins play?!”, you'd say. But here we are. For everything that has gone wrong this year, they’ve shown fight and heart, and they were somehow able to rekindle their passion for football and give their fans something to hope for.