The Night Courage Wore Orange

On December 20, 2004, The Miami Dolphins went up against a team they could not possibly defeat, but through incredible force of will, they did it anyway.

It's Monday night, December 20th, 2004. The Miami Dolphins are hosting the New England Patriots, and one of the first things you hear on the ABC Monday Night Football broadcast is Al Michaels turning to John Madden and asking ‘what chance does Miami have to win this game tonight?’

John cannot reply with anything except ‘They probably don't have much of a chance.’

At first glance, there's nothing weird about this. There's games every week of every NFL season that are almost guaranteed to be blowouts. This one is only awkward because it’s a Monday Night Football game. 2004 is before the change in the TV scheduling (which happens in 2006), where Monday nights lose their priority status and don't get the best games anymore. Back then, Mondays were where we were supposed to go for the top matchups.

So what's gone wrong here?

Nothing has gone wrong in New England. As of week 15 of the 2004 season they're 12-1, having won 24 of their previous 25 games (27 of 28 if you include the 2003 playoffs) with their only loss coming in week six to the Pittsburgh Steelers, who are also 12-1, so despite their great record, the Patriots still have a lot to play for tonight. Any Patriot loss will essentially guarantee the Steelers home field advantage when they inevitably meet again in the AFC playoffs.

As far as excitement goes, the New England Patriots are not the problem. The problem is the 2-11 Miami Dolphins. They come into this night with a solid (10th ranked) defence hindered by one of the league's very worst (31st) offences. As of week 15, they've managed to score as many as 14 points in a game just eight times, with two of those times being buoyed by garbage time touchdowns in blowout losses.

In their prior game against New England this season, Miami held the Patriots in check, but could manage only -0.15 EPA/Play as an offence despite a fairly solid game from Jay Fiedler. It was an ugly 24-10 loss all the way back in week five.

The Dolphins have come a long way since then. Fiedler has (for the final time as a Dolphin) succumbed to injury, and has been replaced by the much worse AJ Feeley, as the offence has fallen even further down the tubes without their starting QB. The Dolphins did manage one win under Feeley against the San Francisco 49ers a couple weeks ago, but I promise you don't want me to delve into the details of AJ Feeley vs Tim Rattay. In short, AJ tried to give the game away, but failed because his opponent was Tim Rattay.

This leads to an obvious question: If there is such a gulf in quality between these two teams, why is this a Monday Night Football game?

It wasn't supposed to be this way.

2004 is the fall of an empire in Miami. The Dolphins had been one of the NFL's best teams for the preceding 20 years. Barring Dan Marino injuries, the Dolphins had been competitive every single season since 1988. They even made it through the Marino to Fiedler transition mostly unscathed, as Jay played like a top ten QB in 2001 and 2002, and the Dolphins won ten games just last year in 2003.

It's difficult to come up with a modern allegory for the 2004 Miami Dolphins, because very rarely do you see a team go from being competitive every year to being a doormat, without a QB change to spark the decline, but I think there is one that works quite well. Think of these 2004 Miami Dolphins like the Seattle Seahawks, who had been competitive forever under Russell Wilson, and then all of a sudden in 2021 just weren't, and never were again.

If you can remember, those Seahawks (who would finish with just seven wins) got five primetime games in 2021, and none of them meant anything. A primetime game with no meaning to the standings is always a disappointment, and is considered by fans to be a failure of the schedule makers. They happen because the NFL schedule is made in April, in order to give ample notice to the TV partners.

It's possible to predict most of the competitive teams for the upcoming season in April, so it's not normally a problem, but as we saw a few years ago with the Seahawks, and in 2004 with the Dolphins, it's not always possible to see the falloff coming.

Boy did it ever come for the Dolphins. They (like the Seahawks that would come after them) were scheduled in April to play five primetime games in the 2004 season. What nobody could've predicted in April is that the team's star player, running back Ricky Williams, would quit on the team just days before the start of training camp.

In an odd twist, Ricky walked out on the team over being given the ball too much, demanding that the team get a better QB to take some of the load off him, as he'd led the league in attempts in both 2002 and 2003. This request seems reasonable until you realize that Jay Fiedler finished 17th in the NFL in EPA/Play in 2003, meaning there were only 16 QBs better than him.

Top half QBs in the NFL were just as hard to get in 2004 as they are now. It need not be said that names like Peyton Manning, Steve McNair, Trent Green, Brett Favre, or Daunte Culpepper were not up for trade. Looking through the EPA/Play leaderboard, I can find two people better than Fiedler that probably could've been had for the 2004 season, but I find myself wondering whether Jeff Garcia or Jon Kitna would've assuaged Ricky's demands enough to convince him to come back.

I believe that Ricky Williams just didn't want to play in 2004 once he saw the state this team was in, and made a deliberately unreasonable demand to get out of it, especially considering he came back in 2005 to play with Gus Frerotte at QB, but that is purely supposition on my part.

Coming into the season, this was a team without its best player. During the season, they lost their starting QB. In addition to that, this team was so thin at receiver that they had to start two tight ends in ten of their games, something you almost never see nowadays. For week 15, they're also without their two best linebackers. Leading tackler, MLB Zach Thomas, and Hall of Famer Junior Seau.

Miami coming into this game without their star RB, without their starting QB, devoid of any receiving talent, with injuries to two of their best defensive players to try to go against the juggernaut that is the 2004 Patriots leads us back to the beginning. What chance do the Dolphins have to win this game?

They probably don't have much of a chance.

Something becomes very clear on the very first drive of this game. The Dolphins cannot stop Patriots RB Corey Dillon. Corey is in the midst of the best season of his career, and will end up with 1635 yards for 2004. 121 of them will come tonight, and a good chunk of them come right now, as he gets five touches on this first drive alone as the Patriots walk down the field to take an early 7-0 lead.

Of course, it's not just the defence that's overmatched. On Miami's first offensive series, they go backwards and nearly turn the ball over as AJ Feeley gets strip sacked on just his second drop back of the game, but thankfully the Dolphins get back on it. Still, this leaves the Patriots with an opportunity to go up a quick two scores and end the game before the first quarter is over, just like they did back in week five when these two teams played.

Despite it just being the first quarter, there's a lot of pressure on the Dolphin defence right now. They take the pressure and turn it onto Tom Brady, as on third and eight Tom is deluged by orange jerseys and can't find an open man. The Dolphins have forced a three and out, and the ensuing punt is where the magic of this night begins.

Wes Welker (at this time a kick return specialist in Miami) catches the punt on the very right sideline, and cuts all the way across field in order to run the ball all the way back to the New England two yard line. As every football fan knows, when a returner cuts across the entire field like this, the probability of an illegal block somewhere is almost 100%, but somehow the Dolphins keep it clean, and this return stands. One two yard touchdown rush later and the Dolphins have tied this game at seven.

Now with a bit of help, the Miami defence again proves that they've come to play. Even without their top tackler, this is a formidable unit, as this time they hold the Pats to just one first down before another punt, but the offence is just not up to snuff. A chop block penalty, a sack, and an unproductive rush attack means this drive ends with a punt on 4th and 28.

That is the end of the first quarter. As of this point, the Dolphin defence appears to be up to this, as aside from the first drive they've kept the Patriots in check. The offence, on the other hand, appears totally overmatched. They've been able to run only eight plays in the whole of the first quarter, and only one (the TD run) has been positive. AJ Feeley has already been sacked twice, compared to only one pass completion.

Despite the 7-7 score, nothing has been done to disprove the notion that the Dolphins do not belong here.

To begin the second quarter, New England is held to three plays an a punt again, but the Miami offence can again manage just three plays themselves, all negative. All of the negative plays out of this offence has constantly been putting pressure on the punt team to get the Dolphins out of these field position holes, and this time they can't do it, as a poor punt means the Patriots get to start at the 50 for their next touch, and it allows them to break the kryptonite back out.

The Dolphins' kryptonite all night long will continue to be Corey Dillon. New England goes back to him six times on this drive, including a three yard touchdown run, as they get back into the end zone to take a 14-7 lead.

At this point, NFLFastR's estimated Win Probability (WP) model has seen about enough. It's only a seven point deficit with seven minutes left in the second quarter, but with what we've seen out of this Miami offence so far, does anybody disagree when it gives them just a 13 percent chance to win from this position? Honestly, I may have expected a little lower than that. At this point, it's become clear that AJ Feeley is struggling badly to handle the blitzes that the Patriots continue to throw at him, so how are the Dolphins ever going to score?

There's an obvious answer. Everybody knows that the best way to fend off the blitz is to pick up positive yards on first and second down to force the defence out of anything exotic they may plan to do on third, but obvious does not mean easy. When you have no run game because your star back quit on you, no pass game because your starting QB is injured, troubles at receiver to begin with, a replacement QB who really struggles with pass rush, and you're matched up with the dynasty era Patriots' defence, just how do you generate positive yards?

At this point, the Dolphins figure it out a little bit. They turn to the play action pass, and it works like a charm. It holds the pass rush back just enough for the offensive line to get it blocked up, and AJ looks a lot better. Instead of the third and 12s the Dolphins have been facing this whole game, they're third and fours and fives and sixes now. In the end, this drive results in just a field goal, but it features eleven plays, six of them positive. Compare this to the total for the whole game prior to this (eleven plays, one positive), and you can see that some real progress has been made.

After another forced three and out, the Dolphins get the ball with 1:20 left in the half facing a 14-10 deficit, but play action heavy offence is a tough grift to run in the two minute drill. Nevertheless, they get close, but ultimately stall just outside of field goal range, and have to go into the half down 14-10.

For the first 23 minutes of this half, the Dolphins were overmatched. They played great on defence, but their offence did not belong on the same field with the Patriots. In the final seven minutes, the Dolphins ran 16 offensive plays to New England's three. They failed to convert it into much, scoring just three points, but they impressed the WP model enough for it to now give them a 20 percent chance to win coming out of half.

This is by no means impressive, but the Dolphins (aside from one punt return) looked dead in the water for every second of the first 23 minutes of this game. All of a sudden they're alive. Can they carry their momentum into the second half?

No they cannot.

One play into the half it looks great, with a seven yard pass combined with an unnecessary roughness penalty getting the Dolphins into Patriot territory for the third time in a row, but disaster occurs on the second play of the drive. They try a double reverse pass, but on the second (receiver to receiver) handoff the ball is fumbled and New England recovers.

To turn bad into worse, Tom Brady completes a 20 yard pass to get straight to the Miami 33, and all of a sudden what was looking like a good situation looks like a total disaster for the Dolphins. The offence has been better the last few times, but does anybody truly believe they can overcome a two score deficit?

This belief is tested as the Patriots get further and further into Miami territory. There's still eleven minutes left in the third quarter, but the Dolphins' chances of winning (thin to begin with) are whittling further and further down by the second. At the 11:12 mark, New England is all the way to the 22. A field goal is acceptable, but a touchdown is a disaster.

The Patriots don't show any signs of slowing down, with the Patriot run game again gashing the Dolphins every time they're given a chance, but 2004 is the first season Bill Belichick truly feels pressured to let his young QB win the games for him. I can tell because Tom Brady is struggling quite badly so far, and the Patriots still seem reluctant to commit to the run as much as they should. The play call distribution does not fit the results distribution. There's far too many passes.

I understand it's hard to throw the entire weight of the offence behind Corey Dillon when you've got a top five QB on the field, but it's still the coach's job to do the best thing for his team. The 2001-3 Patriots wouldn't have had this problem, but the 2004 Patriots do, and on this night, it's going to cost them dearly.

It starts right now, as on first down Brady's pass falls into the arms of Safety Sammy Knight, and all of a sudden after the runback the Dolphins have gone from the brink of disaster to having the ball on the Patriots' 43 yard line. The run game finally starts having some (limited) success, and AJ Feeley completes two clutch passes, one on third and five and the other on third and six in the red zone. The drive is capped off by a one yard touchdown run and in what seems like a miracle, the Dolphins have taken a 17-14 lead.

It's at this point that both the ABC commentators (Al Michaels and John Madden) and myself begin to notice the same thing. This Miami team has a lot of fight for a team that's 2-11 with nothing to play for. It would have been very easy for the defence to roll over and give up in those first 23 minutes where they were getting no help from their offence. It would have been just as easy for the Dolphins' offensive coaches to just keep bashing their head against the wall that is the 2004 Patriot defence because they know deep in their hearts that they have no chance of winning.

Players and coaches on bad teams have a tendency to fall into pointing fingers at each other and trying to save their own jobs, which causes them to lose focus on the game they're currently playing. In the NFL, they say everything is about winning, but they're lying to you. When it comes all the way down to it, everybody's out there for themselves. If you've ever been a fan of a bad team, you know what this feels like. You know what it's like for your players and coaches to lose focus and give up on a game prematurely, one they stand a real chance of winning, be it because they're at each other's throats or because they're just disheartened.

It's a very human reaction to want to just give up and fold when you're facing an opponent that's bigger, faster, stronger, and wholly better than you are. If you've ever seen a UFC fight or a boxing match you've seen that even the most determined athletes can be coerced into giving up on themselves. Generally, bad teams are bad teams because they lack the requisite determination to overcome these mental hurdles, which is why when it comes right down to an end of game scenario, the good teams generally beat the bad ones.

That brings us back to 6:43 of the third quarter. The Dolphins have just taken a 17-14 lead. I called this a miracle earlier and I believe it. This is only the third second half deficit the 2004 Patriots have faced all season, and their first since October 31. It's currently December 20th. The Patriots should not be being pushed this hard by the woeful 2004 Miami Dolphins. The WP model still thinks Miami is full of it, giving them just a 39 percent chance to win despite having a third quarter lead. Perhaps the model knows what it's doing, as the Patriots storm down the field easily to take the lead back, and before the third quarter even ends their defence has forced a three and out and Tom Brady has the ball back again.

Not even one paragraph ago I was talking about the miracle the Dolphins had just pulled off. Now we're at the beginning of the fourth quarter and staring down a 21-17 deficit, with the defence needing to stop the Patriots again. New England has worked their way towards midfield. It's third and one, and now we're back in the same situation I've been bringing up this whole time. Does anybody believe these Dolphins can make up a two score deficit?

Everybody in the stadium knows where the ball is going. It's going to Corey Dillon, who Miami hasn't been able to do anything with all night long. This knowledge has not helped the Dolphins on any prior third and short tonight, but this time they get it done. Dillon is stuffed in the backfield, and the Patriots are forced to punt.

The defence has just come through once again, but again it's tough sledding for the offence. They do get one first down, but after a holding penalty that wipes out the completion that would've resulted in their second, they can't get any further, and have to punt the ball away again.

There's now just 8:56 left in the fourth. Miami can't keep doing this. Once again the Patriot offence gets to touch the ball, and the dam finally breaks.

For the third time in just four second half tries, New England gets the ball and moves down the field easily. This time, only two plays on the drive go for fewer than seven yards. It becomes evident that the Dolphin defence, after carrying the team the entire game, has finally run out of gas. At the 4:06 mark of the fourth quarter, the Patriots score a touchdown to earn themselves a 28-17 lead.

I'm going to ask you again:

Does anybody believe these Dolphins can make up a two score deficit?

I mean seriously, how are they going to do this? The rush offence (with both Sammy Morris and Travis Minor) has actually been quite effective tonight once Miami adjusted to run a lot more PA pass, but with four minutes left facing an eleven point deficit, they're out of opportunities to use it. That leaves us with AJ Feeley, who's looked effective in the play action game tonight, but not very effective anywhere else. There will be no play action passes from here onwards either.

That leaves us with one possibility.

AJ Feeley must have the best drive of his NFL career, two consecutive times, and in the middle of these two, the defence that’s been running on fumes for the entire second half is going to have to force a three and out from one of the best late game closers of all time in Tom Brady. All of this under immense pressure, and all of this under those same mental hurdles I've been talking about.

One final time: Does anybody believe these Dolphins can make up a two score deficit?

In these next two minutes, we're going to find out that the answer to that question is yes. They can do it.

Despite their star running back quitting on them, their starting QB being injured (never to suit up for the Dolphins again), their top two linebackers being out, and being a worse team than the Patriots even without all these handicaps, the Miami Dolphins still believe in themselves.

They get the ball at the 3:52 mark, and come out as a different team. This time it's Miami’s turn to score easily. After struggling so hard all night, AJ throws just one incomplete pass on a drive that scores before the two minute warning without even having to use any timeouts.

If the Miami Dolphins could have manually selected the results of this drive, it wouldn't have gone much differently than this. It’s perfect. They’ve scored and scored quickly, just like they needed to. They've now narrowed the deficit to 28-23 with a touchdown, but what doesn't go perfectly is the two point conversion attempt, where AJ throws the ball over Chris Chambers' head and they fail, so they still need a touchdown from here.

I know how poor this offence has been all night, but judging from the drive I've just seen, that extra TD doesn't seem like a very big issue. What does seem like a big issue is what must happen right now.

There's 2:03 left after the kickoff. The Dolphins have three timeouts plus the two minute warning. What this means is that one first down will (in essence) end this game, but what it also means is that the Patriots are free to either pass or run on first down, because the clock will stop after the first play anyway. That makes this defensive stop even harder than it seems at first glance.

As a result of all this, NFLFastR still has no belief in Miami, giving them just a six percent chance to win from here. That's only one out of 17 tries will the Dolphins win from this position.

Listen to me. Win Probability models are great things. They're really a miracle of statistics. We can look at any game with any score with any amount of time left played in any type of conditions in any stadium between any two teams and know exactly the probability of either side winning at any time we want it.

This is a great thing, but here's the problem with them: statistics don't care about your feelings. They don't care about optimism. They don't care if their findings depress you. I believe the proliferation of WP models has come hand in hand with the proliferation of extreme pessimism in the football community. Think about it. If you were looking at a six percent chance to accomplish something, how hard would you work to accomplish it? Or would you not work at all, on the perfectly rational assumption that it’s not worth it, given 94 percent of the time all of your hard work won't matter anyway?

While the model is very pessimistic, Miami makes up for it with absolute belief in themselves. Belief that should not exist in a 2-11 squad without several key players. They can't see that they have just a six percent chance of winning, or maybe they can, and they just refuse to acknowledge it. Their belief is rewarded with a first down pass deflection at the line of scrimmage that takes us past the two minute warning.

Second down.

It's obvious that the Patriots are going to run on second down, but it's been obvious that they're going to run on several plays tonight, and it's not helped the Dolphins at all. They've had a relatively good time stopping Tom Brady, but they've had nothing at all for Corey Dillon, no doubt hindered by the absence of Zach Thomas. There's nothing that says that should change here, but perhaps the benefit of this play coming right after the two minute warning puts some pep back in the legs of the Dolphin defenders that have been so hopeless for most of this half. Corey Dillon runs into a wall, and it's third and nine.

Third down.

2004 is the first year of the great Tom Brady we all know. The Patriots won Super Bowls in 2001 and 2003 more or less carrying Tom along as a bystander, not doing much to hurt the team but not doing much to help them either. By 2004, Tom is no Peyton Manning, but he's absolutely established himself as a top five guy. Think of him (purely in terms of ranking) like Lamar Jackson now. Not number one. Not even really close, but universally recognized as a great QB nonetheless.

That may explain why on this third and nine, the Patriots decide to ride their man Tom Brady, and call pass. The Dolphins, like the great team they'd been for the last 20 years, go very aggressive and call blitz to match.

I want to emphasize this point once again. It would've been very easy to just guard the sticks, allow a catch, and assume you can make a tackle and end up getting the ball at your own 20 after the inevitable punt. That would have been very easy to explain in a post-game press conference. It’s what most scaredy cat NFL teams would’ve done, but it's not what these Dolphins did. Instead, they made an extremely aggressive play call, and they are rewarded handsomely for it.

Jason Taylor (how have I gone this far into a 2000s Dolphins article with no mention of Jason Taylor?) gets around the corner immediately, and when it becomes clear that he's about to be sacked, Tom Brady, like the young QB he still is, throws the ball up for grabs, and the man who comes down with it is Brendan Ayanbadejo, a career special teamer making his second of just seven career starts at LB, in relief of the injured Zach Thomas.

Brendan, just like the rest of his team, should never have even been in the position to make this play. Not against the 2004 Patriots, but there he was, catching the back breaking INT, and here the Dolphins are, with the ball at the 1:49 mark all the way at the 21 yard line.

All of a sudden, the Dolphins have gotten an even better result than a three and out. The 21 immediately becomes the 26 after a false start before the first play, but this is still an unbelievably good position. Finally, the WP model is starting to perk up, as it sees the Dolphins having a 31 percent chance to win from here, but the Dolphins themselves have to feel this figure is 100 percent with how well everything has been going for the last two minutes of game time.

The enthusiasm dampens slightly upon a first down incompletion. It dampens further after a second down completion that only nets a third and ten.

On third down, it all blows up.

AJ throws a ball into the end zone intended for Derrius Thompson, which falls incomplete. It falls incomplete because in coverage, there is a clear, flagrant, blatant, difficult to miss defensive pass interference that somehow goes uncalled.

At this, the Dolphins’ sideline falls to bits. Interim head coach Jim Bates is violently angry, and he's not the only coach losing his mind. Al Michaels sounds audibly disgusted at the officiating in the ABC booth. The boo birds come out in the stadium, and it's all beginning to fall into bedlam in the hearts and minds of the Dolphins and their fans.

Through all this commotion, the Dolphins totally lose their focus. They don’t get a play called, and are forced to waste a timeout that could've kept the game alive had they failed this fourth down try, making it clear that their heads are not in the right place, at least in the case of the coaches.

You're likely getting tired of these, but I have to take yet another pit stop to remark that the Dolphins have just been thrown another mental obstacle to overcome. How easy would it be to fold, give up, and run some generic play on fourth down that inevitably fails and then go to the press conference and whine about how the referees cost you the game?

That would've been incredibly easy. Even in 2024 it still happens all the time, and it presents one last obstacle to maintaining focus on a night the Dolphins as a team have shown unreasonable mental strength already. Recall Miami comes into this game 2-11. 2-11 teams are generally not the best at overcoming hurdle after hurdle after hurdle in the way the Dolphins have done tonight. Almost invariably, one of these straws breaks the camel's back, and the bad team caves in on itself. That's why upsets are so rare.

In presenting Miami with one last mental hurdle to jump through, the referees have actually aided the Dolphins in making history, because it's fourth and ten. The ball is on the 21 yard line, and as both teams line up it's clear what's going to happen. It's clear before this play even happens that the Dolphins have again risen to the challenge. They are not going to run a generic play to the ten yard stick. They're going for something bigger.

The Patriots can see this, and they line up to send the house at AJ Feeley, something that he hasn't been able to deal with all night. The consequence of this is that they're leaving one on one coverage outside, leaving the door wide open for a throw into the end zone. Recall that Miami has had troubles at receiver this season. It's clear that even in one on one, New England doesn't think they can be beat deep.

The ball is on the 21, and it's only fourth and ten. The Dolphins don't have to score a touchdown on this play, but both teams are acting like they do. Miami is setting up to try to beat the Patriots deep. The Patriots are allowing this, sending every available player at AJ Feeley, believing that their corners are too good to be beaten by the Miami receivers.

Almost never do you see both sides of the ball having such absolute belief in themselves at the same time. Each side knows what the other is about to do, and each side is allowing it to happen because they know they'll win the exchange. Of course only one team can actually win this exchange, but you can just tell in the body language of every player on the field that failure has not even been considered by anybody on either side.

All of what I've just mentioned is what makes this fourth and ten pass one of the most epic plays in NFL history in my opinion. It did not happen in a playoff game. This wasn't even an important regular season game. None of that matters, because the action happening on the field has transcended all of that.

This is the all-too-rare moment in sports that each side is on an equal playing field. It's eleven men wearing orange against eleven men wearing white. One side must succeed to win and complete one of the most stunning upsets in NFL history, and the other must prevent the other side from succeeding to pull out the win and relegate this game to just being a minor scare en route to a 15-1 season, and each side believes that is exactly what they're going to do.

As AJ takes the snap, there's immediate danger. New England sends seven men at him, and he's forced to step back almost immediately. Amazingly, even while falling back for his life, AJ is able to pick out perhaps the only weak link on the entire 22 man field, WR-turned-CB Troy Brown, and puts the ball right on his head for Derrius Thompson to go get.

As the two go up, and the two come down, there is no immediate call from Al Michaels or John Madden. There's no immediate cheer from the Dolphin fans in attendance. There's nothing.

All of that buildup I've just given you about the absolute belief both sides had that they would succeed, and that the other side would fail, and we're left with nothing. For the longest feeling half second in NFL history, neither team has succeeded, and neither has failed. There are no celebrations. There are no cheers. Everybody is staring in stunned silence at what has just occurred.

What has just occurred is one of the greatest comebacks in NFL history. At the 3:52 mark, the Dolphins were getting the ball back down by eleven points against the best version of the dynasty Patriots. As Derrius Thompson gets up, and shows everybody he has caught the ball, it sinks in that somehow, some way, Miami has just taken a 29-28 lead.

Does anybody believe these Dolphins can overcome a two score deficit?

They've just done it in two and a half minutes.

In the aftermath of the touchdown, we don't hear any of this from the ABC commentators. We get something even better. They're talking about the Miami fans, and their undying love for their Dolphins. The legendary John Madden says it better than I ever could:

"These fans are cheering because this team hung in there. This Miami Dolphin team have had chances to be down. They could've come into this game down, but they've competed."

Think of modern football commentators, and how often they fail to set the correct narrative. Often they just revert to the physical realities of what's just happened ("What a play!"), or the superficial meaning of what you've just seen to the playoff fight and the remainder of the season ("Now how much pressure will there be on [insert] after this?"). Superficial comments like these make me wonder how closely the commentators are actually watching the games they're calling. Don't get me wrong. They know their Xs and Os, but it's the things like this that they so often miss. The human element of the game that these humans are playing

Juxtapose that with the way John Madden reacted to this touchdown. No mention of the specifics of the play. No mention of how badly this will hurt the Patriots in the standings. Not even a mention of the new 29-28 score. After the commercial, but before the ensuing Patriot offensive drive, Al Michaels is beginning to go into who the Patriots are playing in the final two weeks. John cuts him off, saying "the Patriots are playing the Miami Dolphins right now."

Such a simple, but such a meaningful thing to say, and something that not a lot of commentators would do these days. All it took was this one sentence to let his partner Al Michaels know that he was beginning the gloss over the remarkable story that we’re in the middle of, and that it was not okay to do that. Leave it to John Madden in a sea of copout commentators to notice what's really gone on tonight, and to tell the story correctly.

RIP champ.

All of these wonderful details have obfuscated the one grizzly reality of this situation. After a failed two point conversion, the Dolphins are holding a 29-28 lead at the 1:17 mark of the fourth quarter, with both Tom Brady and Adam Vinatieri on the opposing sideline. They are nowhere near out of these woods yet. In fact, they're still so far from the edge of the forest that the WP model estimates they have just a 38 percent chance of winning, despite having a lead inside the two minute warning.

Even with all the hurdle jumping that the Dolphins have been doing all night, there is one final hill to climb. This hill is perhaps the toughest of all. The Dolphin defence (who have been running on fumes for much of the second half) must stop Tom Brady from taking this lead back and wiping their story from the history books.

Once again, Miami is staring down enormous pressure, forced to take on a task that is not easy, and yet another task that would not make them quitters to not be able to face up to. The Dolphins have already proved themselves worthy with what they have done tonight, but being worthy of a win is a much different thing from actually being a winner, and it's here we finally reach the ultimate test for these Dolphins.

Do they want to be worthy, or do they want to be winners?

A first down sack of Tom Brady elicits an oddly vocal response from both the Dolphins players and the fans. A first down sack is a big deal, but it should not get as big of a reaction as it got, from the fans or the players.

They want this badly.

Never before have I seen so much passion to win out of a 2-11 football team. This was before the invention of tanking as a wide-ranging concept, but players aren't dumb. They can tell when winning or losing doesn't matter anymore, which makes this all the more fascinating to me. This game means nothing at all to the Miami Dolphins. It means a lot (insofar as home field advantage means a lot) to the New England Patriots, yet in terms of passion, in terms of the need to win, in terms of mental determination, the Patriots are being outclassed.

If you've ever played sports, you've had a coach tell you that talent can only carry you so far. There's a famous Yogi Berra quote (‘90% of baseball is mental. The other half is physical’) devoted to this exact concept. Instead of telling you that in words, they should have shown you this Monday Night Football game. Nothing I've ever seen conveys this concept in an easier to understand way than watching these Dolphins give everything they have against a Patriots team that's better than them in every way.

If football were all about talent, this game would have been a 31-10 blowout loss. If it were all about mentality, teams with winning cultures would never ever lose. You must find the right mix between mental determination and physical skill to find ways to win NFL football games. On second down and 19, the Dolphins prove that their mix is the better combination.

Tom Brady's pass falls into the arms of deep safety Arturo Freeman, and in a shockingly easy turn of events, the Miami Dolphins have beaten the New England Patriots, 29-28, in the biggest Monday Night Football upset of all time.

Wow.

It's very easy as a writer to fall into the trap of using words like magical, miracle, or destiny to describe a game like this, but I'm not going to. All of those words imply that some outside force was helping to push the Dolphins forward, which implicitly undercuts what Miami has just done here.

This was not magic. There was no miracle. The Miami Dolphins got no help from God, or the referee, or anybody else.

They came into a meaningless game, and showed their guts, heart, and determination. All of this despite their star running back quitting on them, their starting QB gone forever with shoulder injury, their top two linebackers being gone, and not being a very good team to begin with. This team had no business fighting this hard. A regular two win team likely would've given up before the game even started. If not, they would have tripped at one of the many hurdles thrown Miami's way tonight, but none of this befell these Dolphins.

Why not?

I believe this game shows, perhaps better than any other in NFL history, the benefits of having a winning culture. These Dolphins came into this game 2-11, but they'd won at least eight games every season since 1988. This had been one of the NFL's premier organisations for the preceding 15 years. As we know, this winning culture in Miami is going to fizzle out and eventually die altogether over the course of the 2000s, but in 2004 it was not dead yet. This game proves it.

I believe this night was the last gasp of a winning culture in Miami was that was on its death bed, and did not have much longer to live, but you know what they say:

You may not be as good as you once were, but you can be as good once as you ever were. The 2004 Patriots were a juggernaut, and just six weeks past this Monday Night Football game, they become Super Bowl champions again, but even they were not good enough overcome the last gasp of a dying era of Miami football.

If that's not good enough to illustrate to you the benefits of a winning culture, I don't know what is.

There are many things you can take from this night. An almost boundless amount of lessons can be learned from this one football game, but this is what I want you to keep with you. These Dolphins were presented with multiple chances to give up. At each and every one of these opportunities, nobody would have blamed them for giving up. They could have excused themselves with their injury problems. They could have made an excuse out of the botched end of game pass interference call. They could've given up before this game even started.

Circumstances were not fair to Miami tonight. The deck was stacked in favour of the Patriots. The odds of the Dolphins winning this game were astronomical. The literal betting odds might have been four to one, perhaps five to one, but in the hearts and minds of everybody watching, it was one thousand to one, a million to one. Nobody gave them a prayer, but something unbelievable happened.

The Dolphins refused to acknowledge the odds, and the odds disappeared. On the surface, this seems like an incredibly simple task, but mentally it's so much tougher. Miami was able to accomplish it. Once this game actually started, there was no five to one, no thousand to one, no million to one. It was 53 vs 53, and the Dolphins came out on top.

There's a lesson to be learned here. This, just like most everything in life, was not a fair fight, but once it actually began nobody treated it that way. The Dolphins didn't care how far the deck was stacked against them. They paid no mind to how unfair it all was. They set their minds to the task in front of them, and somehow they got it done.

I admire that. I admire it more than anything else I’ve ever seen on a football field, and I think you should too.

Thanks so much for reading.