Dolphins knock off Ravens for first win

Lithonia Team of the Week:

There’s not a franchise in professional sports with as much organizational pride as the Miami Dolphins. It borders on annoying, in fact. Ex-Dolphins endlessly tout their status as the only possessors of an unbeaten season and make a great show of celebrating the fall of the last unbeaten every year.

Nevertheless, only an unrepentant Dolphins-hater — or a lover of record-book symmetry — would wish a winless season on this year’s Miami Dolphins. That’s why, with 0–16 staring the 2007 Dolphins in the face, it was somewhat gratifying to see the organization’s old guard rally around this team and will it to its first win of the season, more than a year removed from its last.

Don Shula and other Dolphin legends made high-profile appearances at Dolphin practices the week before the game with the Baltimore Ravens and were guests of owner Wayne Huizenga at the stadium. During the week, defensive end Jason Taylor, a link to happier times, made a promise to Shula that proved prophetic.

“I talked to Coach Shula, and I told him we would win,” Taylor said. “I’m glad we did. I can’t lie to Coach Shula.”

Taylor did his part in the 22–16 overtime win, posting two sacks and blocking a 50-yard field goal on the final play of the first half. But it was the more unsung Dolphins who were the day’s true heroes.

The most unlikely pass-catch duo in the NFL, quarterback Cleo Lemon and receiver Greg Camarillo, hooked up on a 64-yard touchdown in overtime that sent the Dolphins radio team into apoplexy and got the monkey off Miami’s back. For these Dolphins, no play in NFL history was bigger.

“It was like watching one of those plays in slow motion, and it’s the Super Bowl and the miraculous catch and all those things,” said Miami’s Vonnie Holliday. “It was up there like that for us. Maybe not for everybody else, but for us it was up there with all those great catches — Dwight Clark and all those guys.”

The play capped a 315-yard passing performance for Lemon, who a short time earlier had watched as Matt Stover pulled a 44-yard field goal attempt that would have won the game for the hapless Ravens.

Now, it’s the Ravens who can’t make the plays to win football games. Coach Brian Billick spoke volumes about his lack of confidence in his team when he eschewed a potential game-winning touchdown on the half-yard line and chose to tie the game with a field goal. Stover made that kick, but couldn’t follow it up in overtime. “We got beat by an 0–13 team,” Stover said. “We’ll hear it. I’ll be on SportsCenter. Oh, well. Do I want to be that guy? No. But I’ve won plenty of games for this team, and you’ve got to take the bad with the good. I’m not going to lose any sleep over it.”

While Stover was sleeping soundly Sunday night, the Dolphins were no doubt celebrating their avoidance of the ignominy of a winless season. Now, can Don Shula and the members of the 1972 Dolphins work a true miracle and rally this team to a history-making — or more accurately, a history-denying — win over the unbeaten Patriots? As heartwarming as this win was, that one would qualify as the greatest upset in modern NFL history, and possibly the franchise’s greatest moment since its early-1970s glory days. And if the impossible does happen, look for a reappearance by the formerly hapless Dolphins in this space a week from now. Now there’s some motivation.