'85 Dolphins dodged a bullet by not making Superbowl. | Page 2 | FinHeaven - Miami Dolphins Forums

'85 Dolphins dodged a bullet by not making Superbowl.

Well, we will never know.

The NFL is about matchups, though, and the Dolphins matched up really well against Chicago.

The Bears would have had to make adjustments on defense. How would they have changed?

As it was, Chicago's D was designed to stop the run. The Bears also pressured the quarterback well, but couldn't do that against Marino because of his quick release and their weakness in the secondary was exposed.

Miami may have struggled to stop the Chicago running game, but if the Dolphins jumped to a lead, the Bears passing attack wasn't going to win it for them.

The Dolphins probably wouldn't have scored 30 in one half, but I think they emerge with a championship.
 
How on earth do you dodge a bullet by not making the superbowl? hell, if you made the superbowl and lost, maybe Miami would have had more of a full court press to make it back. terrible post
 
fishfanmiami said:
Another way to look at it is we had the Teddy Bears number and if we would have met them again Danny boy would have a ring

:shrug:
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I think so.

Miami matched up perfectly with that defense. The real question was the Dolphins defense. I think getting an early lead would have been huge, but Miami would have put up points.

Now, I didn't feel confident in 1994 when the AFC champ had to face the 49ers.

I do believe the Dolphins would have fared better than the Chargers
 
There is absolutely no negative to playing in the Super Bowl. You can’t win a Super Bowl unless you make it to the SuperBowl.

The Buffalo Bills went to 4 straight Super Bowls and lost everyone of them. Yet I seriously doubt any of the players on those Bills team would say that they would have rather not made the SB than to have played in them and lost. It doesn’t matter if a team loses by 1 point or 50 points. A loss is a loss and I would rather the Dolphins had lost to the Bears in the 1985 SB than finishing where they did that year.

The fact the Dolphins beat the Bears in the regular season proves that the Dolphins would have had a chance of winning the SB if they had played the Bears.
 
The Bears Defense worked mostly on quickly getting to the QB (Blitzing , while the secondary was also in ranges to make a play with a very disciplined and smart secondary, but what Miami offered destroyed what they could do so well.

The Miami O-line were good against the pass-rush, Dan Marino was a nightmare for teams that Blitzed, The Mark Brothers were time bombs, If you did not get Dan to release it quickly (under 2 seconds), before you hit second #3, either Duper would be streaking down the sideline, or Clayton would be cutting 20 yards with little to no resistance as the ball left Dan's hand a second ago.

By the Bears sending 6 on most plays, most QBs would quickly get rattled into a mistake, or best case scenario a quick short pass that hardly went anywhere...Problem is, Dan was not most QBs, he saw the field quickly, he lined the O-line to allow a split second more, he felt the pass-rush, and moved inside with the most lethal one step in the pocket (Just as you thought you had him, Dan took that one step up-back-to the side) that normally got him an extra second...by the time Dan was ready to throw the ball, Either Duper or Clayton had made put the secondary into survival mode trying to catch up, from there the quickest release in football just threw daggers into Buddy Ryan's famed Defense.

Worse case scenario, Miami would have given more of a game to the Bears then the Pats did. Personally, I believe Miami would have had a very good chance to go 2-0 against the Bears that year.
 
Avigatorx said:
We seem to remember that game differently OP.

Fins were up 3 TDs by the half and throttled back...

Plus, it was a Monday night game, so the heat wasn't a factor.
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Vegas wasn't even a big believer that the Bears were going to win....they were a two point favorite. And since OP doesn't recall, the Bears inserted McMahon into the game in the second half....seems to me he was healthy enough to play since he in fact did.

Anyway, that was so long ago that I was a virgin when it happened. Some things change....maybe not for OP.
 
Couple of points here...
Miami matched up very well vs the Bears.
Miami matched up very poorly vs NE.
Miami matched up better against Bears than they did the 49ers a year earlier. A d the Bears matched up well against the 49ers. Match ups are everything in the NFL. Also, NE completely folded like a lil bitch in that SB, mainly from the QB position. That would not have happened with Dan.
 
One thing that people might not remember from that game was a great game plan by Shula. He decided to have Nat Moore line up at TE and their LB's couldn't cover him. I'm not gonna say we'd have beaten them again in the SB that year but I'd have like our chances. We had the one QB that could get rid of the ball fast enough to avoid their pass rush and the WR's that could make plays as well.

But we'll never know.
 
Avigatorx said:
We seem to remember that game differently OP.

Fins were up 3 TDs by the half and throttled back...

Plus, it was a Monday night game, so the heat wasn't a factor.
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The thing is, Buddy Ryan would have had to change his defense against Miami. And, truth be told, he didn't really do that all season.

The Bears were an all or nothing defense at a time when that approach worked against most teams. It didn't work against Miami and Dan Marino.
 
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