Tom Olivadotti -Tell me its Not

[daryl]

Those Bills teams just had too many top tier players. As you say, had we some guys of the caliber of Bruce Smith and C Bennett we likely make a couple SB appearances between ‘90-‘95. At the end of the day, we were really the only team in the AFC that gave the Bills any trouble during that time. Problem was we were in the same division. ‘93 was a shame cause we were better than them I think. We had routed them at Orchard Park and were 4-1. Marino was playing his best ball since the ‘84 campaign when he went down. The Bills were on the tail end of their dominance and may have only been 10-6 that year if I recall correctly. I think ‘93 was the year - Turkey Day game and all.

The Dolphins failures in the playoffs in 1992 and 1994 in my opinion were more the result of dreadful offensive performances than Olivadotti’s defense. If the offense would have shown up in 1992, they at least could have kept the Bills on their heels. In 1994, the offense disappeared completely in the second half against San Diego. In 1990, the defense definitely didn’t step up against the Bills, of course Offerdahl got hurt the game before. Just one more stop in that game and the Dolphins could have at least sent it to OT, or even a game winner at the end.

 

[ALUCK]

I would love to see a video of Dan throwing deep balls to Tyreek just for the fun of it.

 

[royalshank]

The Dolphins failures in the playoffs in 1992 and 1994 in my opinion were more the result of dreadful offensive performances than Olivadotti’s defense. If the offense would have shown up in 1992, they at least could have kept the Bills on their heels. In 1994, the offense disappeared completely in the second half against San Diego. In 1990, the defense definitely didn’t step up against the Bills, of course Offerdahl got hurt the game before. Just one more stop in that game and the Dolphins could have at least sent it to OT, or even a game winner at the end.

In ‘90 I think we fumbled a KO late and the. Buffalo scored putting us behind by 2 scores. I think. Mike Reichenbach was dreadful in that game replacing the injured Offerdahl. He came close to making a much needed play - dropped a deflected pass which would have been an INT in the middle of the game.

‘92 was disappointing on O for sure. Bruce Smith beat Webb for a sack on 3rd down when we were just in FG range and then we couldn’t move the ball anymore. However, the D was just as awful. Not sure if this rings a bell but Thomas and Davis must have caught 30 swing passes between them and we had no answer as they kept possession on us all day. We started out w a pick on Kelly I believe but that’s about all the D managed. ‘94 was an odd game in that we were getting crushed in H1 - Means was running all over us yet we led 21-6 at half. In reality we had no business being up given the way they were running on us but there we were. The offense went cold in H2 and the D wasn’t much better though we had a chance to ice the game when Michael Stewart picked Humphries w about 3:30 to go. Of course we went 3 and out and punted. Then they scored. Then we went down the field in the last seconds. Then we missed the FG. Those Marino led offenses were not good playing w a lead. The lack of a run game / inability to find a back who could pound / finish a game cost us so many times. Had we our own Natrone Means we win that game. But we had Bernie Parmalee getting dropped in our EZ for a safety by a former cast off in Sean Lee. That’s how we rolled on the ground. This is also why I say Webb and Sims were overrated. Great pass blockers, yes. Run blockers? I don’t know about that.

 

[Joe Dolfan]

The mid 1980s didn’t win a title….but that doesn’t me and couldn’t have.

And factually, only one Dolphins team between 1983 and 1999 gave up more than 24 points per game….and no Dolphins team from 1987-1999 averaged scoring 25 points per game.

Not a lot of teams did back then. And back then especially, when your defense couldn't get off the field, it was more difficult for your offense to score a lot of points.

You can't point to stats in one era to discount things from that era or this one.