Not to Imply a Bias or Anything…

If you’re like me and you’re resigned to watching the Dolphins on television this year (through some combination of geography or economics) don’t expect anymore respect than last year. The CBS season preview for the AFC East came out today and you only need to read about as far as the second paragraph to get my drift…

"“Previewing the AFC East is actually quite easy for one simple reason: Tom Brady.As long as Brady is upright and throwing passes on the field and not at his fashion-model wife, the hoodie-fitted coach and the New England Patriots have the other three teams playing for second. “"

That’s not even good journalism. Unless I live in the New England area or am a soulless sack-less bandwagoner, I don’t even want to keep reading. Fortunately I was trying not to be totally biased so I did force myself to read the rest of Pete Prisco’s rambling train wreck of a love letter to the Patriots. And in his opinion, the outlook for the rest of the teams unfortunate enough to be in the Patriots division is pretty bleak. Apparently it’s Tom Brady’s world and everyone else is just living in it.

To his credit, after he reduces the Dolphins’ entire offense to simply “the wildcat offense” which he proceeds to summarize as “the gimmick,” he does say some nice things. He praises Bill Parcells for building the team the right way and says that the ‘Fins will be a Super Bowl threat in 2010.’ But essentially Pete Prisco, writing for CBS, is telling the city of Miami to enjoy the beach and come back next year.

Now I doubt CBS’ TV production teams pull their storylines from Pete Prisco articles, but the theme of his AFC East Preview has been one that’s pervaded the mainstream media from day one. Tom Brady’s back. Great. I guess we should all just lay down…

At this point the lack of respect the Miami Dolphins get has become such a cliché topic to Dolphins fans that it’s difficult to say anything new. But there’s a reason they actually bother to play the games and last year the ‘Fins clearly didn’t get the memo about being also-rans. The most gratifying part of last year’s season was a feeling that carries through to this year. A feeling that when you turn on the television, no matter what the pundits may say, the Dolphins are going to have a good opportunity to win that game.

In the next two weeks every major publication will make their picks and I’d be willing to wager right around… all of them will pick the Patriots to win the division.  But the nice part about being a Dolphins fan with this new regime is that come 12 days from now in Atlanta, we’re all going to like our chances.