Miami Dolphins set to play the Buffalo Bills?

The Miami Dolphins will open their home stadium for the first time on Sunday against the Buffalo Bills. Are they ready? They better be. The first round of stadium renovations has been almost completed but the stadium is good to go ahead of this weeks game. The same can not be said about the Dolphins football team.

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The Dolphins are reeling from a 23-20 loss, this still pains me to write, to the Jacksonville Jaguars in week two. The team has looked in disarray and out of sync. Unprepared is another adjective I would use freely as well. The question of whether the Dolphins are playing down to their opponents has been discussed and this week will find out if there is any truth to that discussion.

The Bills enter the week tied with the Dolphins at 1-1 and looking up at the 2-0 Patriots and Jets. The record may be the same but the play on the field is far from anything similar. The Bills have beaten the Indianapolis Colts handily and then lost to the Patriots in week two. After a quick score to open the game the Bills began their own implosion but fought back to within eight points late in the game before coming up short.

Miami lost to the Jaguars. Just for effect.

The Bills have a dominating defensive line, a very good group of linebackers, and a solid secondary. Offensively they have a top running back who may or may not play and wide-receivers that are more than capable of finding the soft spots in a defense. The Dolphins have plenty of those right now. What they don’t have, or rather didn’t have coming into the season was a quarterback but the play of Tyrod Taylor hasn’t been the downfall to the team that many predicted.

Taylor can run, like Dolphins quarterback Ryan Tannehill. He can throw too. The Bills are getting a lot of miles out of a quarterback expected to be the third man on the roster at that position. He is playing better than anyone thought and is growing week to week. The Dolphins will need to stop him, the receivers, and possibly LeSean McCoy who is dangerous as a runner and a receiver.

The Bills can do all of this offensively and to a large degree hide any of Taylor’s shortcomings because they have something the Dolphins don’t have. O.k. they have a lot the Dolphins don’t have, but to be more specific they have a cohesive well coached offensive line. This week the Dolphins will see for the first time, Richie Incognito. The last time Incognito was in Miami, he was being shown the door for his part in the Jonathan Martin saga.

Don’t think for a moment that Incognito isn’t going to be playing one of his best games. In addition to Incognito the Bills signed tight-end Charles Clay this off-season and Clay has given the Bills another weapon on offense. Clay knows this Dolphins offense and Clay will likely be more than happy to discuss the team with the Bills defensive coordinator.

When the game starts all of that won’t matter. What will matter is the play on the field. The Dolphins need to come out fast because they can’t weather another slow start that could likely put them in a position to play from behind. The Dolphins need to do better defensively and offensively. I know, that goes without saying.

The reality here is that the Dolphins can’t simply sit back and wait for the Bills to bring their game to them. They have to attack the Bills straight on and not let up. We learned the Bills don’t give up and we saw that last week against the Patriots. The Dolphins too often get a lead and sit on it. That’s not going to help the team this game.

Prior to the season, this was a game the Dolphins were penciled in as winners. They still open the week as three point favorites but a lot has changed since the pre-season ended and the regular season began. The Dolphins average power ranking was seven heading into week one and despite the win at Washington they dropped a little. After last weekend they dropped a lot. The average now is around 15. Conversely the Bills have climbed considerably.

Stats and rankings mean nothing. Win totals do and this week both teams want a win in what should be a crucial game in a division that is fighting harder than any year in the past 15. The better team? Who knows. Both teams are stacked with world class talent but right now, only one team is using that talent to the level it needs to be at.

It’s not the Dolphins. Who by the way lost to Jacksonville last Sunday.