Dolphins’ best win and worst loss versus the Buffalo Bills

The Miami Dolphins are scheduled to play 13 different opponents during the 2017 season. Continuing the reflections that started a few weeks ago, this week we can look back on arguably the best win and the worst loss against the final divisional opponent, the Buffalo Bills.

Heading into the 2016 season, the Dolphins have faced the Bills 104 times in the regular season and playoffs. One hundred of those games came in the regular season, with the Dolphins winning 57, losing 42, tying once, and 4 have come in the playoffs, with the Dolphins winning just once.

Best Win. October 22, 1972. In Week 6, the Bills nearly ended Miami’s perfect season. The Bills responded to Miami’s backfield of Larry Csonka and Mercury Morris with the running of O.J. Simpson and a defense that forced 4 Dolphins’ turnovers. The game was a seesaw, back-and-forth battle in which neither team led by more than 8 points, which was Miami’s lead heading into the final minutes. Buffalo then scored a late passing touchdown that narrowed the Dolphins’ lead to one, but in the era before two-point conversions, that was as close as the Bills would get. The rest, as they say, is history.

Other games were in the running for the best win designation. Here are those choices, in chronological order: November 26, 1967 (Dolphins’ first win against the Bills, 17–14); October 14, 1979 (Dolphins’ 20th consecutive win over the Bills, 17-7); January 2, 1999 (Dolphins’ lone playoff win against Buffalo 24-17); December 4, 2005 (Dolphins win 24-23 on a touchdown with 6 seconds left, coming back from an early 21-point deficit); December 18, 2011 (Dolphins’ 30-23 win is Bills’ seventh straight loss).

Worst Loss. January 17, 1993. Although it was not the best or the closest game in the Dolphins-Bills rivalry, it was the game with the most on the line – a trip to Super Bowl XXVII. In the regular season, quarterback Dan Marino had recorded his fifth career 4000-yard passing season and had to leave the Dolphins 37-10 win in Buffalo in an Atlas moving truck. The Dolphins held the home-field advantage for the AFC Championship, and Bills’ quarterback Jim Kelly missed the game with a knee injury, resulting in Dolphins’ linebacker Bryan Cox trash talking leading up to the game. It was the Bills’ defense that talked loudest during the game, however, forcing 4 fumbles and recovering 3 of them while limiting the Dolphins to just 10 points. On offense, Thurman Thomas accumulated 166 yards from scrimmage and scored a touchdown, ending the Dolphins championship aspirations with a 29-10 victory. Dan Marino never got closer to a second Super Bowl appearance, and the Bills went on to lose to the Cowboys in Super Bowl XXVII by a score of 52-17.

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Several games deserve honorable mention for worst losses. Here are those choices, in chronological order: September 7, 1980 (Bills end Dolphins’ decade-long winning streak with 17-7 victory); October 9, 1983 (Bills defeat Dolphins 38-35 in overtime in Dan Marino’s first career start); November 29, 1987 (Bills largest shutout of Dolphins 27-0); January 12, 1991 (Buffalo defeats Miami in the first playoff match between the teams 44-34); December 30, 1995 (Bills and Dolphins combine for a playoff record 1,038 yards in the Bills’ 37-22 Wild Card win); October 20, 2013 (Bills blow an early, 14-point lead but rally to kick the winning field goal with 33 seconds left, beating the Dolphins 23-21).

This season, the Dolphins are scheduled to face the Bills in Miami during Week 7 (October 23) and in Buffalo during Week 16 (December 24). Let’s hope that those games can help end the Bills’ two-game-winning-streak against the Dolphins and compete for the Best Win category. What are your thoughts on these choices?

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