Championship games remind us how long it has been for Miami Dolphins

Conference championship games will be played on Sunday and it will remind us that the Miami Dolphins have not been in one for a very long time.

On Sunday, the NFL’s 2019 season will play its final weekend of football with more than one game. The Miami Dolphins will be sitting at home watching the game and wondering what it must be like to be a part of something so big.

There is only a handful of staff in the Miami Dolphins complexes, maybe less, who have been around for the last AFC Championship game played by the Dolphins. Yes, it has been a very long time.

We have to go all the way back to 1992 and when I say that in my head, the old lady from Titanic pops into my mind. I feel that old. Miami lost that game to the Buffalo Bills 29-10. It was ugly. That year I wasn’t even married yet. In fact, I would only meet my wife a month or two later. I also had hair but looking back now, the years that followed may be why it has long since gone.

Since that game, the Dolphins have appeared in nine post-season games but not advancing past the division round. From1997 to 2001 the Dolphins made the postseason each of those years. Losing three division games and two Wildcard games.

Miami would not return to the postseason until 2008 and then again in 2016. We know the history all too well. We know the 1-15, 4-12 and .500 seasons that amounted to nothing. Now we get to suffer through another game watching former Dolphins players make it to the big game.

At least we expected this in 2019. We knew that the Dolphins were going to be bad in the hopes of a better future. The Dolphins are not trying to assemble a one-off team but instead a team that will be perennial participants in the playoffs. That would be nice to see but honestly, I can’t imagine what that is like anymore. It has simply been too long and for some, it is a never been.