The 2023 Dolphins were responsible for creating the first legitimate Super Bowl aspirations in Miami since at least the late '90s. The offense, with Mike McDaniel at the controls, was truly historic and at one point appeared on pace to break records.
They wound up finishing with the top-ranked offense in yards and second in points scored. On defense, the unit had no shortage of talent, though the disparity between their yards allowed (10th in the league) and their points allowed (22nd) indicates a unit that was routinely victimized in crunch time and "gotta-have-it" moments.
By season's end, the team dropped several pivotal games that removed them from contention for winning the AFC East, and more importantly, staging a home playoff game. Instead, they were forced to play the Kansas City Chiefs in a game that will be remembered as the fourth-coldest game in NFL history.
If the elements weren't difficult enough to manage, an interview with then-offensive coordinator Frank Smith conducted by former Dolphins left tackle Terron Armstead shed new light on some difficulties the Dolphins faced in their last playoff appearance.
"After ’23, we’re [the] No. 1 offense, [the] end of the season didn’t go the way [we wanted]. Then we have to play a challenging playoff team up in Kansas City, and probably the worst weather conditions a South Florida team could play in — minus 25 degrees. It was 80 degrees when we took off and then when we land it’s -20 degrees. It’s a 100 degree temperature difference.”
“It was inhumane. I don’t give a [expletive] where we came from. It was inhumane and our benches didn’t work. No heat. It was terrible. It was the perfect storm [for a] Florida team to struggle when it’s a 100-degree difference, probably over 100 when it’s all said and done.”
Former Miami Dolphins assistant reveals that the heated benches didn't work in the Dolphins–Chiefs 2023 playoff game
The week of January 13, 2024, the average high temperature in Davie was about 77 degrees. One could only imagine how Dolphins players felt in pre-game "warm-ups" when the temperature was -4, and the wind chill made it feel like -27. There are extremes, and then there's that. Regardless, no player or coach blamed the 26–7 loss on the weather. In Miami, we leave complaining about the weather to the Buffalo Bills.
The fact that the lone recourse the Dolphins had in that game — heated benches — malfunctioned is certainly going to ruffle some feathers for Miami fans. When teams have to play in the hot South Florida sun, we often get the cartoonish scene of coaches and staffers holding giant shading tools over the players on the bench. There are also fans blasting the players with mist from all angles.
Meanwhile, the Dolphins nearly froze to death in Kansas City without the minimal help of a heated bench. It's difficult to say that the team would've beaten the Chiefs in any conditions that day. Fans were nonetheless entitled to seeing a fair fight, at the very least, and by depriving Miami of even the slightest bit of warmth, we were all deprived of that level playing field.
There's also the fact that around the same time, the Buffalo Bills were set to host the Pittsburgh Steelers in blizzard-like conditions. That was the plan, until the league partnered with the city to postpone the game one day to allow for better conditions. If you're feeling some dormant rage heating back up, I sincerely apologize.
In a matchup between quarterbacks Josh Allen and Mason Rudolph, it's unmistakably clear which team's ground-and-pound offense and strong defense would benefit more from a winter storm. Naturally, the team with a more potent passing attack shed no tears when the conditions they got to play in were crisper, and the Bills prevailed by a 31–17 final score.
Even league and governmental aid couldn't get the Bills over the hump, as they still managed to choke the game at home to their own personal grim reapers, Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs. I guess all's well that ends well.
It's all water under the bridge now, years down the line, but this development will do little to erase fans' rightful feeling that the league has never done a thing to help the Miami Dolphins. Not when the owner did what 31 other teams do every year and tampered with a free agent, nor when they banned an insignificant strategy the Dolphins used to great success in 2023, and certainly not when they forced Miami to play their playoff game in an environment where multiple fans were hospitalized with frostbite and could've faced amputations.
That's fine. It'll make success that much sweeter when Jeff Hafley rights the ship, starting in 2026.
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