The Miami Dolphins’ best win against each NFL team

Arguably, the best win in Nick Saban’s two seasons. The Dolphins jumped out to a 14-3 lead when Jake Delhomme and Steve Smith took over, piling up three touchdown passes, including a 53-yarder with 7:12 left to tie the score. As Carolina later moved into position to win the game, Delhomme—on the first play following the two-minute warning – was intercepted by Lance Schulters at the Miami 38. He returned the ball 37 yards to the 25. With 4 seconds left, Olindo Mare converted a 32-yard field goal to beat the Panthers, who would finish 11-5 and reach the NFC Championship.

The most famous regular-season win in franchise history, the Bears with their historically great defense looked like a major threat to become the NFL’s first 19-0 team, and many members of the 1972 Perfect Season team were on the sideline in their aqua blazers to support the home team. Dan Marino was too good for the Chicago blitz, especially in a second quarter where Miami grabbed control, outscoring the Bears 21-3 to take a 31-10 lead into the half at the raucous Orange Bowl. The Bears would go undefeated the rest of the season, routing New England 46-10 in Super Bowl XX.

The Dolphins had never beaten Kansas City when Don Shula led his Miami team to Misssouri for the final game played at Kansas City Municipal Stadium. The Dolphins on three occasions rallied from deficits of at least seven points to force overtime. Bob Griese threw for 263 yards, a high for him under Shula until the 1975 season. Meanwhile, Miami survived 350 all-purpose yards from Chiefs running back Ed Podolak. Kansas City Hall of Fame kicker Jan Stenerud missed two field goal attempts, including the potential winner with 35 seconds left in regulation, and had another blocked during overtime before Garo Yepremian converted a 37-yarder in the second OT to win it.

Yes, there was the strike-year, first-round playoff win over the 5-4 Bostonians in January of 1983 in revenge for the 3-0 Snowplow Game debacle the month before, and there was Olindo Mare’s kick in the season-finale chill of Foxboro in 2000 to win the division. However, Tony Sparano’s first NFL victory, snapping a despicable 1-20 franchise skid, gets the nod for its unlikelihood, decisiveness and its counterintuitive gameplan (the debut of the Ronnie Brown-as-quarterback Wildcat offense) that handed Bill Belichick what is arguably the most embarrassing defeat as Patriots coach. Brown ran for four touchdowns and also threw a 19-yarder to Anthony Fasano in Foxboro, beginning an 11-3 run that carried Miami to the division title.

With not much to choose from (the Dolphins have never beaten the Saints in a year where New Orleans had a winning record), we’ll go back 10 years, when the Dolphins played the Saints—with New Orleans reeling after Hurricane Katrina--at Tiger Stadium at LSU in Baton Rouge. Dolphins coach Nick Saban had been plucked from LSU by a big Dolphins contract offer after the 2004 season, so as it has gotten to be commonplace, Saban wasn’t the most popular guy at the stadium. His Dolphins inched away from the displaced home team in the second half with 12 unanswered points behind a Chris Chambers touchdown reception, an Olindo Mare field goal and a Kevin Carter sack for a safety.

In a driving rainstorm at Joe Robbie Stadium, the Dolphins’ defense got the Chargers to spit up five turnovers and cruised to the most decisive postseason win in franchise history. Dan Marino gave the Dolphins all the offense they would need with three touchdown passes in the second quarter.