How Concerning Is Miami’s Strength Of Victory Narrative
Photo Credit: Jim Rassol via USA TODAY Sports
It’s a great time to be a Miami Dolphins fan. At 9-3, the team is on track to win its first division since 2008 and the second time since 2000. The AFC seems wide-open with no truly dominant teams.
On Sunday they did what they’ve done all year and destroyed an inferior opponent.
Their 45-15 destruction of the lowly Washington Commanders featured explosive offense highlighted by another Tyreek Hill monster day and sturdy defense. It felt like a complete victory worthy of fan satisfaction were in not for the main narrative surrounding the team. “They are beating bad opponents on an easy schedule.”
True, you can only play who’s on your schedule, but when faced with challenges, Miami hasn’t acquitted themselves. They have throttled inferior competition in between road losses to the Buffalo Bills (20-48), the Philadelphia Eagles (17-31), and a squeaker against the Kansas City Chiefs (14-21). This adds up to a Strength of Schedule that ranks 28th in the NFL, according to Power Rankings Guru, and a Strength of Victory percentage of .311, as calculated by ESPN.com. The latter is the lowest of any playoff team.
Does this mean Miami is a paper tiger ready to be exposed in the playoffs?
For us to know that, we’re going to have to take a look at history. A quick look at the last 10 NFL seasons shows us that Miami’s current Strength of Victory would be the single-weakest mark of any playoff team in the past decade. That’s not good, and it’s not good when you look at what teams in the same ballpark have done during that time.
Just three teams have made the playoffs with a Strength of Victory below .350 in that time. Those teams are the 2013 Kansas City Chiefs (11-5), the 2020 Chicago Bears (8-8), and the 2022 Los Angeles Chargers (10-7). Here are the results of every playoff game they’ve played:
2013 Chiefs: LOST Wild Card Round, 44-45 to Indianapolis Colts
2020 Bears: LOST Wild Card Round, 9-21 to New Orleans Saints
2022 Chargers: LOST Wild Card Round, 30-31 to Jacksonville Jaguars
Now, that’s just three games, which is a pretty small sample size. Let’s break down how all teams did in the playoffs, divided up by their Strength of Victory:
In some ways, it doesn’t seem to matter all that much how strong the opponents you beat in the regular season were. The difference between having a good Strength of Victory and a very good one is practically non-existent. Unfortunately for Miami, however, this does start to give way when Strength of Victory drops below .400.
Only Tom Brady’s 2020 Tampa Bay Buccaneers were able to make it to a Super Bowl with that low of a Strength of Victory (.392) in the regular season. Eagle-eyed readers will note that, well, that team had Tom Brady on it. It makes sense why they’d be the outlier.
Of the 25 teams in that sub-.400 Strength of Victory group, they combined to go 14-24. Only four even managed to get to NFC/AFC Championship Games: The 2020 Bucs and Green Bay Packers, the 2017 Jacksonville Jaguars, and the 2014 Colts. That’s two teams in an especially weak year for the NFC, Andrew Luck dragging the Colts to a playoff win, and a Jacksonville Jaguars team whose success Maya Rudolph famously called “confusing” at the time.
The good news for the Dolphins is, they are a virtual lock to make the postseason no matter what. The New York Times, which has never been wrong before, projects their odds at 99%. Even so, Miami will have a chance to get some statement wins in the final three weeks against the Dallas Cowboys (9-3), Baltimore Ravens (9-3), and Buffalo Bills (6-6). Those games might be technically meaningless, but finishing 3-0 against three strong teams will go a long way to dispelling doubts come playoff time.
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