The Miami Dolphins’ path to a potential playoff spot got harder after the results of Week 13, and it just might be they’ll need to win out to even have a chance.
But all those teams currently have eight victories, and Baltimore has games remaining against the 2-10 New York Giants and 3-9 Cleveland Browns, Denver has games remaining against the 6-7 Indianapolis Colts and 4-8 Cincinnati Bengals, and the Chargers have games remaining against the 2-10 Las Vegas Raiders and 3-9 New England Patriots.
In other words, the likelihood is they’ll all finish at least 10-7, which means that’s the record the Dolphins will need to get involved in tiebreaker scenarios.
That scenario would mean the Dolphins would have to win out to have a shot, and that means defeating the New York Jets, Houston Texans, San Francisco 49ers, Cleveland and the Jets again.
The Dolphins likely will be favored in four of those games, the one exception being the game at Houston, which will be the only one against a team with a winning record because the 49ers could only get to 7-7 before they come to Hard Rock Stadium on Dec. 22.
The last two games, of course, could present weather challenges and we don’t need to discuss the Dolphins’ poor record in cold games in recent years — though we should mention that their 0-7 record with Tua Tagovailoa as their starting quarterback with game-time temperatures under 50 featured five games against playoff opponents.
