Yahoo Finance Dolphins thankful for bye week but eyeing stretch run amid five-game winning streak
The Dolphins have a bye week before returning for a home game against the New York Jets but let rookie linebacker Jaelan Phillips tell it, he’s ready to head back onto the field.
“I’m ready to play the next game right now. Let’s go,” Phillips joked when asked Sunday about the upcoming respite.
Time off to recover from the aches of a bruising season is always welcome, but Dolphins players, in the midst of a five-game winning streak, are focused on improving on their newfound contention for the AFC playoffs during the bye week.
“I’d prefer [the bye week] earlier because we’re on a roll right now and I want to keep that going,” cornerback Xavien Howard said Monday. “Even though we got a bye, a lot of guys are probably banged up. We probably need it in Week 14. I definitely wanted it earlier, but we’re on a roll right now. We’ve just got to keep that momentum coming off the bye and got to do a lot of good things.”
The Dolphins reportedly declined to take the NFL’s offer of a bye week after their game in London, a courtesy extended by the league to teams who have to make the cross-Atlantic Ocean trip.
After the team’s game in London, a 23-20 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars in Week 6, coach Brian Flores declined to comment specifically on the reports of requesting a later bye, and multiple Dolphins players said they relished the opportunity to quickly turn around their losing ways, at the time a five-game losing streak.
The team’s skid ballooned to seven consecutive losses before they strung together five straight wins, tied with the Kansas City Chiefs for the second-longest current streak, and now that the team is rolling, players’ focus is on doing what it takes to avoid a lull after the break.
The Dolphins will hold a walk-through Wednesday before players have the rest of the week off, and Flores said he wanted them to spend time decompressing from the rigors of the first 18-week regular-season schedule in NFL history.
“The message to the team will be, ‘Get some rest,” Flores said. “’Get away from the game a little bit. Spend some time with your families. Recharge the battery and come back in next week and prepare the way we need to prepare. Meet and practice the way we need to practice. Meet and practice to have an opportunity or a chance to have the results that we want.’ That doesn’t change. Our preparation isn’t going to change. For me, it’s more time to heal up and recharge the battery.”
At 6-7, the Dolphins still sit in 13th place in the AFC and 11/2 games back of the seventh seed. Though they didn’t make up ground in their pursuit of one of the conference’s three wild-card spots, just continuing to rack up wins could be enough in a conference that has no clear front-runner.
According to ESPN Stats & Info, this is the first time every team in a conference had four or more losses through Week 13 since the AFC in 2002. The 12 teams that sit above the Dolphins in the standings all have .500 or better records but are all separated by two games or less. And with the 22nd-hardest remaining strength of the schedule, the end-of-season slate continues to favor the Dolphins.
FiveThirtyEight currently gives the Dolphins a 13 percent chance to make the playoffs. Those odds increase to 83 percent if the team can win its final four games and finish 10-7 in what would be a historic feat after starting 1-7.
“We feel good as a team. It always feel great coming off a win,” linebacker Elandon Roberts said. “This week right here is a big week for us getting into the bye because we are able to get some self-scout done on ourselves and see what we need to work on. This week right here is still a big week for us to vet ourselves from a self-scout standpoint.”
