With Division Play Set to Begin, Miami Dolphins At a Crossroads

Three straight wins to open the season gave us a glimpse of who these Miami Dolphins can be.

Back to back losses forced us to back away, take our foot off the gas, and approach this team like we have with so many Miami teams of the past:

With caution.

With every Ryan Tannehill pass, every big time drive, and every key defensive turnover, hope pours out of fans brighter than the South Florida sun.

But with every sack, every failed third and one, and every dropped ball, that hope is washed away, erased, eroded like a Miami beach after a hurricane.

Right now, fresh off a much needed bye week, the Miami Dolphins find themselves at an all too familiar fork in the road.

Awaiting at the end of one path?  A winning season, a playoff appearance, perhaps even a division title.

At the end of the other?  An offseason like so many before, filled with frustration and question marks.

Down one road you have Ryan Tannehill playing in January.

Down the other you have LeBron James.

Call it a fork in the road, call it a crossroads, call it a franchise defining stretch of games, I don't care.

But one thing is for certain, beginning Sunday afternoon in the friendly confines of Sun Life Stadium, and spilling over into 'The house that Brady built' next week, these next two games for the Miami Dolphins will give us a much clearer picture of who they are.

In-fact, I'll venture to say that two weeks from now, we'll know exactly which path this team has chosen.

Because that's what division play does.  The stakes are higher during these games.  The losses hurt more, and the wins taste that much sweeter.  Three wins against Cleveland, Indianapolis, and Atlanta look nice on paper, and they certainly help come December.

But two wins, back to back, against your most hated, most bitter division rivals?

Those are the ones that define a team, a season, even.

Those are the ones that build confidence, chemistry, and winning streaks.  Those are the ones that mean EVERYTHING when you start talking playoffs.

And make no mistake about it, these Miami Dolphins will be talking playoffs come December.

But there are two kinds of playoff talk in this league:

The real, legitimate ones.

Or the pipe dreams.

And, unfortunately, for the past decade, the Miami Dolphins have found themselves in the ladder portion of that talk.

In 2009 they were talking playoffs, but lost two of their final three division games.  That's a pipe dream.

In 2010 they were talking playoffs, then lost back to back games to the Patriots and Jets.  Pipe dream.

Last year, as young and under-talented as they were, they were still talking playoffs. Then, they finished 2-4 in the division.

You guessed it.  Pipe dream.

So here they are, one year later, with an improved quarterback, a fine core of receivers, an opportunistic defense, and a non-existent offensive line.

And, like so many years before, they're once again talking playoffs.

The difference between legitimate, and hopelessly optimistic, will be determined in the next two weeks.

Division play is set to begin in South Florida.  Sunshine, or hurricane.

The Miami Dolphins may be at a crossroads today.

But they won't be for long.