The Miami Dolphins last hoisted a Lombardi Trophy over 50 years ago, when Don Shula led the team to back-to-back wins in Super Bowls VII and VIII over Washington and Minnesota.
With the New York Knicks recently ending their 53-year championship drought in the NBA, the Dolphins have come up a lot in discussions for their 52-year drought, which is the 11th-longest in the NFL and 21st-longest in the four major sports.
Interestingly, Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer recently compared the Dolphins and Knicks saying that the parallels are “too striking to ignore.”
Here are his reasons for the comparison:
• Both the Knicks and Dolphins were iconic in the early 1970s, playing in venues that became legendary at multiple levels of their respective sports (Madison Square Garden and the Orange Bowl), and winning pairs of championships. As result, the franchises were elevated to becoming flagship brands for their leagues.
• In the 1980s, both drafted singular superstars who’d keep their teams contending through the rest of the millenium—Dan Marino in Miami and Patrick Ewing in New York.
• In the 1990s, after years of knocking on the door, both franchises brought in a big-name coach with multiple rings who was in a short-lived retirement to try and get those superstars over the top. For the Knicks, it was luring Pat Riley to New York. For the Dolphins, it was poaching Jimmy Johnson from the Fox set.
• After Johnson and Riley failed to win titles and Marino and Ewing departed, both franchises fell into a decades-long malaise, with only short upticks along the way, that eroded their advantage as destinations for free agents and trade targets.
• Both had interesting blips midway through that malaise. For the Dolphins, it was the Wildcat offense leading to an AFC East crown in 2008 (that team was the only team other than the Patriots to win that division between 2003 and 2019). For the Knicks, it was Linsanity in 2012.
The Dolphins don’t have the roster that the Knicks did this year, so a Super Bowl win isn’t on the horizon, but there are some interesting similarities between the two. If Malik Willis has a surprising showing with his new team the way that Jalen Brunson did when he arrived in New York, that could be the sign of something together in South Florida.
This article originally appeared on Dolphins Wire: NFL insider draws deep connection between Dolphins and recent champion
Reporting by Mike Masala, Dolphins Wire / Dolphins Wire
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Mike Masala, Dolphins Wire | USA TODAY Network
