ShareThisThere's more than a touch of irony in Baltimore Ravens offensive coordinator Cam Cameron returning to Miami for Sunday's playoff game against the Dolphins -- against a team he coached only a season ago, a team remarkably rebuilt by the man who fired him.
Because it was Dolphins football boss Bill Parcells who, during his no-excuses coaching days, liked to say: "You are what your record says you are."
And Cameron's Dolphins were a franchise-worst 1-15.
They were also, according to the Parcells Doctrine, the worst team in the NFL.
But were they, really? True, Cameron's Dolphins owned the league's worst record. And their lone victory came in overtime against the Ravens, who won five games.
But were those Dolphins worse than the 3-13 St. Louis Rams? Or the 4-12 Atlanta Falcons? Or the 4-12 Kansas City Chiefs, who finished the season with nine consecutive losses? Were the Dolphins of 2007 really 10 defeats worse than the Dolphins of 2008? The records say yes.
But is it fair -- or even accurate -- to say Cameron's Dolphins really were what their record says they were? Maybe not.
Maybe the 2007 Dolphins weren't as bad as their sorry 1-15 showing led folks to believe.
Remember: Six of those losses were by three-point margins, starting with an ominous, 16-13 overtime defeat at Washington in the season opener.
And the 2007 Dolphins played a significantly tougher schedule than the 2008 Dolphins, who, by comparison, enjoyed a 17-week walk in the park.
Last season, the Dolphins played six games against teams that went to the playoffs, losing twice to the AFC champion New England Patriots and once each to the Super Bowl champion New York Giants, NFC East champion Dallas Cowboys, AFC North champion Pittsburgh Steelers and NFC wild card Redskins. A field goal decided the games against the Giants (13-10) and Steelers (3-0).
Cameron's Dolphins also lost at Cleveland, which won 10 games but missed the playoffs.
The 2008 Dolphins, on the other hand, have beaten only two teams that finished the season with winning records, splitting their division series against New England (11-5) and the New York Jets (9-7).
And they've benefited greatly from a schedule that handed them eight opponents from the AFC West and NFC West, divisions that produced one team with a winning record and a combined record of 45-83.
They Dolphins were 7-1 in those games, eking out victories in all four home games against West Coast teams -- San Diego (17-10), Seattle (21-19), Oakland (17-15) and San Francisco (14-9) -- and winning on the road against Denver (26-17), St. Louis (16-12) and Kansas City (38-31).
Still, with Parcells running the operation, with rookie coach Tony Sparano making the right calls and free-agent quarterback Chad Pennington putting together an MVP-caliber season, these Dolphins clearly have played better football than Cameron's Dolphins.
The 2008 Dolphins have played harder, smarter and with a greater sense of pride and purpose than the infamous 2007 team. And Parcells and his staff deserve credit for constructing a team that took Miami from the bottom of the NFL to the top of the AFC East.
Yet, given their soft schedule, there's a real chance these Dolphins aren't as good as their 11-5 record says they are.
We still don't know.
But we know this: Before he took the job in Miami, Parcells surely knew Cameron's Dolphins weren't as bad as their 1-15 record said they were.
How ironic is that?
(Ray McNulty is sports columnist for Scripps Treasure Coast (Fla.) Newspapers, The Stuart News, Fort Pierce Tribune and Vero Beach Press Journal. Contact him at ray.mcnulty@scripps.com or on the Web at www.tcpalm.com.)
column
