Jordan Poyer on helping Dolphins end playoff drought: Did it with Bills, can do it again

MIAMI GARDENS — About that 23-year gap the Dolphins have endured without a playoff win … is new safety Jordan Poyer supposed to be fazed by that?

Poyer joined the Buffalo Bills in 2017. They weren’t anything like the Buffalo Bills we know today.

They were more like the Miami Dolphins we know today.

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The Bills had missed the playoffs 17 straight years. Playoff wins? Fans in western New York hadn’t enjoyed one of those in 22 years — a victory, coincidentally, over the Dolphins.

“I remember what it was like in 2017 when we were in Buffalo and the Bills hadn’t been to the playoffs in X-amount of years and then we finally got there and then we finally won it,” Poyer said Tuesday. “It turned the whole city upside down.”

The Bills went 9-7, earning a wild-card berth. Three years later, they won 13 games and reached the AFC Championship Game. It began an active four-year run as AFC East champions.

So if you’re wondering if Poyer is envisioning parallels between what was and what can be in Miami, the answer is yes.

“You can feel the buzz in Miami about this football team everywhere you go, ‘Hey man, you guys can do it,’ said Poyer, who has lived in Broward in the offseason for seven years. “So if you do it, this city is going to go upside down. And then you get on a roll and whatever happens after that we’ll see. But at least getting there, winning that AFC East, beating Buffalo twice, I’m excited about that.”

Poyer spent seven seasons in Buffalo, earning All-Pro honors in 2021 and making the Pro Bowl in 2022. It’s not something you walk away from easily. Last weekend, Poyer returned to Buffalo to participate in ex-teammate Micah Hyde’s charity softball game. Poyer even took the microphone to thank the crowd of nearly 15,000 for helping him grow as a player and person.

After an OTA practice with the Dolphins on Tuesday, Poyer reflected on the trip to western New York.

“It was cool,” Poyer said. “It was kind of a surreal moment. There are not a lot of people I don’t think that get to go get a sendoff in a sense. I spent seven years out there. Loved every moment of it, loved my teammates, my coaches, the fans. But it’s a really cool opportunity for me to be here now. I get goosebumps thinking about playing them twice a year and just the idea of winning the AFC East and hosting a playoff game and winning that playoff game.”

Instead of Hyde, Poyer now works with Jevon Holland at safety. Poyer said a major reason he attended the voluntary workout, even at age 33, was to work on communication with Holland. He even compared it to his earliest days alongside Hyde.

“We got to Buffalo we both just looked at each other in the eye and promised each other that we were going to change this culture,” Poyer said. “We were going to change everything about it and we just went to work. I sense that similar camaraderie with Jevon. Jevon is a young player and he just wants to work. I want to be here to help him as much as I can to become the best player that he can be so in a couple years when I’m sitting on the beach retired after the Dolphins have maybe won a Super Bowl or two, I can be like, ‘Yeah man, that’s my dawg right there. No. 8, you see him, we came up a little bit together.’ Whatever I can do to help this team win football games, that’s why I’m here.”

Holland, entering his fourth year, said he welcomes the chance to learn from Poyer.

“He’s been in the league, what, 12 years?” Holland said. “An individual like that, being in the league that long, obviously he’s got some type of secret to be in the league that long.”

Dolphins reporter Hal Habib can be reached at hhabib@pbpost.com. Follow him on social media @gunnerhal. Click here to subscribe.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Jordan Poyer out to repeat history by helping Dolphins end playoff skid