Miami Dolphins season beginning to feel a little bit magical after 39-17 rout of Cleveland | Opinion

This was late in the third quarter on Sunday, the home crowd loud and festive, a blizzard of white towels waving across a filled-up Hard Rock Stadium to celebrate another touchdown. Just then, a sound seldom heard at a Miami Dolphins game for a very long time -- an “M-V-P!” chant -- briefly blossomed.

And you couldn’t be sure who it was for. Imagine that?

Tua Tagovailoa and Tyreek Hill had hooked up for the short score to make it 30-10, and there was a strong case, this day and this season, for that chant being aimed at either player or both.

There have been plenty of seasons the past 20 years when the Dolphins barely had a team MVP. Now they have two who deserve to be in the conversation for the NFL-wide award.

Did I say the Dolphins? Make that the first-place Dolphins, after Buffalo’s loss on Sunday.

It is becoming that kind of a pinch-me season for Dolfans, who made Sunday’s the largest home crowd (66,563) since Hard Rock was redesigned in 2015. The positive vibe tacked on a 39-17 rout of the Cleveland Browns on Sunday -- Miami’s fourth straight win, and the third straight topping 30 points.

“You want to bottle that,” said Fins coach Mike McDaniel. “That commitment and effort.”

Tagovailoa referred after the game to “the resurrection of an organization.”

The Fins have their bye week now, and deserve the rest.

Likewise the rest of the league, or at least those playing defense, can use a break from the Dolphins.

Miami is 7-3, its best 10-game record since 2001.

That is because Tagovailoa leads the NFL in passer rating, by a lot, in the midst of a season of redemption that has fans who once doubted him now wearing Hawaiian leis to games and holding ‘In Tua We Trust’ signs.

The ‘Pay That Man’ signs should soon follow. Tagoaviloa is earning a mammoth new contact as the Dolphins now know they must extend long-term the man they tried for much of two years to replace.

Tagovailoa is now 13-2 in his last 15 starts. He is now at 138 straight passes without an interception. His passer rating on third downs is the highest by anybody since the NFL began tracking that statistic in 1991.

“Tua is playing very high-level football,” said McDaniel. “He’s really seeing the field well. He’s processing, progressing one through five (receiving options) with lightning speed. Manipulating defenses, making really good throws.”

The success is also because Hill, arrived on a blockbuster offseason trade, has been all that and could well fashion the first 2,000-yard receiving season in league history.

This in some ways was Miami’s most complete, most impressive win of the year,because it didn’t come the usual way.

Dynamic wideouts Hill and Waddle -- on pace to shatter the all-time record for combined yards by one team’s duo -- were mortal on Sunday, Hill with only five catches for 44 yards and Waddle with four for 66. And yet Tagovailao still managed to complete 25 of 32 passes for 285 yards, three TDs and zero interceptions.

“Those guys on the opposing team have got to cover everyone on the team, not just Tyreek and Jaylen,” said Tagovailoa.

t’s because there was a ground game, offensive balance, to keep the Browns at bay.

“I’ve never been part of a backfield like this,” Tagovailoa said.

Raheem Mostert scored on a 24-yard run. Newly acquired Jeff Wilson Jr. had a 20-yard scoring run. Combined Sunday, they had 25 carries for 184 yards. It was a nearly awesome display of all-round offense.

“We have a bunch of guys really working at the craft,” McDaniel said of the ground game. “Awesome to see that collective effort really bear fruit. We’ve been waiting for a game like that.”

And the Miami defense, not always great, chipped in with three sacks and a fumble recovery.

Tagovailoa himself did not get sacked once.

“Our guys were protecting their ass off,”as he put it. “Someone said to me aftre the game, ‘Your jersey’s so clean!’”

The crazy thing was, this game that turned into a party could only have begun worse for Miami if the Dolphins had been swallowed by a sudden sinkhole.

Fins gave up a 48-yard kickoff return, then a 38-yard completion, and then helped the Browns with two defensive penalties to set up a 1-yard touchdown pass and a fast 7-0 (sink)hole.

The Dolphins did very little wrong the rest of the way.

It was 7-7 on Tagovailoa’s 13-yard scoring pass to Alec Ingold. The drive saw the return of coach Mike McDaniel’s wheelbarrow with a successful 4th-and-1 gamble from Miami’s own 37. (Earlier this season Tyreek Hill, admiring McDaniel’s gumption, said the coach needed a wheelbarrow to carry around his cojones.)

Score was 17-7 just before the half on a Tua’s 14-yard strike that Trent Sherfield artfully kept in-bounds at the far corner of the end zone -- celebrating by rocking the football like a baby in a cradle. Sherfield has emerged out of nowhere as a reliable third wideout option after Hill and Waddle.

As the party ended, the Dolphins fight song blared and the fans still there helicoptered those white towels over their heads in celebration, waiting for the Dolphins to leave the field to give them one last roaring ovation.

These fans have had a lot of too,little to cheer for the past 20-plus years.

It makes 7-3 on a tailwind of four straight wins feel a little bit magical.

Oh, and that “M-V-P!” chant revived one last time as the last Dolphin to leave the field walked toward the tunnel.

Tua Tagovailoa raised both arms in appreciation and smiled.