How bad are the Miami Dolphins? They can't even lose properly when the moment calls for it.
The Dolphins' decisive victory over the Kansas City Chiefs finally gave their fans something to cheer about during the 2011 season. Their last win came almost a year prior, in December of 2010 against the New York Jets.
Unfortunately for the significant faction of Dolphins fans clamoring for the team to draft Stanford QB Andrew Luck next April, Miami might have missed out on its chance to do so thanks to Sunday's win.
The win removed Miami from the ranks of the winless, and only one team in the NFL is without a win this season: the Indianapolis Colts. And it does not look like the Colts will be winning anything in the near future.
Indianapolis, still without franchise quarterback Peyton Manning, fell 31-7 to Atlanta on Sunday, as both Curtis Painter and Dan Orlovsky threw passes for the Colts in Manning's place. Matt Moore may be no Dan Marino, but compared to Painter and Orlovsky, he at least looks like a competent quarterback.
Unless the Colts get lucky in their upcoming games against 2-6 Carolina and 2-6 Jacksonville (whom they will play twice), they are all but assured of finishing the 2012 season winless and being awarded the first pick in the NFL Draft.
As for the Dolphins, fans in South Florida may as well savor Sunday's win while they still can. The 3-5 Redskins visit Sun Life Stadium in one week, and that may be the only winnable game left on Miami's schedule.
The Dolphins have four games against their AFC East rivals Buffalo, New York and New England, as well as bouts with the Philadelphia Eagles, Dallas Cowboys and Oakland Raiders.
So Miami could very well finish 1-15 and still get shut out of the Andrew Luck sweepstakes. Dolfans better hope that either of the other two top quarterbacks available in the 2012 draft - Oklahoma's Landry Jones and USC's Matt Barkley - can carry a ballclub.
If not, they may eventually look at Sunday's win as one of the low points in team history.
