I noticed that Hulu recently released a ton of new NFL season highlights.  The Dolphins have about 10 seasons up including the ’72 & ’73 seasons and some classic Marino stuff… But I immediately went to the 2002 highlights.  2002 seems to be the Dolphins season that haunts me the most.  I think part of it was that it was the first NFL season after I turned 21 so it was the first time in my life I could go to sports bars and watch every single game.  Since that season I have only missed one full Dolphins game and I had a friend calling me every few minutes with updates…

But that season was one of the only times since Marino that the Dolphins really had a real shot at greatness.  We were destroying people until Jay Fiedler got hurt against the Broncos in what at the time was one of the best games I had ever seen.  We won with no time on the clock with a 53 yard field goal.  It was amazing. Unfortunately Fiedler broke his thumb and was replaced by the singularly worst QB in Dolphins history Ray Lucas who promptly lost us three straight games.  After that it was up to Wannstdet to over use Ricky until a season later he was hanging out in Australia instead of running over Jets and Patriots.

The 2002 season we had 6 Dolphins defenders in the Pro Bowl along with Ricky on offense, we trounced the AFC Champion Raiders and yet we went 9-7.  The next year we won 10 games and still didn’t make the playoffs. It was disastrous…. and it only got worse…

You watch these highlights and you will see so many players that got away or were never the same again… Of course we lost Ricky but within a few seasons rookie sensation Randy McMichael was gone, Surtain and Madison were cast aside, we let Todd Wade and Morlon Greenwood leave in free agency, Jamie Nails got injured and Chris Chambers never lived up to his potential.  In one of our biggest mistakes we traded Adewale Ogunleye for Marty Booker and a third round draft pick that we immediately traded for a running back who immediately got hurt. Wannstedt mismanaged Rob Konrad until he decided to retire and even solid role players like Travis Minor and Ed Perry were soon gone. And I still miss Olindo Mare if only for his booming kickoffs…

It was sad to see a team that good fall apart so quickly.  We were so spoiled then.  If we had only appreciated what we had in Jay Fiedler and how nice it was to have 10 and 11 win seasons even if we weren’t doing much in the playoffs… Sigh…

Anyway, I am going to just let you watch these highlights.  Try to appreciate them instead of depressing yourself like I just have.  And then look towards the future and hope that Chad Henne is the real deal and that Brandon Marshall’s hips and temper hold up for a few years and that Ricky has a few more 100 yard games in him and that Jason Taylor isn’t a 10th of the player he was in 2002…

Go Dolphins!