Now that the Dolphins are officially out of the playoff hunt we can start looking forward to the future. After we beat the Pats next week and before the draft one big item needs to be talked about… the new logo. Mike Dee promised to make an announcement on the new logo soon and I know the Dolphins nation is very worried. There has been so much speculation and concern, but let’s talk about what we know for sure.

During the Miami Dolphins Web Weekend Mike Dee talked to a group of Dolphins webmasters about the logo. He gave us three bits of information:

1. The new logo would be a mix of modern and retro.
2. He implied that navy would still be an accent color.
3. He showed the logo to Dan Marino, Bob Griese and Nat Moore and they all loved it.

Recently I was presented with some new information about the logo. If I hadn’t been in the exact place and time this would have never come together. The first bit of information is that a Dolphins fan and friend of mine has been showing off this logo that he swore was a sketch of a design for what would become the Dolphins helmet. I didn’t put too much stock in it because it didn’t look anything like any logo I had seen and the Dolphin looked a bit too much like a whale.

Fast forward to last Sunday and I was talking to a friend who happens to work with Nike and was bragging about how they had seen the new uniforms and logo. I don’t want to say too much but their job requires seeing new uniforms well in advance of most people. They of course have to sign a non-disclosure agreement and couldn’t tell me anything except that they didn’t love the logo because the Dolphin looked too much like a whale. That seemed like too much of a coincidence and my friend who had showed me the logo happened to be standing right there. He showed my Nike source the photo on his phone and they flipped out. “How did you get that?!” the source asked. Evidently the logo he has had this whole time is “very very close” to the new logo.

Today I saw my friend again and asked to see the logo again. I took a photo of his phone with my phone and although it’s a terrible picture I am VERY confident that this is a rough draft of the logo. If you look carefully the fins are navy and there are sort of navy accents on the Dolphin. This is a sketch but like I said, I am 95% sure the Dolphins new logo is going to look a lot like the photo above.

Other bits of information I got from my source is that the Dolphins will not have an orange jersey next year and that the Vikings new uniforms are retro and “awesome”. The  source seemed to like our uniforms more than the logo and hinted that they were retro, but wouldn’t say much more than that.

Now as a very loyal Dolphins fan I was conflicted about leaking what I believe to be the new logo, but I don’t think any news source would take my friend of a friend story seriously and I don’t think many people will pick up on this. But when the logo comes out I can point to this and say that DolfansNYC broke the logo first! Then again there is a small chance I am totally wrong too. So I guess we will just have to wait and see.

Lastly, I don’t hate the logo. I am a big fan of the stupid helmet on the Dolphin so I will miss that, and yeah it looks a lot like a whale, but it could be a lot worse. I am still pretty excited to see the new uniforms that my source seemed to think would be revealed at the NFL Draft. Ross had to put his stamp on this team and I don’t hate the logo and I am sure five years down the road no matter what the logo looks like we will still all love it. Go Dolphins!

When Michelle and I started DolfansNYC we knew there were opportunities to make money doing it, but both of us felt the exact same way. We didn’t want to bring money into the equation because we are doing this for the love of the Miami Dolphins. We never even really had a conversation about it but we knew we would donate all of the money we made to charity.

Since 2009 we have been making yearly donations to both The Miami Dolphins Foundation and a local charity the I Will Foundation. The last two years we have also made donations to Ride DCC, the Dolphins Cycling Challenge. It’s been great to be able to give back, but this year has been really special.

Aside from the three charities I mentioned we also made a small donation to a breast cancer foundation and did a big online fundraiser for Hurricane Sandy relief. Hurricane Sandy hit DolfansNYC hard and we wanted to do something to help out. Originally we were raising money for the Red Cross but after I took a trip out to the Rockaways, Roxbury and Breezy Point we decided to donate the money instead to Habitat For Humanity. Almost everyone we talked to said they were doing the most good in the area. We are also going take another $500 and donate it to a yet to be named Rockaways specific charity in honor of one of our most committed DolfansNYC members Bryan who had thousands of dollars of damage done to his place including losing 90% of his Dolphins memorabilia.

In 2012 we raised over $4000 for charity and here are the breakdowns of where the money went:

• $2000 to Habitat For Humanity
• $1000 to The Miami Dolphins Foundation
• $500 to a yet to be named Sandy relief charity
• $300 to the I Will Foundation
• $300 to Ride DCC
• $50 to a breast cancer charity

On top of all that money raised we also raised enough to buy a new order of DolfansNYC shirts, pay for some food/supplies for our Jets tailgate and pay for some other random club costs. It was a great year despite the Dolphins play on the field and we hope this is a new standard that we can reach every year. Thanks so much everyone! Go Dolphins!

Ps. If you donated do the online Sandy Fundraiser I am going to be sending your prizes out soon. You should have them by Christmas!

The Miami Dolphins are about due a victory of the Patriots – in the last 4 meetings between the two teams, the Patriots are 4-0. This simply will not do. They are travelling to our turf; and if what I am hearing around the interwebs is true, then home field advantage is unlikely to be in effect, as it seems that they will have just as many of their supporters present, if not more. One report I read suggested that the Dolphins’ offense have been practicing with loud crowd noise blaring away this week in preparation for just that scenario. It’s embarrassing but it seems that that’s just the way it is.

The Brady-lead Patriots are just as good as they have ever been with the sixth round pick out of Michigan at the helm. Since taking over the mantle, Brady has made New England a perennial playoff team and a force within the AFC and the AFC East. He is to Patriots football what Marino was to Dolphins football. They will sure miss him when he is gone. Look, this isn’t me just paying lip service to the guy – the fact of the matter is that the Patriots’ success hinges on Brady. The facts are that this Sunday we face a team that is 1st in scoring, 1st in offensive yards and 4th in passing yards, on the shoulders of the QB. Brady is putting together another MVP-calibre season having thrown just the 3 interceptions and currently holding a QB rating of 105.2. They are good, but Brady is the cog in the machine that keeps this team ticking over so nicely, disrupt his game and the whole thing kinda doesn’t work so well. Yeah, the running game currently ranks 6th in the league, but make no mistake, many of those are Brady’s yards as as well, he just now has a running back who can make the most of a great passing game.

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