Cote: As NFL remembers 9/11, Miami Dolphins try to start mattering again

Greg Cote admin September 11, 2026 0 Comments

Cote: As NFL remembers 9/11, Miami Dolphins try to start mattering again | Opinion

This most unusual Miami Dolphins season in memory — one full of promise and dread — kicks off Sunday at the Las Vegas Raiders as the NFL commemorates the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

All Week 1 games across the league will include tributes to honor the lives lost and recognize survivors, first responders and military families. The message NEVER FORGET will be stenciled on end zones in every stadium.

Sept. 11, 2001, was a Tuesday. Almost 3,000 victims would die in the orchestrated airborne homeland attacks by extremist group al-Qaeda led by Osama bin Laden. The NFL wisely chose not to play the following weekend with the pain so raw and a stunned nation feeling a mixture of anger and mourning.

The Dolphins’ first game back was 12 days later, on Sept. 23, in their home opener at what was then Pro Player Stadium. Miami would beat the Oakland Raiders 18-15 on a last-second diving touchdown by quarterback Jay Fiedler, who grew up in Oceanside, N.Y. about 30 miles from where the first plane hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center.

The huge ovation for that score and victory felt cathartic, necessary, even as it felt irrelevant as the search went on for the hundreds of lost souls still buried in those tons and tons of rubble to the north.

I was at the stadium that day, and it was tough not to cry. Tough for the players, too.

“The Star-Spangled Banner was enough Sunday to drive sports’ toughest macho men to tears,” I wrote in the lead to my column.

Dolphins defensive end Jason Taylor had penned the initials NY and DC onto his wristband, for the cities directly hit by the hatred.

“It was tough to come out, with that pregame ceremony,” he said. “You had to wipe the tears away.”

Defensive tackle Daryl Gardener held a tiny U.S. flag aloft as the anthem played.

“I didn’t wanna play the game, “ he said. “I just wanna go hug somebody.”

For most fans that day, this game and its winning end was the first time they’d smiled since that tragic day. For a minute it took minds off something impossible to forget even a quarter-century later. It may have been the most indelibly dark day in American history since President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas in 1963.

“Seeing all our fans happy for a little while, that means a lot,” said linebacker Zach Thomas after the game.

Once, I was a bit cavalier with certain words in covering sports. I might for example refer to a devastating knee injury as disastrous or catastrophic to a team or season. Since 9/11 and seeing what real catastrophe looked like, felt like, I have not.

As pure coincidence would have it, that 2001 season that began wrapped in national tragedy would commence what remains an endless parade of Dolphins seasons ending in disappointment, with no playoff win. Again. And again.

The Dolphins’ last victory in the postseason was on Dec. 30, 2000. The 2001 season to follow, the year of 9/11, would begin what is an active, NFL-long streak of 25 straight seasons without a playoff win.

The Dolphins and their fans have been wandering a quarter century in football abyss, in national irrelevance, and wonder how the franchise of the Perfect Season, of Don Shula and Dan Marino, could get this way. Mostly, fans wonder how and when the club might get out of this — when new glory days might come at last.

And whether this 2026 season might finally be the beginning of hope even as it starts shrouded in somber remembrance of 9/11.

When I call this a season of promise and dread, I mean the promise of starting over, an overdue reboot with a whole new regime. As for the dread? Rock-bottom expectations in the short-term, with early betting odds indicating Miami may be favored in only one of 17 games. The betting over/under (per DraftKings) is 3 1/2 total victories.

Should Dolfans hope to exceed expectations? Or hope instead to be bad enough for a high enough 2027 draft pick to select (hopefully) the franchise quarterback that, most recently, Ryan Tannehill and then Tua Tagovailoa both failed to be.

The Dolphins’ new regime is led by new head coach Jeff Hafley, new general manager Jon-Eric Sullivan and new starting quarterback Malik Willis. Miami has not started over with all three positions at once since 2008.

It is fair to say longtime owner Stephen Ross, now 86, is taking his last big swing at making the Fins matter again. He took over in 2009 and has failed to field a team to end the playoff-wins drought.

“I know you’ve been frustrated by recent performances of the team,” Ross told fans this offseason. “Well I’m equally frustrated. I want a new generation of winning football games.”

Can the new regime end the embarrassing skid?

Miami returns key, reliable pieces such as running back De’Von Achane, center Aaron Brewer and linebacker Jordyn Brooks — but not nearly enough. Fins have the youngest roster in the league, and will rely on the unproven Willis being really good, on the young players developing fast with a few stars emerging, and on future draft picks stockpiled in the rebuild.

Once again the Dolphins hired a head coach, Hafley, who had never before done that job in the NFL. Last new Fins coach who did have such experience was Dave Wannstedt … who also was the last coach to oversee a playoff win in 2000.

Miami keeps trying and failing to find the next big thing in quarterbacking as in coaching. Can Hafley be it? Law of averages favor the Dolphins, at least, right?

Realistically, the team’s best scenario this season is to see a few potential stars emerge from this youth movement, but also to be bad enough for a very high pick and an answer at QB in the ‘27 draft. That’s even if Willis has a good season.

The playing of the Star-Spangled Banner on Sunday will surely feel a bit different than usual amid the 9/11 remembrance and ‘NEVER FORGET’ emblazoned on the end zones.

For Hafley, it will feel different for that and for another reason. It will be his first regular-season game as an NFL head coach.

Hafley was 22 and beginning his first ever coaching job when 9/11 happened and made the world stop. He was in charge of running backs at tiny Worcester (Massachusetts.) Polytechnic Institute.

Today he is charged with developing players barely older than he was then.

“I just want them to go play free, play as fast as they can, as physical as they can, clear mind, fast feet, and let it rip,” Hafley says.

The new head coach already is anticipating the moment Sunday when it will hit him where his journey has led.

It will be during the Star-Spangled Banner, one full of added emotion for all.

“My guess is it will probably happen during the national anthem,” he said. “That’s when I finally can, like, take a deep breath for a few seconds and just reflect.”

Then the game and season will kick off, and the job of making the Miami Dolphins matter again will begin for real.