MADRID — Miami Dolphins edge defender Bradley Chubb will remember going out to eat paellas — or seafood platters — with teammates.
Coach Mike McDaniel, a man of a simpler palate, just enjoyed the extraordinary bread he found when he strolled Madrid on Friday night.
But the greatest memory of all for the team from its week in Spain will be Sunday’s 16-13 win, an overtime thriller against the Washington Commanders.
A tight decision between teams that entered 3-7 normally doesn’t do much to move the needle for a squad, but what’s unique about this victory is it validated the investment into each other Dolphins players and coaches made through the travel abroad, practices in a foreign country and a game on the international platform.
“Yeah, it’s a big deal,” McDaniel said of the team-building that occurred in Spain. “I think our team has done a great job of working through adversity, but there comes a point where you have to push that into success.
“I think it’s incredibly empowering to a locker room of guys that have had to stand on their own and believe in themselves while a lot of people didn’t. You take that to a team flight that should have some energy in it, and then you go back to work. I think guys are going to be very excited to do so.”
Fans who would prefer the team tanks for a better draft pick, made by a new general manager whether it’s an outside hire or interim Champ Kelly retaining the permanent role, may be disappointed by two consecutive wins.
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At 4-7, the Dolphins are now 2 ½ games ahead of the Tennessee Titans for the No. 1 pick and 2 ½ games back of the Jacksonville Jaguars for the final wild-card spot in the AFC.
But McDaniel’s job, especially if he wants to keep it, is not to appease fans who’d prefer to see his demise. And one thing Kelly is prioritizing in the weeks he has in his elevated role is to operate as well as he can with McDaniel, to help him win down the stretch.
Besides, the team is trending up. Following a 30-13 win Nov. 9 against the Buffalo Bills, the Dolphins would’ve probably liked to defeat the struggling, banged-up Commanders just as convincingly, but now they’ve experienced winning a tight game that came down to the wire.
They take that into a bye week, much needed after 11 consecutive weeks of football, with international travel to boot, on the back end of that stretch. On the other side of the bye are the New Orleans Saints (2-8) at home and the New York Jets (2-8) in New Jersey.
That path to 6-7 going into the mid-December Monday night game in Pittsburgh against the Steelers looks more and more realistic and could get Miami into the “in the hunt” section of playoff picture graphics.
“They fought for belief, and now they’ve been awarded real belief based on performance and results,” McDaniel said. “We’ll be excited to play our next game. We need the time off. We definitely wish we could play, our locker room would probably want to play (Monday), even though they’re a little beat up, but we’ll take the rest and get back to preparing our style of football so that we can continue to have products like this on Sunday.”
The Dolphins played their part for the league as a whole in expanding the sport into a country that never had an NFL game played on its soil.
What better way for the league to find common ground with Spanish sport aficionados than when Dolphins cornerback Jack Jones, after tilting the game with his interception to start overtime, did the famous celebration of Portuguese soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo. Ronaldo starred for Real Madrid for a decade, and the Dolphins and Commanders were playing in the famed soccer club’s home, Santiago Bernabéu Stadium.
“Anytime you’ve got a chance to get out of the country and expand the game — it’s the first game out here in Madrid — it’s been amazing,” said Chubb, who greeted a large auditorium of media members in Spanish after the game. “Just the culture, the food, the paellas we had. Everything’s been amazing. I’m looking forward to this in the future, if we could do this again.”
Spanish newstands Monday morning were filled with front-page photos and headlines over how Madrid’s storied venue shined and the successful show the NFL put on — all mentioning the Dolphins were victorious in the first game played in Spain.
