Miami Dolphins: Bye Week a Blessing Before Monday Night Football

We're now five weeks into the 2011 season, and the Miami Dolphins are only three and a half games out of the lead.

Most fans got their wish and Chad Henne is out as starting quarterback.

Hooray?

The team figured out a way in which no one can take the blame: If they all play bad, brilliant. Kudos to them.

Of course, these are jokes, but it is not funny knowing that Miami has a farce of a football team.

They set up their city for disappointment week after week through the absolute worst case of lack-of-concentration-itis. It may sound a silly disease to most, but the Dolphins have a deadly and serious case of it, and fans must come to recognize their team's affliction.

Dropped passes, missed coverages, and 22 cutbacks per run (shaking my proverbial head), amount to heartbreak losses and a myriad objects thrown at my wall.

The Dolphins have a will to win—watch the games and see for yourself—but they consistently play down to their opponents and never manage to put together 60 minutes of effective football.

This has been the most enduring theme of Fins football for the past decade. Maybe if the press laid off of them, and everyone just let the Dolphins "play the game" then they would play to their potential.

Maybe if the Dolphins played in a bubble, if they had no salary, if Nick Saban could pound X's and O's, rendering them gridiron animals and if any team member could feel an ounce of support, let alone the head coach and the quarterback: then maybe they'd win.

But, that's not going to happen.

The Dolphins have 12 remaining games on their schedule, beginning with those godforsaken New York Jets.

If they want to be a good football team, it's not going to come via Andrew Luck, Redeemer of Dolfans Everywhere. It's going to come through concentration and the willingness to succeed.

It's going to come through catching those 10 yard out routes, sticking to that cover-two assignment and hitting the hole like your rookie counterpart.

The Fins should lose games to better teams, but not to themselves. And until they play a full game, they will never know where their true problems lie.

Focus is the lynchpin to any good team.

If one player can trust another player to get his job done, then that team will see immediate results. Both the Jets and the Dolphins are desperately seeking a win (one to stay relevant and the other to justify a big team hug), and are seriously lacking in team cohesion.

But, bitter rivals always turn it up a notch, and it's no coincidence that the two are often featured on primetime television. The Fins have the advantage of a bye week, but have the supreme disadvantage of not having won a game.

Hopefully, they got their stuff together, and can show Miami fans some good football.

Fins fans are fickle, frustrated and searching for any reason to be happy right now (hence, "Suck for Luck").

It's tough being dubbed a "walk-over" against the Buffalo Bills, who are admittedly doing quite well. But, fans and players alike have a right to be angry when they know the team is losing focus on the one day that counts: game day.

Maybe the ownership could tone down the glamour surrounding Sundays at Sun Life and could perhaps play the Fight Song at least once.

Until then, I'll keep my Fin up... and perhaps move it to the left and the right.