Still With You...

When I was a kid, playing football in the yard in my Miami Dolphins tracksuit, it was all about Marino.

Marino took the snap, Marino dropped back and Marino either handed it off to Marino or threw a long bomb down the field to Marino who would score an incredible 75 yd touchdown with a one handed catch.

And when I got a little older and was working hard in school, I didn’t have dreams of playing in the NFL, I had dreams of playing Middle Linebacker for the Miami Dolphins.

Back then I used to take it for granted that the Dolphins would make it to the playoffs, but now those glory days are gone. We are 0-13 and have little hope in sight. The media have drawn the knives for Cameron and the fans are fuming. 0-16 is a real possibility.

When you take football as seriously as I do, watching your team lose every week can be a horrible experience. Every Sunday has left me feeling sick to the stomach and depressed beyond consoling. It takes me a full week to recover. I still get a little optimistic on a Sunday morning, but only to see the Dolphins crushed again. It’s terrible.

But it’s ok.

I understand that everything in the NFL is cyclical and that there is a ‘worst’ team in every season, this just happens to be our turn. I understand that, given time, the Dolphins will rebuild. They will turn it around.

So while some fans find it too much and turn away, while some reporters fill their papers with bile and call for everybody’s head, know that I’m still with you Dolphins, for better or worse.

And if you go 0-16 this year and then go 0-16 the year after that, I’ll still be with you. ‘Cause I’m a Miami Dolphins fan, always have been, always will be and if you go through tough times, then I go through them with you.

So when it’s -200° in Foxborough and we’re down 75-0 to the Patriots in the forth quarter and all the fly-by-night, glory seeking, lightweight Pats fans have gone home to their warm beds, you can look up and through the blizzard and the fog you’ll see one fan still standing. He’ll be cheering every first down you make and screaming ‘D-Fense’ ‘til his lungs burst. And he won’t leave the stands ‘til you leave the field.

And that fan will be me. I will never desert my team just because times are tough.

So play with heart Dolphins, play with pride. Fight for every inch and remember, I’m pulling for you.

And when the glory days return and Dolphin Stadium is filled with bandwagon jumpers, I’ll be there with a smile on my face and a beer in my hand. And I’ll be cheering, as always. Cheering to the bitter end.