Five days from now, the Miami Dolphins will attempt to complete the greatest single-season turnaround in NFL history.  From 1-15 to 11-5.  From worst to first.  From the blooper reel, to the highlight reels.  And, in true poetic justice, the Dolphins most hated rival, their nemesis, their arch enemy, stands in the way of history.  The New York Jets, who defeated this very same Dolphins team almost 4 months ago, will look to emerge victorious once again.  But this isn't the same Dolphins team of 4 months ago...

Historically, this is one of the most intense rivalries in all of sports.  While the Jets own the overall series record, with a mark of 46-39-1, the Dolphins have had their share of moments.  The "Mud Bowl" in the '82 playoffs, which Miami won 14-0, was the first and only postseason meeting between these two teams.  In '85, Mark Duper had the game of his life (217 yards) after being inactive for weeks with a broken leg.  He caught a 50 TD pass from Marino to win that game in the final minute.  In '86, Marino and the Dolphins demolished the Jets 45-3 in the second meeting of the season, on Monday Night Football, no less.  And of course, we all remember the Fake Spike play, in 1994, when Marino hit Mark Ingram in the end zone for the game-winning touchdown. 

The past few years, however, have seen Miami struggle to find a "W" against their hated rival, falling in the last 5 meetings, and 8 of the last 9 times these teams have faced off.  That run includes the game earlier this season, in the first week of September.  But that brings me back to the beginning of this piece.  The team we saw fail in a close, hard-fought contest, has done a lot of growing and maturing since then.  Chad Pennington, who in the first meeting was barely a month into his tenure with the Dolphins, has become the unquestioned leader of a playoff contender, and a viable MVP candidate, if not the favorite.  The running game, which only managed to gain 49 yards in the first meeting, has become a staple of a very powerful offense.  The defense, which allowed 112 yards back in Week 1, has shut down nearly everyone else they've faced since that day.  The secondary, which famously was nowhere to be found on a 4th and long heave-ho, has become one of the strengths of the team.  And the coaching staff, together for their first game and still trying to get the players to buy into everything they were preaching, is now one of the best in football, and is led by the front-runner in the Coach of the Year balloting, Tony Sparano. 

Meanwhile, as the Dolphins have become one of the hottest teams in the league, ripping off 8 of their last 9, and 4 straight road games, the Jets have swooned.  After defeating New England and Tennessee in back to back weeks, and taking total control of the division at 8-3, they've lost 3 of 4, with the lone win coming on a gift from the Boneheaded Buffalo Bills.  Now, they sit behind the 8-ball, with a lame duck coach and a soon-to-be-retired QB, hoping for help as they approach this game Sunday.  And storylines abound for this one...

With a win, the Jets could salvage their season, rescue themselves from this late season collapse, and possibly get back into the playoffs.  But this game means so much more for this Dolphins team.  Consider: a win puts them into the playoffs for the first time since the 2001 season, 7 seasons ago.  A win secures them a Division Championship for the first time since the 2000 season, 8 long seasons ago.  A win caps off the greatest single-season turnaround in league history, and would mark the first time a 1-15 team made the playoffs the very next season.  But look deeper into this game...

Look at what this game will mean for Bill Parcells.  It would be his greatest franchise overhaul of his illustrious career, and it would come against a team that he performed similar magic for a decade ago.  What about Tony Sparano?  It would put him in the playoffs in his first year as a Head Coach, with a team no "expert" expected to make any noise, and would all but lock up the Coach of the Year honor for him.  For the holdovers from last year's team, this is the ultimate redemption, going from laughing stock to contender - guys like Joey Porter, Ronnie Brown, Vonnie Holliday, and all of the other Dolphins veterans who survived last season and stuck around to see this through.  But this win won't mean more to anybody else, than it will for Chad Pennington.  We all know the story, and it's been heavily discussed already this week.  Pennington, discarded by the Jets in favor of Favre, now has a chance to send his replacement and his old team home for the playoffs, while he proves his worth in the postseason.  He may downplay the significance, and talk about how he doesn't think about revenge, but it is on his mind, and he will be more focused because of it.  If he was ever going to have a career-defining game, this would be the time.

Vince Lombardi once said, "Winning isn't everything, but the will to win is everything."  The teams can watch all the film in the world leading up to this game.  They can game plan until their brains shut down.  They can strategize and draw up plays and schemes right up until kickoff, but it all means nothing without the will and determination to win.  Which muscle is the most crucial to success in football?  The Heart.  If you have heart, you can achieve success.  This game will come down to, very simply, who wants it more.  Who has a stronger will and bigger heart.  And the team that has proven, week in and week out, that they have the biggest hearts of them all, are the Miami Dolphins.  After watching this team drag themselves to 10 victories on nothing but grit and desire, I can say without a shadow of a doubt, that they will leave New York victorious.  Nobody wants it more than they do, and that's all that counts.

This is what it's all about.