This was the matchup immediately circled on the Miami Dolphins’ schedule once they completed the late June trade with the Pittsburgh Steelers.
The two teams that completed the blockbuster deal within a month of training camp opening finally meet next week in a Monday night matchup in Pittsburgh.
To recap: The Dolphins had a couple of major roster checklist tasks still pending deep into the past offseason with key members of the 2024 squad. They had to find a trade partner to take former All-Pro cornerback Jalen Ramsey, whose relationship with the team had deteriorated, and come to some resolution with tight end Jonnu Smith as he either wanted a contract extension with Miami or wanted out.
The Steelers emerged as a way to handle both with one move. Pittsburgh would take both Ramsey and Smith while sending safety Minkah Fitzpatrick back to Miami, where he was selected as a first-round pick in the 2018 draft. There was also a pick swap involved, with the Dolphins turning a 2027 seventh-round selection into a fifth-rounder that year.
Miami appears to have turned out OK from the deal, orchestrated by former general manager Chris Grier, who was fired at the end of October with the team 2-7. The Dolphins, though, haven’t lost again since.
The season didn’t start out looking that way, however. In Week 1, while Miami was pummeled, 33-8, against the Indianapolis Colts, Smith caught a touchdown in a Steelers win over the New York Jets and Ramsey made the game-deciding play, jarring a ball loose against wide receiver Garrett Wilson to break up a fourth-down pass attempt.
With a greater sample size now of 13 games with the Steelers, Ramsey has a passer rating against of 112, by far his career worst. He is allowing 70 percent of passes thrown his way to be completed. He does have an interception, six pass breakups and two sacks in Pittsburgh.
Has he really been missed in Miami?
Compare his passer rating surrendered to Dolphins cornerback Rasul Douglas, signed two weeks before the start of the season as training camp and the preseason had wrapped up. Douglas is allowing a passer rating of 71.5. He also now has interceptions in back-to-back games.
Fitzpatrick, the defensive back the Dolphins received directly from the Steelers in the trade, has been a versatile piece in Miami’s secondary, using his flexibility to contribute as a nickel covering the slot. The passer rating against him is 77.4, and he has made an array of game-changing plays from fourth-down breakups to a forced fumble, two recovered and even the 2-point conversion returned the other way in the win over the New Orleans Saints Nov. 30.
Smith, thought to be a key component to a passing game led by quarterback Aaron Rodgers and offensive coordinator Arthur Smith, has only had 30 receptions for 190 yards and two touchdowns. Darren Waller has twice as many touchdown catches for the Dolphins, despite missing seven games and often being a forgotten target when the team gets away from throwing him the ball.
Due to a four-game winning streak and victories in five of the past six games, Miami has surged to a 6-7 record and is just one game off of the pace the Steelers (7-6) are on.
It was once unfathomable for the two teams to possess comparable records heading into the matchup. When the Dolphins were 1-6, the Steelers were 4-2. Pittsburgh is back on top of the AFC North after winning a divisional rivalry game with the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday, but the Steelers had momentarily surrendered that division lead before back-to-back losses for Baltimore.
The Dolphins have experienced a midseason turnaround, one that seemed realistic once they handled the Buffalo Bills, 30-13, on Nov. 9. The path then was clear to get to 6-7 with games against the struggling Washington Commanders, Saints and New York Jets, plus a bye week that followed the team’s trek to Madrid for the win over the Commanders.
While the Dolphins’ run has inserted them into “in the hunt” graphics of the playoff race, now two games back of the final wild-card spot, the surge is yet to amount to much in terms of making postseason prospects realistic.
According to The Athletic’s playoff predictor, Miami’s chances of qualifying for the playoffs are still less than 1 percent.
Much of that is based on the unlikelihood the Dolphins win out over the final four games — with the Cincinnati Bengals, Tampa Bay Buccaneers and New England Patriots after Monday in Pittsburgh. If Miami does win out, the probability jumps up to 16 percent, meaning a lot of help is still needed.
This Monday night’s game between the Los Angeles Chargers and Philadelphia Eagles creates a swing result in those probabilities. A Chargers win drops them to 10 percent, while an Eagles win boosts the odds to 22 percent.