By Mark La Monica
Damn you, Matt Stover! And Cleo Lemon! And Greg Camarillo.
Stover's field goal drifted left of the goal post. Lemon completed a pass over the middle to Camarillo. Camarillo outran the Ravens' defense and scored a touchdown in overtime as the Miami Dolphins ended its run at negative perfection with a 22-16 win over Baltimore.
We're happy for the Dolphins in the sense that they didn't go defeated this season (and put the Jets back in the running for the No. 1 draft pick). We just wished it happened one week later against the Patriots.
That would have added legitimacy to my Don Shula Scenario.
The Don Shula Scenario would have read like this: Dolphins owner Wayne Huizenga fires Cam Cameron, the first-year head coach who led the Dolphins to an 0-14 start, and replaces him with Don Shula for a one-game stint as coach in an effort to derail the 14-0 Patriots.
Think about it: What better way to draw a huge national audience for the game? Shula was the first and last coach to guide an NFL team through an undefeated season. The Patriots are 14-0 and can't be stopped. The 1985 Chicago Bears were 12-0 and couldn't be stopped . . . until they played the Shula-coached Dolphins.
Shula will be at the game anyway with the rest of the 1972 Dolphins, waiting to pop the champagne and celebrate as the only undefeated team in history. Why not put a headset on him and give him a play sheet?
But it's highly improbable that Cameron will get canned now that his Dolphins are on a win streak. I still think the Don Shula Scenario has value, though. But at 1-13, it's not as juicy a story.