Dave Hyde: Game of the year? Dolphins’ day at Baltimore is their biggest in three decades

If you’re a Miami Dolphins fan, you’re confident of at least one thing:

You’ve reached your biggest game in three decades.

Congratulations. But don’t look down. Each game from here could be the bigger than Sunday in Baltimore against the Ravens if the season keeps trending according to the past few months.

This teams keeps answering questions, one after another, Vic Fangio’s fourth-ranked defense after Tua Tagovailoa’s top-scoring offense, to the point Sunday’s game in Baltimore isn’t just waiting. It’s looming. The last day of the year brings the game of the year, though what matters is if the year is the outgoing one or the upcoming one.

The prime rewards of any regular season are on the line: The AFC’s top playoff seed and accompanying bye week in the opening round. That’s the obvious. Baltimore can clinch the top seed with a win Sunday while a Dolphins’ win would allow them to clinch next week against Buffalo.

Then there are the supporting storylines. Can the Dolphins’ top-scoring offense handle Baltimore’s top-scoring defense? Is Tagovailoa (or Tyreek Hill) or Baltimore quarterback Lamar Jackson your league Most Valuable Player?

Finally, can the Dolphins crack the code of a team that’s bullied them in big games dating to the 2001 playoffs that started this 22-year stretch of Dolphins seasons without a postseason win.

“Hit us hard,” linebacker Zach Thomas said after that 20-3 loss. “We’re not good enough.”

Hitting hard remains Baltimore’s idea.

“We play a brand of football that people don’t want to play,” Baltimore linebacker Patrick Queen said this past week. “Everybody wants to be out here [being] cute, playing basketball on grass and stuff, and we [are not] with all that. You can do all that stuff; we’re just going to hit you in the mouth every play, honestly.

“We couldn’t care less about all the pretty stuff you do, gimmick stuff. You still have to line up and play football. You still have to get touched, so that’s our mindset. That’s how we want to come out and just hit people in the mouth.”

If it sounds like he aimed his words at the Dolphins fast-track offense, that’s not quite right. He said that after Baltimore flattened San Francisco on last Monday night, 33-19, in a game that sets up Sunday. First, Baltimore didn’t return home until Tuesday’s breakfast, meaning the Dolphins had two extra days of rest. Thank you, NFL schedule-makers.

San Francisco also provided a tip sheet on what the Ravens’ defense will do against a Kyle Shanahan offense. That helps, since the Dolphins’ Mike McDaniel has a system rooted in his mentor’s offense.

If McDaniel learned anything from that game, it’s probably to spread out Baltimore rather than try to overpower them. That limits their defense. It means less blitzing from a good pass-rushing team where, interesting enough, the defensive line isn’t the crux of the pass rush.

It also means the Dolphin offense has to play better against top teams away from Hard Rock Stadium. It’s not just the big numbers like they didn’t score more than 20 points against Buffalo, Kansas City or Philadelphia this season. It’s in the details like their 10-for-42 on converting third- and fourth-down plays against those teams.

It’s also a defense that has given up eight touchdowns passes in those games against one interception. Now comes Jackson, the Pompano Beach native and Boynton Beach High alum who doesn’t have great playmaking talent around him and maybe doesn’t need it. He’s a one-man offense at times. He goes against Fangio’s fourth-ranked defense. Another strategic storyline.

The teams last met in September of last year and the Dolphins’ 28 fourth-quarter points stunned Baltimore. It was a coming-out party for Tagovailoa and McDaniel. Sunday can be another if the Dolphins take that No. 1 seed.

Don’t think Baltimore has completely forgotten last year’s embarrassment.

Don’t think anyone on the Dolphins was even around for the last time a game meant this much. That was the 1992 season when they advanced to the AFC Championship Game. Every good season thereafter came with a built-in ceiling. This is the kind of day that could say there’s no ceiling for this team.

“We’ve been waiting for the opportunity to play the NFL’s best,” McDaniel said. “As competitors we want to go against the best.”