Dave Hyde: Something to get heated about -- Dolphins lost their 12th-man weather edge this season

For one brief, steaming moment, the Miami Dolphins will be in their historical element in Sunday’s opener. The projected temperature on the field: Roughly, Mercury.

Just how they want it. The climate shock of the September and October subtropics on opponents has historically been the Dolphins 12th man, the “best under-appreciated home-field advantage in sports,’’ as former New York Jets and Buffalo Bills coach Rex Ryan calls it.

But the NFL picked perhaps the most climate-conditioned opponent for the Dolphins in Florida neighbor Jacksonville for Sunday. Then it made this opener the only 1 p.m. home game for the Dolphins until late October.

The trite saying is everyone talks about the weather, but no does anything about it. The NFL did something about it this year when you go over the schedule like Al Roker. They saddled the Dolphins with the biggest climate change in team history.

Four potential games up north in winter weather, when the Dolphins didn’t play one under 50 degrees in the regular season last year? And just this sauna-style opener and another against climate-conditioned Arizona just before Halloween, when they went 4-0 and outscored opponents 174-74 in home 1 p.m. games last September and October?

Some of this change is because the Dolphins are a prime-time television attraction this season (their second and third home games are Thursday and Monday nights). Some of it’s because a common complaint by Dolphins fans is the melting heat (a reason the stadium canopy was built). And …

“It comes up from time to time,” an NFL official said of health and competitive concerns from a Hard Rock Stadium canopy design that keeps Dolphins players in the shade and opponents in the sun.

How could it not? Buffalo pulled 13 dehydrated players from the game two years ago in a 21-19 Dolphins win. Receiver Stefon Diggs said he had “full-body cramps — hamstrings, quads, arms, stomach, everywhere.”

“I don’t think that team was ready for that,’’ said Dolphin safety Jordan Poyer, who then played with Buffalo.

New England coach Bill Belichick brought his team to South Florida four days early to acclimate before the 2022 opener. And lost. Green Bay arrived early, too, in September 1991 and didn’t just lose, but lost when Green Bay quarterback Don Majkowski fumbled in his end zone and the Dolphins recovered for a touchdown.

“My hands were so wet from sweating I couldn’t hold the ball,’’ Makowski said.

You can link Dolphins history with such stories. Pittsburgh coach Chuck Noll often said Don Shula wanted to schedule the Dolphins’ eight regular-season games on the seasons’ first eight Sundays and play them at 1 p.m. in their home white uniforms against opposing dark ones.

“Noll’d then say Shula would run the two-minute offense in the first quarter and wear out the defense by half,’’ said Mike Westhoff, the long-time Dolphins special-teams coach now in Denver. “There’s some truth to that.

“I remember a game against Minnesota. They were in all purple, we were in white and Marino was running the two-minute offense in the first half, and they were done.”

“It may be uncomfortable for us,’’ guard Bob Kuechenberg said of the heat, “but it will kill them.”

It wasn’t just the Dolphins. Just before kickoff during his University of Miami days in the 1980s, Jimmy Johnson had the public-address announcer broadcast the temperature in the Orange Bowl and the humidity in the 90s. Didn’t matter if that was the true humidity. He wanted that overheated seed planted to any opponent listening.

For as much made about the Dolphins going to cold-weather games, Poyer carried most players’ thoughts in saying: “I’ve always thought that the heat was harder to play in than the cold, especially if you’re not used to it.”

“I think as you’ve gone through training camp and you get used to this heat, it’s definitely, to me, I feel more of an advantage than it would be going to play in the cold. There are ways I feel like playing in the cold that you can stay warm. Playing in the heat, you can’t run from it. It’s going to be hot the whole time.”

The Dolphins are 6-1 in Mike McDaniel’s two years in the high heat of 1 p.m. September and October kickoffs. Sunday’s opener against Jacksonville and the Oct. 27 game against Arizona don’t come with an edge the Weather Channel could appreciate.

Football fever, South Florida style. It’s different this season.

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