'We've still got a lot of games left.' One thing is for sure: the Dolphins have hope.

MIAMI — Hope is a funny thing.

At its best, hope can be a unifying, powerful force for change. At its worst, hope can lead to delusion. It might not mean much to Miami Dolphins fans across the globe but one thing’s certainly true: the team has hope.

“You can just feel something is in the air,” Alec Ingold said Monday. “And I can’t put my finger on it, but it’s improvement. It’s development. You watch our tape from Week 2 to last week – there are guys that have made mistakes, have fixed it, have corrected it and have improved on it and you can feel that. You get a sense of this organization, this team coming together through a 2-5 start that nobody thought was going to happen and you sound crazy talking about it when you’re 2-5, but the only way is through.”

In the NFL, Mondays often come with a lot stress amid the long film sessions – especially when a team has only won one out of their last five. This Monday was likely no different. Although Tua Tagovailoa’s return certainly sparked the offense for most of the game, the Dolphins blew a 10-point lead Sunday against the Arizona Cardinals for the second straight week. Still, Miami has hope.

“I believe in this team, I believe in the work ethic and the talent that we have here,” Austin Jackson said Monday. ”Talent means nothing without hard work and through this situation where we haven’t won the games that we wanted to, I’ve seen guys pick up their work ethic, I’ve seen guys not complain, not point the finger, stuff like that. It just kind of tells me we got a bunch of people ready to win and do the right things to win.”

And that’s a good thing. Football is a dangerous game. It’s even more dangerous if you’re not giving 100 percent. Even better: there’s 10 weeks left. Crazier things have happened. Let’s not forget that some of the very players on this Dolphins team made the incredible seven game win streak after starting the 2021 season 1-7.

“It’s not too late,” said Emmanuel Ogbah, one of the members of that 2021 squad. “We’ve still got a lot of games left to be played. We got a divisional opponent coming up. We’ve got to go out there and handle business.”

As Tua Tagovailoa said after the Cardinals loss, this Dolphins team could certainly be considered more talented than that of 2021.

“We didn’t have half the guys that we have – and no disrespect to my other teammates – but I’m talking about the talent that we have here, we didn’t have half that talent however many years ago,” Tagovailoa said Sunday. “So to give that group respect, we won the next [seven] games and I’m not saying we’re going to do that or whatnot, but it is possible. Anything’s possible.”

A matchup with the Buffalo Bills looms on the horizon. The Dolphins know the narrative, too. How Josh Allen is 11-2 against Miami. How Allen is undefeated at home against Miami. How the Bills currently have a four-game win streak against Miami. All of it.

“If you want to do anything in this league, generally you can’t skip over the much-mandated step of winning your division,” coach Mike McDaniel said ahead of the first Bills game. “There is one team that has won the division consecutive years that you can say that they, by de facto, own the division until somebody takes it from them.”

The circumstances will certainly be different on Sunday. Miami will hopefully have a full stable of running backs as Raheem Mostert sat out during the first matchup. Odell Beckham Jr. will also be available. The Dolphins will also have several weeks of gameplay under their belt, a necessity especially considering the subtle nuances of an offense that had one of its better performances against the Cardinals in spite of the outcome.

“It felt better, it felt more rhythmic,” Terron Armstead said Sunday. “We were able to get some first downs, some good drives going, good momentum.“

Injuries to defensive tackle Zach Sieler, safety Jevón Holland and nickel cornerback Kader Kohou will certainly be worth monitoring this week. The defense, which already lost Jaelan Phillips to season-ending knee injury and is still without Bradley Chub as he recovers from a knee injury, cannot afford any more losses. Though the unit certainly contained the Cardinals running game, holding Arizona to less than 100 rushing yards for the first time this season, they were gashed through the air as Kyler Murray threw for 307 yards and two touchdowns.

The Dolphins will certainly have a lot of questions to answer in the upcoming weeks. But at 2-5, they still haven’t even played half of their games. Which is why hope – even when it warps into delusion – is never necessarily a bad thing. It’s just sometimes the only thing.

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