Their rivalry is hot again, but 30 years ago this week it was volcanic.
Miami Dolphins linebacker Bryan Cox calmly emerged from the tunnel of what was then known as Rich Stadium and raised both of his middle fingers high. He didn’t merely flash his defiance toward Buffalo Bills fans. He kept them outstretched for the length of his stroll onto the field, not caring one wit venerable coach Don Shula was next him.
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“Everybody remembers him walking down that ramp and talking his sign language,” former Dolphins all-decade left tackle Richmond Webb said. “I was right behind him. When he put that up, maaaaaan …”
In that molten moment, Cox ensured his place among Buffalo’s all-time great sports villains and inflamed a disdain that made Bills-Dolphins a blockbuster matchup for decades.
Today’s Bills fans haven’t developed a roiling Dolphins disgust like they harbored back in the day, but the rivalry continues to intensify after two dormant decades.
Once more, Buffalo and Miami are two great teams with something to prove to each other.
Miami will be the betting underdog Sunday in Highmark Stadium, a week after scoring 70 points in its homecoming victory over Denver A&M. Buffalo has won three straight AFC East crowns, with Miami finishing second twice.
“If you need to be motivated for a game like this,” said Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel, “check your pulse or maybe consider a career adjustment.”
Cox had two fingers on Buffalo’s racing pulse in September 1993.
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But first, a primer on Bills-Dolphins history.
Bills founder Ralph Wilson originally wanted to put his franchise in Miami, but local politicians didn’t believe the newfangled AFL would work in the Orange Bowl. The Bills were good right away, winning AFL titles in 1964 and 1965. Upon some Miami civic remorse, the Dolphins launched in 1966.
As the NFL and AFL merged, however, Buffalo deteriorated as Miami thrived. O.J. Simpson set rushing records, yet the Dolphins won 20 straight times, a stretch that lasted the exact length of the 1970s.
As such, Miami didn’t even notice how much Buffalo loathed it. The Dolphins’ biggest rivals into the mid-1980s were the New York Jets.
“It took me a while to figure out,” said Webb, the ninth draft choice in 1990. “When I was a rookie, coming from Texas, I kept wondering, ‘Man, why do the Bills hate us so much?’
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“One day, I was thumbing through the media guide and saw the Dolphins beat the Bills 20 times in a row. I was, like, ‘Ooooooooh, I got it now.'”
Once the USFL folded in 1986 and Jim Kelly reported to Buffalo almost against his will, general manager Bill Polian built an all-star roster.
All of a sudden, Dan Marino no longer was destined to win a Super Bowl. Marino got there in his second season and was obliterating aerial records, but the Bills became an insurmountable hurdle.
“I made sure I identified the Buffalo game and knew I had to be at the top of my physical shape just to survive,” Dolphins Honor Roll linebacker John Offerdahl said. “Other games were not like life and death like it was against Buffalo.”
Buffalo reached its first AFC Championship Game in 1988. That year, Miami lost double-digit games for the first time since 1969.
The Dolphins returned to the playoffs in 1990 (Bills ousted them in the second round), missed in 1991 and finally won the AFC East again in 1992 (Bills rolled them in Miami Gardens in the AFC title game).
Forget the Jets; the Bills were embedded several layers under the Dolphins’ skin.
“I didn’t like any of them,” Honor Roll receiver Mark Clayton said. “I didn’t like their wild, crazy fans playing that theme song. The Bills make you want to shout … Every time they scored. I didn’t like that.”
Said Offerdahl: “Oh, I hated all of them, but you loved to hate them. I really respected their players. They were very talented. I felt like I knew the Bills players almost as much as my own teammates. But the individual matchups were intense. Losses to Buffalo were such pain and agony, physical and emotional.”
From 1987 through 1994, including playoffs, the Bills went 17-4 against the Dolphins. Fans reveled in flipping the dominance Shula, Bob Griese, Larry Csonka, Jim Kiick, Paul Warfield and the No Name Defense experienced throughout 1970s.
The Dolphins-Bills rivalry took a turn in the 1990s with Buffalo reigning supreme. (Rick Stewart / Getty Images)Clayton mentioned Bills fans rocking the team bus and breaking a window after a Dolphins loss. Offerdahl laughed at the memory of Bills fans mooning them and throwing snowballs.
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As such, Cox wasn’t nearly alone in his eruptive behavior when the AFC East rivals met.
Jim Jensen, the Dolphins’ quarterback/fullback/receiver/holder/long snapper/wedge buster, recalled seeing a sign in Rich Stadium that read “Hurt this jerk” with his picture and a line slashed across it.
“Back then, you were allowed to cut block,” Jensen said. “I cut Darryl Talley’s ass, and he was pissed off. He yelled ‘Stop your f—— cutting!’
“I looked at him and saw Cornelius Bennett and Bruce Smith and Shane Conlan. I pointed at each one of them and said, ‘I’ll cut you, I’ll cut you, and I’ll cut you.’ Marino was right there and damn near fell to the ground, laughing.
“The adrenaline was flowing. I don’t know where it came from.”
Cox knew exactly from where his volcanic feelings bubbled.
Not only had the Bills reached the third of their four straight Super Bowls at the Dolphins’ expense eight months prior, but also negative comments Cox made on the radio about the Bills and the City of Buffalo had gotten back to Western New Yorkers, and they got mad. “The Palm Beach Post” reported that over the 1993 offseason McDonald’s sought to produce a commercial featuring Cox alongside Kelly or Bills receiver Andre Reed, but the Bills refused to allow one of their players be shown with Cox.
Cox said Bills fans sent him hate mail filled with slurs and death threats, and the same happened once inside Rich Stadium that fateful afternoon. In an affidavit, Dolphins security director Stu Weinstein said he heard fans yell the N-word and “We will kill you!”
So when Cox emerged from the tunnel, he let those middle fingers fly.
“I saw them giving me obscene gestures, so I gave ’em back,” Cox said after the game. “I ain’t no punk. I’m a man. You don’t respect me as a man, then I don’t got any love for you. To hell with them.”
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The NFL fined him $10,000. Cox claimed the investigation, conducted by the since-fired Polian, was a sham. Cox sued the NFL, seeking no money but an implementation of protocols to protect players from fan abuse. The NFL reduced the fine to $3,000, and he dropped the lawsuit. The NFL also enacted safety protocols but insisted Cox’s litigation had zero to do with it.
Former Dolphins linebacker Bryan Cox was considered a Buffalo sports villain in the 1990s. (Getty Images)Cox was ejected from a December 1995 game in Orchard Park. Unable to keep the Bills from running out the clock in another loss, Cox fought fullback Carwell Gardner. As Cox was escorted off the field, he spat theatrically toward fans.
“It’s just the people of Buffalo,” Cox said then. “You have to understand that. That’s a whole different breed of people, a different breed of species.”
Now the New York Giants’ assistant defensive line coach, Cox declined an interview request about the Bills-Dolphins rivalry.
This week at One Bills Drive, players and coaches praised Highmark Stadium’s frothing atmosphere, an element that might cause problems for those wearing aqua and orange Sunday. Pinpoint quarterback Tua Tagovailoa and safety Jevon Holland each used the adjective “hostile.”
Miami hasn’t won in Orchard Park since Matt Moore outdueled Tyrod Taylor in December 2016.
Since the Bills drafted Josh Allen, they are 9-2 against the Dolphins. One of those defeats ended with former Dolphins tight end Charles Clay dropping the would-be winning TD bomb in the end zone. The other was last year’s narrow defeat as the injury-depleted Bills wilted in the Miami Gardens heat.
But the series has gotten closer than that. Buffalo last season outscored Miami by a combined four points in their three games.
“You know one thing for sure: You are always going to get the other team’s best, all the time, fierce competition, a battle to the end,” Clayton said when asked how this Bills-Dolphins rivalry compares to his day.
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“You have to beat that ass, and may the best team win.”
(Top photo: Getty Images)
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