The 1997 season was the

Miami Dolphins The Miami Dolphins are a professional American football team based in the Miami metropolitan area. The Dolphins compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC East, East division. The team ...

' 32nd season in the

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(NFL), their 28th overall, their eighth under

general manager A general manager (GM) is an executive who has overall responsibility for managing both the revenue and cost elements of a company's income statement, known as profit & loss (P&L) responsibility. A general manager usually oversees most or all of ...

Eddie Jones and their second under

head coach A head coach, senior coach, or manager is a professional responsible for training and developing athletes within a sports team. This role often has a higher public profile and salary than other coaching positions. In some sports, such as associat ...

Jimmy Johnson. The Dolphins improved upon their previous season's output of 8–8, winning nine games.1997 Miami Dolphins
/ref> Seven of the team's sixteen games were decided by a

field goal A field goal (FG) is a means of scoring in gridiron football. To score a field goal, the team in possession of the ball must place kick, or drop kick, the ball through the goal, i.e., between the uprights and over the crossbar. Consequently, ...

or less. This was also the season where the Dolphins released a new logo and new uniforms with a darker aqua and dark navy drop shadow in numbers. The uniforms and logo lasted until the 2012 season. During Week 3, the Dolphins were defeated by the defending Super Bowl champion

Green Bay Packers The Green Bay Packers are a professional American football team based in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The Packers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC North, North division. They ar ...

for the first time in franchise history. This could be argued as the most cursed of all Dolphins seasons because it offered a turnaround where the

New England Patriots The New England Patriots are a professional American football team based in the Greater Boston area. The Patriots compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC East, East division. The Pa ...

defeated the Dolphins 3 times in the 1997 season, sweeping them. This was the first of five consecutive playoff appearances for the Dolphins. This season saw the Patriots return three Marino interceptions for touchdowns in New England (two of them in the 2nd quarter of the week 13 matchup, and one in the Wild Card matchup where the Patriots defeated Miami 17–3). The Wild Card loss came less than a week after the Dolphins lost to the Patriots 14–12 on ''

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'' in Miami for the AFC East division title. Until

2021 Like the year 2020, 2021 was also heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, due to the emergence of multiple Variants of SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19 variants. The major global rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, which began at the end of 2020, continued ...

, this was the last time the Dolphins swept the

New York Jets The New York Jets are a professional American football team based in the New York metropolitan area. The Jets compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC East, East division. The team p ...

Offseason

NFL draft

Staff

Roster

Schedule

Playoffs

Game summaries

Week 1: vs Indianapolis Colts

Standings

References