The Bears and Dolphins don’t meet very often, but it usually goes the Dolphins way when they do. Miami leads the all-time series 9-4 and has won four of the five meetings between the two on this side of the millennium, with the Bears only victory coming 12 years ago in 2010.
Then there’s the whole 1985 thing, where the Dolphins spoiled an undefeated regular season for the Bears with a 38-24 victory in December of ’85. The Bears would get the last laugh that season, but it still stings knowing that Miami protected their 1972 perfect season by stealing one from the Bears in Week 13.
For today’s Bears Rewind, we’re going to take a ride in the Wayback machine and venture into the 90s when Dan Marino led the Dolphins, and the Bears were pretty bad. Not on this night, though.
In Week 9 of the 1997 NFL season, the Bears were sitting at 0-7, and the Dolphins were 5-2, and as if things couldn’t get more intimidating for Dave Wannstedt and the Bears, they would have to wait one more day to take on the Dolphins on Monday Night Football due to the World Series.
You’ll remember back then, the Dolphins and Marlins shared Pro Player Stadium in Miami, so when Cleveland beat the Marlins in Game 6 on Saturday night in Miami, the Bears-Dolphins game was bumped to Monday so that Game 7 of the World Series could be played at Pro Player Stadium on Sunday.
When they did play the game, the Bears and Dolphins were the second fiddles on ABC’s Monday Night Football to the regularly scheduled Packers-Patriots contest. The Wonkiness only continued to ensue from there. Dan Marino and the Dolphins would struggle in the first half against the winless Bears.
Raymont Harris opened the scoring with a one-yard score, and after scoring a game-tying touchdown and getting the ball back, Dan Marino fumbled out of his end zone for a safety to give the Bears the ball and, at one point, a 15-7 lead.
The lead wouldn’t last long, though, as Marino and the Dolphins would rattle off three straight touchdown drives late in the third quarter and into the fourth to take a 33-18 lead with 7:26 to play. Then the wackiness returned, with the Bears scoring 15 unanswered points in the final seven-plus minutes and then kicking a game-winning field goal in overtime.
The shocking come-from-behind victory ended the Bears’ winless season and shocked the national landscape with Jimmie Johnson’s Dolphins dropping an embarrassing one in primetime.
Check out the highlights here: