Miami Dolphins players knew how important the Bills game was

Written by Matthew Cannata at 9:00 AM EST | Twitter: @PhinManiacs

Coming into the game on Thursday night against the Buffalo Bills, the Miami Dolphins knew that this was a must-win game. After they defeated the Bills 22-9, they spoke of how relieved and exited they were that they were still in the playoff race and that they had finally beaten the Bills after losing the past three games to them.

“I thought it was a good team win. I thought that our defense played well. We didn’t allow any touchdowns. I thought we played very well in the red zone. I thought we moved the ball well on offense, but in the first half obviously we had a giveaway and we didn’t execute great down in the red zone, but it was a good team win. We talked to the guys in the morning. We had a team meeting this morning. We talked to them at the beginning of the week. We’re going to have to step up. We’re playing a home game against an AFC rival, it’s the middle of November, and you have to start playing good football this time of year.”

Brandon Gibson, who had a touchdown reception said that losing important division games is part of football and pointed out the NFC West, where they all beat up on each other. However, he also said that every division game is valuable and they go out and try to win each and every game. Lamar Miller said it felt good and that they need to keep on going out and taking one game at a time with their focus now moving to the Denver Broncos. Brent Grimes, who shadowed Sammy Watkins most of the night, only allowed 32 yards. Grimes was more upbeat about the victory and was proud of his teammates.

“That was a big game, a division game in this league – you know how big they are – playoff implications and all that. It was a huge win for us. We’re happy about it. I know they’re hurting. That’s a good team over there. We knew we were coming into a tough game. We’re proud of how we played today.”

Despite being a rookie, Jarvis Landry knew the importance of the game and knew that dropping to 5-5 would hurt their chances of making the playoffs so he wanted to be sure he did everything he could do to help his team.

“Yeah. It’s critical. It’s critical. We never plan to lose a game, you know? If it was that way then we’ll be 16-0. But, it doesn’t work like that. We just got to keep getting better, stop leaving points on the board, and always be on the plus side of the turnover margin. I think it says a lot about this team to be on the minus side tonight and still come out with a W.”

Ryan Tannehill was his normal self, not getting too high or too low after a win or loss. He said that he isn't sure that this is a season-saving win because there's still a lot of football left to be played,

"We’ll see how it all plays out. We knew that it was a big game coming in. [It was] a division game [and] a game that we wanted to play well in because we didn’t play well the last time that we played them. We were able to do that. We talked about the game [but] I don’t think that we discussed playoff picture or anything. It’s a division game at home [on] Thursday night with everyone watching. We knew what was on the line in this game and I thought that we came out and executed well.”

Cameron Wake said that it's big to be 6-4 instead of 5-5 and that it was nice to come out with a victory after experiencing several nail-biters over the past few weeks.

“We’ve had a couple of nail-biters over the past few weeks, but to come out at halftime down and finish the second half the way the guys did is a really rewarding feeling. Obviously there were some things said in the media earlier on this week, but as a whole we wanted to come out here tough and be sure to put up 60 minutes.”

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