A fitting end to an uneven decade at Hard Rock Stadium for the Miami Dolphins

The strange, wild, impressive, disappointing, fun, frustrating and altogether confusing game the Miami Dolphins won Sunday afternoon at Hard Rock Stadium was something to behold even before it went into overtime and tugged at heartstrings and loyalties.

But this 38-35 overtime victory over the Cincinnati Bengals was this more than anything else: Appropriate as the team’s final home game this decade.

We’re done for the decade here and I can tell you, I’m glad. Because while there have been some significant moments that will go down in team lore -- like Jason Taylor being carried off the field and into a Hall of Fame retirement in January 2012 -- it’s been mostly a difficult 10 years.

And as fans, and indeed the franchise itself, is embracing the promise of tomorrow, it cannot be denied that Sunday was about more than the future. It was about a championship past. And a confusing present.

I want to start with the past because that’s been better for this franchise for practically every year since 1985ish. It’s been that long since Dolphins fans considered their current team better than the bygone championship teams of 1970s.

And so the Dolphins, often struggling to be relevant right now, have rightly embraced those better times when they were the thing. The team.

They did that again Sunday when about 20 members of the 1972 Perfect Season team showed up to be feted because the NFL named them the greatest team in the league’s first 100 years.

So I saw Mercury Morris -- still looking strong and weighing the 190 pounds he weighed when he played. And Bob Griese looking younger than his 74 years. And Larry Csonka still looking as imposing as he did nearly 50 years ago when he was the league’s most feared runner.

But along with that nostalgic picture I also saw guys needing help to merely rise from their seats. Or move.

Don Shula, who will celebrate his 90th birthday on January 4 and still has a great sense of humor, could only rarely stand.

So that undefeated team is falling behind in the battle against the clock, friends. And though they’ll forever remain in our memory, many are fading from view.

This is sad because those guys are our only connection to winning. I’m not talking winning games. I’m talking winning winning. I’m talking winning championships.

And another season of home games has passed with the Dolphins failing to deliver an NFL championship. It’s been 46 years since the 1973-74 Dolphins had Miami atop the NFL.

Which bring me to today. And tomorrow.

These are confusing times.

Because as the Dolphins took a 35-12 lead over the Cincinnati Bengals on that beautiful field at Hard Rock Stadium, I kept reading on social media how many Dolphins fans were upset. Disappointed.

Quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick was lifting his team on his shoulders and leading them by the nose to victory -- throwing for 419 yards and four touchdowns.

And people were cursing his performance. Because him helping the Dolphins win, they’re convinced, will ensure the Dolphins losing in future years based on a draft slot that rises and falls with wins and losses.

Not that Fitzpatrick cares about that. Not that he should, really.

“I’m just – I’m happy,” he said at a press conference attended by, among other people, two of his seven children. “I’m so happy that Flo {head coach Brian Flores) trusted to put me back in the lineup and trusts me in there. I work every day, not just for him but for my teammates and for everybody to try to make sure and prove him right, that he made the right decision.

“We’ve only won four games, but it’s been a fight, and it’s been a lot of fun these last 9-10 weeks to work with these guys.”

Flores has had tunnel vision this entire season about winning. The very top of the Dolphins organization announced a fallback year, the front office set the roster to lose, and Flores has spit on that approach every chance he’s had.

And you shouldn’t blame him because if he was part of the plan, it might benefit him in the future but would paint him a total loser today.

It’s better not to have that.

But even as he’s trying to coach his heart out, the Dolphins, well, stink. Oh, they won this game. But the Dolphins are certifiably awful. And inconsistent.

How else to say it when the putrid 1-14 Bengals almost pulled this game out. How else to paint it when the Dolphins held a 35-12 lead in the fourth quarter and lost the lead, forcing the game into overtime?

“I’m thinking, ‘No way. No,” Fitzpatrick said, describing his thoughts watching Cincy’s comeback. “No way. Well, they’ve got to get the 2-point conversion. Well, they’ve got to get an onside kick. Well, they’ve got to score again. Well, they’ve got to get the 2-point conversion (again).’ And it all happened.”

That craziness, complete with a touchdown pass to rookie Christian Wilkins in the first quarter, might have been entertaining for a while. But ultimately this game was like watching two toddlers fight.

And as they were flailing, and spitting up all over themselves. and falling down, and getting back up, reporters in the press box were scrambling to figure out how a Cincinnati loss here and the outcome of the New York Giants and Washington Redskins game over there, affected next year’s draft slotting.

That’s what the final game of this decade at this stadium was and wasn’t about. It wasn’t about figuring out playoff scenarios for the Dolphins. It was trying to figure out if they’re bad enough to draft higher four months from now.

Yeah, craziness.

About that future: The truth no one really knows if having the second pick or the fifth pick, where the Dolphins are currently projected, is going to greatly strengthen or weaken the franchise a ton going forward.

Assuming the Dolphins don’t drop any further, they will still likely have the chance to pick the second-best quarterback next draft if they want him. And even if that likelihood hardens into fact, neither you, nor I, nor the Dolphins, know with certainty that player will be a franchise changer in the 2020s.

And still we all say, bring on that next decade at this South Florida facility. Because the last 10 years haven’t exactly been awesome.