Tonight at Sun Life Stadium the Miami Dolphins host the New York Giants for Monday Night Football. It will be just the eighth overall regular-season meeting between the two clubs since the 1970 AFL-NFL merger. It’s also the first time the Dolphins have hosted the Giants since their ill-fated 2007 season, when the went 1-15 and didn’t win their lone game until December.
But the ticket I’m sharing today is from relatively happier times for both teams. This is from week 3 of the 1987 season (September 27), Miami’s first in Joe Robbie Stadium after spending their entire history to that point at the iconic Orange Bowl. Don Shula’s Dolphins were just two seasons removed from a trip to the AFC Championship, while Bill Parcell’s Giants were defending Super Bowl champions.
Here’s the ticket:
There’s just one catch with this game, however — it never happened. A players’ strike begun after week two forced the cancellation of the entire week 3 slate, reducing the regular season to just 15 games. Thus this game, which was to be the first meeting between Miami and New York since 1972, was erased. So this ticket is from what I refer to as a phantom game.
The teams played each other in 1990 but the Dolphins did not host the Giants for the first time until week 14 of the 1993 season.
