A veteran opening a chapter with the fourth franchise of his NFL career, Jordan Poyer is looking to prove he can keep playing at a high level.
He's also looking to change the reputation of his newest squad, the Miami Dolphins.
Having found his finest seasons over the past seven years with the Buffalo Bills, Poyer candidly admitted that the Dolphins are regarded as a team that collapses under pressure. He's aiming to alter that narrative.
"Playing against this team over the past few years, you kind of get a sense of, 'OK, if you get on top of this team, they might fold,'" Poyer said Tuesday via team transcript, "and there are some teams that are [like that] -- this is just being honest, so what is that that happens in those moments where we get hit in the mouth? What happens in those moments so we're like, 'Hey, we're good. Let's bounce back. We're good. It's a 60-minute game, it's a long game.' I've been in games where I've been up 24 points and end up losing. I've been in games where we've been down 21 points and end up winning. So, it's just continuing to just play, play the game."
Though Poyer and the Bills have ultimately come up short of their ultimate goal of winning a Super Bowl, they became perennial AFC powers who have ruled the AFC East and made postseason runs aplenty.
During Poyer's time with the Bills from 2017-2023, they went to the playoffs in six of seven seasons and have collected five postseason victories. Miami, meanwhile, ended a playoff drought that began in 2017 with back-to-back postseason berths, but has been one and done in 2022 and 2023. Last season it let an AFC East lead fall through its hands for Buffalo to scoop it up.
The Dolphins, who have gone without a playoff win for roughly a quarter of a century, are a warm-weather club playing within a cold-weather division. Thus, they're often seen as a squad that excels at home but flounders on the road. They were 11-6 last season, going 4-4 at home with each of their wins coming against sub-.500 opponents. And, Miami's season ended in the frigid cold in Kansas City with a blowout loss to the Chiefs on Super Wild Card Weekend.
Regardless of whether claims the Dolphins have origami-like traits are warranted, it's definitely something the team's been tagged with and Poyer wants to end that.
"The game is going to come down to the last series, the last play, so just keep playing and don't get stuck into that play that you didn't make or don't get stuck into X, Y, or Z of the past," Poyer said. "Let's just keep playing, keep staying together. That's the biggest thing too, is just being able to stay together as a team, because this is a team game. It's not just one guy, it's everybody. So being able to stick together through those adverse moments, through those ups, through those downs and just staying on that line all the way through the season."
In many ways, Poyer's philosophy is emblematic of his career.
The 33-year-old was a seventh-round selection of the Philadelphia Eagles in 2013, but was waived in his rookie year prior to being picked up by the Cleveland Browns. He played three-plus seasons in Cleveland, but only started 10 games during his time there. He dwarfed that number with 15 starts in his first year with the Bills and became a linchpin for Buffalo's defense and its franchise turnaround, collecting a Pro Bowl and All-Pro honor in separate seasons.
Though he was a salary cap casualty this offseason, Poyer had 16 starts and 100 tackles in 2023 and will aim to keep up his play and, perhaps just as importantly, work on changing the mental approach in Miami.
"I think it's just as big as the physical side of the game," Poyer said of the mental approach. "It's the NFL, not everything is going to happen exactly the way you want it to happen. You're not going to win every single game even though you'd like to. It's really in those moments of adversity, those moments of maybe coming off a loss, being able to handle them in the right way.
"All of that has been instilled in myself throughout the 12 years that I've played, so I've really taken it into a factor of the game is going to flow. There's going to be some ups and downs, you've got to handle the adversity and handle what's thrown at you. Usually, those teams that are able to handle those moments, whether it be within a game or within a season, those are usually the teams that you see in the playoffs at the end of the season."
