Don't forget how the Dolphins torched the Ravens' D in a wild win last season

Tua Tagovailoa and the Miami Dolphins aren't going to be intimidated by traveling to face the Baltimore Ravens. Both teams remember what happened last season.

It's hard to forget. The Dolphins' 42-38 win was a big turning point in the NFL landscape. First, it might have been the NFL's game of the year in 2022. It also was an arrival for Tagovailoa as a top quarterback. He threw for six touchdowns in a thrilling comeback win. Other than Tagovailoa's concussion issues last season, he's been on a star track since. It was also the first real sign that the Tyreek Hill trade was transformational for the Dolphins and that the hire of new coach Mike McDaniel might be a great one.

This week, the Dolphins face the Ravens. If Miami wins, it takes over the No. 1 seed in the AFC. The Ravens are coming off a huge win over the San Francisco 49ers, and all week the Ravens have been praised as the best team in the NFL. The Ravens are favored to beat the Dolphins on Sunday.

Thanks to a crazy win last season, Miami won't view the Ravens as being unbeatable.

Miami lit up Baltimore's defense

Last season's meeting between the Dolphins and Ravens was absolutely wild. This is how fun it was: Lamar Jackson passed for 318 yards, with three touchdowns, no interceptions and a 142.6 passer rating, and his team lost.

The Ravens led 35-14 going into the fourth quarter. Tagovailoa had a quarter that started to turn the narrative of his entire career. He threw four touchdowns, including 48- and 60-yarders to Hill. His game-winning touchdown to Jaylen Waddle came with 14 seconds left.

According to Next Gen Stats, Tagovailoa threw five touchdowns when the Dolphins had less than a 50% win probability, which is tied for the most TD passes in a game since 2016. That was the first sign of how explosive the Dolphins' offense could be, and that has carried over deep into this season.

A lot has changed. New Ravens coordinator Mike Macdonald, in his second game in a new role, looked like he was out of his depth. Now he's one of the best coordinators in football. This was also weeks before the Roquan Smith trade that helped reshape Baltimore's defense, and Jadeveon Clowney, among others, has been a valuable addition to the unit this season.

The Ravens had a ton of coverage breakdowns, but that also came with some rookies playing in the secondary. On Hill's 60-yard touchdown he ran right by then-rookie cornerback Jalyn Armour-Davis in an obvious miscommunication on defense. Armour-Davis has played just 28 snaps on defense this season.

"Never did you think we were going to have that many balls thrown over our head," Ravens coach John Harbaugh said after the game. "That just can't happen; that's not OK. I don't care who's back there, [or] what they're doing. Those plays will cost you a game when you have a lead like that. You can't have miscommunication; you can't have a guy running a post behind Cover 3. Those kinds of things can't happen."

Many things we saw that day are unlikely to repeat. A lot changes in the NFL over 15 months. But some of the factors that went into the Dolphins' win are still in play.

Can Dolphins replicate their success?

The Ravens are a well-coached team that often doesn't make egregious coverage mistakes, and some of the mistakes in that Dolphins game came from inexperience among the coaching staff and the players.

But the Dolphins' offense also forces teams into mistakes. Their speed is unmatched in the NFL. They force teams into coverage mistakes because they have some of the NFL's fastest players screaming downfield at you. It gets tougher if Waddle can't play due to a high ankle sprain, but the Dolphins still won't lack for speed.

Tagovailoa has also continued what we saw that day and is fantastic at identifying where the big plays might come from. McDaniel has a unique ability to call a game and keep pressure on opposing defenses. It's unlikely the Ravens are giving up 42 points at home again to Miami, but the Dolphins also know they'll be able to have success on offense.

Last season Tagovailoa threw for 469 yards in that incredible comeback win. Hill had 190 yards and Waddle had 171. It was an impressive display of offensive football.

It's unlikely we see a full repeat of that Sunday in an enormous game between the Dolphins and Ravens. But Tagovailoa and the Dolphins know they can move the ball on Baltimore and put up enough points to win. Don't forget, we've seen it happen before.