Jason Taylor, the NFL defensive player of last season, punched the air; Wayne Huizenga, the owner, appeared to be in tears; Cam Cameron, the head coach, and Cleo Lemon, the quarterback, embraced on the field. “It felt like we won the Super Bowl,” Samkon Gado, the running back, said.

All that the Miami Dolphins had done was win a game at their fourteenth attempt this season, beating the Baltimore Ravens 22-16 in overtime as Greg Camarillo, a back-up wide receiver, caught a pass from Lemon and sprinted for a 64-yard touchdown. It was only the fourth reception of his career, and first touchdown, but it meant that the Dolphins would not become the first team to compile a 0-16 won-lost record in the regular season, thus surpassing the 0-14 mark of the 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

“Some people wanted us to lose them all and make history for all the wrong reasons,” Taylor said. “I think we disappointed some people.”

True to this season’s form, the Dolphins, having rallied from a ten-point deficit in the third quarter, almost succeeded in losing again, when Matt Stover, the Baltimore kicker whose 18-yard field goal levelled the scores with 12 seconds left in the fourth quarter, missed from 44 yards in overtime.

Coincidentally, members of the Dolphins’ 1972 team, who posted the NFL’s only perfect season to date, were holding a reunion at Dolphin Stadium, but Jim Mandich, the tight end of that team, said that they had not attempted to offer pre-game inspiration. “Big speeches from old, grumpy men I don’t think would inspire this team,” he said. “I’m so happy for these guys.”

However, Mandich and Co face the prospect of losing their record, with the New England Patriots only two games from a 16-0 regular season after a 20-10 win over the New York Jets on Sunday. The first of their two remaining opponents are none other than the Dolphins — winless no longer.

In the NFC, the 10-6 home defeat of the Dallas Cowboys by the Philadelphia Eagles means that they could be overtaken in the quest for home advantage throughout the play-offs by the Green Bay Packers. Brett Favre set a record for career passing yards when he overtook Dan Marino’s mark of 61,361 yards during the Packers’ 33-14 victory away to the St Louis Rams.