Here’s why Mike McDaniel has a chance: He didn’t excuse the game like you did. He didn’t discuss the day as ruined by injuries like losing your best cornerback and top tackle or being on your third quarterback in rookie Skylar Thompson, who threw his first NFL pass Sunday.
Every team has an excuse, if they want it, and the Miami Dolphins had plenty of valid ones Sunday starting with quarterback Tua Tagovailoa out with a concussion and backup Teddy Bridgewater gone after one godforsaken play against the New York Jets.
With players collapsing across the roster, it looked like Armageddon for the Dolphins everywhere but on the scoreboard. Everything was fine there. It was Jets 19, Dolphins 17 early in the fourth quarter. The challenge was to grab an unlikely win as they faced first down at the Jets 41 yard line.
These Dolphins have lived on the edge every Sunday in being one of the league’s most interesting teams to this point so there was no reason to think they’d go out easily from here against a mediocre Jets team. They did something surprising again this week.
They folded from that point.
“Without a doubt, to say the wheels fell off would be fair, because it occurred in all three phases,” McDaniel said.
This isn’t just how good coaches think. It was true Sunday. The Dolphins offense that discovered its running game Sunday needed a few yards for a go-ahead field goal that would put the full burden on the Jets and its latest project in quarterback Zach Wilson.
Here’s what the Dolphins offense did that series: A 5-yard run by Raheem Mostert, who had a big day; a five-yard penalty for illegal procedure on tackle Greg Little; a Thompson incompletion; and a 5-yard pass to Jaylen Waddle. The penalty was indicative of a sloppy 11 the Dolphins had in the game.
Here’s what the special teams did next: Jason Sanders missed a 54-yard field goal. That, too was part of a special-teams that haven’t been good enough across the board. The Dolphins gave up a long return to Braxton Berrios and sits near the bottom of the league in most categories.
Here’s what he defense did next: It gave up a seven-play, 56-yard drive that included Wilson passes of 21 and 23 yards, his longest downfield to wide receivers of the day. This was a place for the defense to make a stand considering Wilson wasn’t exactly scaring anyone. But this defense doesn’t have one takeaway in the four games since the opener.
The Dolphins needed help from the larger team with so many injuries and got the opposite with the game on the line. They got mistakes and blown chances. Starting with that offensive series and missed field goal they unraveled in getting outscored 21-0 in the final 10 minutes.
“Whether there’s correlation or causation, it doesn’t matter,” McDaniel said of the collapse after the field goal. “That’s something the team has to be aware of, and the team has to address. Without a doubt, that’s one of the thing I’m going to bring up.
“When push comes to shove, there’s so much time in the second half. You miss the field goal? Let’s get a stop, get the ball back and do it again.”
Everyone was ready to salute the Dolphins (3-2) for playing hard and hanging in, no matter the outcome, with so much against them. Sometimes a loss like that is as important as a win over a season. But they only played hard for three quarters. If you’re keeping score at home, they led Cincinnati in the fourth quarter, too, before being outscored 15-0.
You can excuse all that to Tagovailoa’s injury at Cincinnati and the laundry list of injuries at the Jets (3-2). There’s merit to that. The Dolphins played some beat up some injured teams this year in Baltimore and Buffalo, but neither were down to their third-string quarterback.
You know who is in a similar situation? New England. Third-stringer Bailey Zappe accompanied the Patriots into overtime at Green Bay last week. With a week of preparation for Zappe, it beat Detroit on Sunday, 29-0. Its defense pitched a shutout against the league’s highest-scoring offense. It rushed for a stout 176 yards and asked the minimum from a rookie quarterback.
That’s the next challenge for McDaniel, if it comes to Thompson next week against the Minnesota Vikings (4-1). There’s a long way before getting there and maybe some more fun medical terms to learn from concussion protocol of the NFL and NFLPA.
Bridgewater and Tagovailoa are in the protocol. Left tackle Terron Armstead stayed in New York to have his toe looked at by an expert. Howard’s groin? Who knows? These are the kinds of injuries that sink seasons over time.
They just didn’t sink Sunday by themselves. The Dolphins had a chance to win and played sloppy. That’s not how everyone saw it. It’s how McDaniel did. That’s the first step toward fixing some problems that threaten this season as much as injuries.
