The Miami Dolphins were, once again, defeated this weekend, as they lost to the New England Patriots for the first time since September 2020. This was also Miami’s fifth loss in as many weeks.
Injuries and costly mistakes at inopportune times led to the Dolphins’ eighth loss of the season, which has dropped them out of a playoff spot with just one week remaining.
As we always do, we’ll take Monday to look back at the contest and see what we can glean from the loss.
Jason Sanders has to go this offseason
After missing field goals in each of the last two weeks, Sanders’ percentage is down to 79.3% on the season. That’s better than the 74.2% he hit last season, but his extra-point accuracy is down from 97.1% to 93.2%.
There are conflicting numbers on what happens if Sanders is cut this offseason.
Over The Cap states that cutting him this offseason would incur a $3.68 million dead cap hit, while Spotrac claims that no such penalty would exist.
Miami made the right decision at punter
For the first time this season, the Dolphins got a chance to see Michael Palardy, who spent 2021 with Miami, in person, as he’s been punting for the Patriots in recent weeks.
Palardy punted five times for 42.4 yards per attempt with a net average of 30.2 yards and none were downed inside the 20-yard line.
Thomas Morstead, who the Dolphins opted to sign this offseason, punted four times for 47.3 yards per attempt with a net average of 44.8 yards and all four were downed or went out of bounds inside the 20-yard line.
Preparation and time management
While the Dolphins entered this game without Tua Tagovailoa, who sustained a concussion against the Green Bay Packers the week prior, Miami shouldn’t have seen such a drop in preparation.
Head coach Mike McDaniel, who also serves as the play-caller, had multiple timeouts that had to be called due to players not being set or the play not coming in fast enough. This was an issue earlier in the year when McDaniel and Tagovailoa were first getting used to working together.
On top of the poor management of timeouts, the penalties continue to be a problem. There were multiple third downs that Miami’s defense would’ve gotten off the field if it weren’t for a flag. On offense, they put themselves in poor situations with illegal shifts and false starts.
Those are the signs of a bad team.
Defense at a crossroads
When Brian Flores was fired this past offseason, many questioned whether Josh Boyer could sustain the defensive success that the unit had under Flores’ leadership without him.
That question has been answered, but it’s tough to put all of the blame on him.
Miami entered this last game without Xavien Howard, Byron Jones, Brandon Jones, Nik Needham, Trill Williams, Emmanuel Ogbah, Bradley Chubb and Trey Flowers.
Many of those names are key contributors who were big reasons for Flores’ success. Being forced to play games with undrafted rookie Kader Kohou and special teams ace Keion Crossen as the top two cornerbacks probably wouldn’t work well for anyone.
At the same time, Boyer hasn’t always put his team in the best positions. It was a topic of conversation a few weeks ago when the defense was positioned by the end zone against the Los Angeles Chargers, allowing Austin Ekeler to pick up a chunk gain before scoring on the next play.
This week, there’s another easy question to be asked. What was the plan with Duke Riley being the closest person to Jakobi Meyers on New England’s final touchdown? If it was the designed play, that’s flat-out dumb. If it was a miscommunication, that’s inexcusable at this point in the season, even with backups in.
