The Dolphins suffer back-breaking loss that may spell the end of the season.
MIAMI GARDENS – As the Miami Dolphins walked off the field into the locker room of Hard Rock Stadium, their stares into the abyss signified that they let this slip out of their hands.
Tua Tagovailoa’s highly anticipated return resulted in a 28-27 loss to the Arizona Cardinals that could only be described as what happens when you take your foot off the gas and play not to lose.
Though the Dolphins’ offense scored on 62% of their drives, with three being touchdowns, it wasn’t enough. 8/10 times twenty-seven points should get you to a win, but when the other teams has an above-average offense with a star quarterback like Kyler Murray, you never settle.
All things considered, it was objectively a great game that came down to the wire. An exciting watch for anyone who’s not a Dolphins fan.
It’s actually kind of hilarious that on the last Cardinals drive, Mark Schlereth said, “One of these teams is about to get their hearts broken,” and boy was he right.
It feels like one of those games where the team lets one slip out of their hands, and it happens to all teams at some point. When you’re in the hole like Dolphins were and are, there’s no margin for error or complacency.
This blame game feels like an uno reverse card because the fault has flipped to the other side of the ball.
Quarterback Can’t Play Defense Too
Tua Tagovailoa not only made it through the Cardinals game unscathed but also got the offense back on track. Tyreek Hill was unlocked, and the offense had much more room to work with because the defense had to go back to a majority two-high safety look to contain explosive plays.
The offense was fluid with Tagovailoa at the helm. The timing of shifts, screen plays and routes were synced up to an elite level. Although Tagovailoa’s number doesn’t scream a great game, he had the offense humming and rarely stoppable all afternoon.
If that’s all true, how did they lose? Three words. Defense and play calling.
Let’s start with the defense.
Through the first six games, the Dolphins defense was their rock, and they kept the Dolphins in every game. One of the best second-half defenses in the league seemingly forgot who they were.
The Cardinals scored 20 points in the second half and chewed up the last five minutes of the game to score the game-winning field goal.
Kyler Murray came back to his star form and found the hole in the defense time after time. Funny enough, the holes in the defense were whoever was matched up on Marvin Harrison Jr. and Trey McBride. The majority of those cases were David Long Jr. and Cam Smith, both being exposed.
Games have ebbs and flows, but when it came down to the last drive of the game, the Dolphins’ defense had three goals that could’ve set them up for a shot to win.
One, stop the Cardinals altogether. Two, keep them to a field goal with enough time for the offense to get a two-minute drive to win the game. Three, let the Cardinals score a touchdown when all else fails to give the offense a shot at responding with a touchdown of their own.
They did none of that.
What ended up happening was the Cardinals slow playing the Dolphins for the last five minutes of the game. They slowly but surely drained all the time that was left, forced the Dolphins to use all their timeouts, converted on third down where everyone in the stadium knew it would be a running play, though it was a QB-designed run, and kicked a game-winning chip-shot field goal with no time left.
You can say that the offense should’ve scored the possession before, but the defense had to do anything but let the other team bleed the clock and score with no time left.
The offense gets no blame from me outside a few critical drops and a rocket snap that resulted in a safety. I’m looking at Jaylen Waddle, Jonnu Smith, and Aaron Brewer.
You Play To Win The Game
I can’t wrap this up without pointing out an aspect of the game that usually gets overlooked, and that’s underestimating an opponent.
It’s the NFL, and everyone will tell you that you treat every opponent the same. While that’s true in most cases, it happened mid-game, and McDaniel took his foot off the gas pedal.
The last Dolphins drive looked clear to me, and that was bleeding as much time off the clock as they could. Given that they did get two first downs on the drive, they must’ve forgotten that they were only up by two points deep in the fourth quarter.
On this drive, you pull out your best plays and give Tagovailoa as much opportunity as possible to get some points on the board and force the Cardinals to score a touchdown to win the game.
There are too many times where the Dolphins run the ball in obvious situations and get negative results out of it, especially late in games with a slim lead.
Go down there, open it up, and use short completions to supplement the running game on first down to keep the defense on their toes. No gain on the first, a short completion that goes for nothing on the second, and then Tagovailoa has to throw it away on third down because of an all-out blitz.
Punt.
I get you to want to lean on your defense, especially since it’s been really good despite injuries, but they underestimated how good Kyler Murray and the Cardinals’ offense was and got burned.
There’s blame to be shared here, but if I’m going to give anyone the bulk of the blame, it’s going to be on Anthony Weaver and the defense. They were torched for the whole second half and couldn’t contain the Cardinals with the game on the line while letting them chew off all the time that was left.
At the end of the day, the defense has to keep up their side of the bargain, and the flat-out didn’t, and now the Dolphins are 2-5 looking down the barrel at 2-6 as they travel on Sunday to play big brother, the Buffalo Bills.
It’s looking like the end of the 2024 season is near.
Let us know in the comments who you think should carry most of the blame for the loss to the Arizona Cardinals.
