The Miami Dolphins got the snot kicked out of them by the previously four-win Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday — losing to the suddenly happy Joe Burrow, Chase Brown, Ja’Marr Chase and company by a score of 45-21.
Mike McDaniel’s squad only trailed by three points at the half, yet still lost the game by 24 points. More on that later…
Sunday’s game marked the first time this season that quarterback Tua Tagovailoa didn’t get the start for the Dolphins, with McDaniel saying that the switch to rookie passer Quinn Ewers was motivated by his belief that the former Texas product gave the Dolphins the “best chance to win the game.”
Add that statement to the long list of things McDaniel has gotten wrong this season as head coach of this sorry South Florida football team.
GOOD
Maybe I should have used the sarcasm font for this one…
After missing much of the 2025 season due to yet another injury, Joe Burrow looked like the happier version of himself after throwing for 309 yards passing while completing 25 of 32 throws. He tossed four touchdowns against Anthony Weaver’s defense while not committing a single turnover. Burrow finished the game with a 146.5 passer rating before being replaced by Joe Flacco with the score completely out of hand.
No, this wasn’t a “good” thing for Miami, but who cares? It doesn’t feel like the Dolphins do!
BAD
Dolphins fall apart in the third quarter
As mentioned above, the Dolphins trailed the Bengals by just three points at the half. With a strong second-half performance, the team could have pulled off the upset in order to give the fans watching something to be happy about in an otherwise pretty miserable season.
What did they do?
Miami gave up 21 points in the third quarter, while scoring none, allowing the Bengals to take a 38-14 lead heading into the final frame of the contest. With a rookie quarterback at the helm, that was not the recipe for a monumental comeback in the game’s final fifteen minutes.
Consistently, Miami has fallen flat on their faces coming out of the locker room for the second half of games this season. Mike McDaniel’s ability to make halftime adjustments is virtually non-existent. Add that fault to the long list of reasons why the Dolphins may look to go in a different direction when it comes to the head-man-in-charge next season.
UGLY
The state of this franchise
At one time, the Miami Dolphins were respected as one of the best teams in the history of the National Football League. That time has since come and gone — with the Dolphins being the butt of many jokes over the past two-decades of mostly-disastrous play.
However, for a fleeting moment — a single stitch in time — the Miami Dolphins seemed to have discovered an escape from the NFL’s deepest doldrums. In 2022 and 2023, Mike McDaniel’s first two seasons as head coach, quarterback Tua Tagovailoa found himself in MVP conversations, wide receiver Tyreek Hill flirted with becoming the first player to surpass 2,000 receiving yards in a single season, and the Dolphins reached the playoffs in both years — though without winning either playoff game.
Since then, the Dolphins have a 14-18 record, Tagovailoa has regressed so much that he’s probably played his last game for Miami, and the owner of the team is deciding whether or not to fire McDaniel into the sun this upcoming offseason.
When will the misery end for Dolphins fans? Not this season. And with the amount of dead-cap staring the team in the face next season, 2026 isn’t looking too bright either. At this point, being a Miami Dolphins fan isn’t about hope at all — it’s about watching the same tired promises fade every year, and realizing the hardest part isn’t losing, but knowing it won’t be any different any time soon.
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The Dolphins were mauled by the Bengals in front of their hometown fans at Hard Rock Stadium on Sunday. The team showed that this season is virtually over, despite two games left on the docket. Is there anything they can do over those final two contests to get you excited about the future of the franchise? Let me know in the comments below or on Twitter at @MBrave13. Fins up.
