It has been a long time since the Miami Dolphins were this inept on the football field.
Monday’s 31-12 domination by a previously 0-3 Tennessee Titans team in front of the entire world has me feeling like it’s 2019 again. Remember how that season started?
Week one that year saw a 59-10 decimation at the hands of the Baltimore Ravens. It didn’t get much better from there as the team lost by scores of 43-0 to the New England Patriots, 31-6 to the Dallas Cowboys, and 30-10 to the Los Angeles Chargers before heading into a week five BYE week.
The sad part is that it’s not 2019 anymore and the expectations around the Miami Dolphins have changed. This 2024 team was supposed to be good. This team was supposed to compete for an AFC East division crown. This team was supposed to finally end the team’s longstanding playoff win drought and prove that the latest tear-down and rebuild was done correctly and with a purpose.
And that’s why this hurts so much. This team isn’t very good. And the last five seasons — seasons that were spent building towards this very moment — were for naught.
Wasted time, wasted hopes, wasted dreams — the story of the 2024 Miami Dolphins so far.
GOOD
People are finally realizing just how good Tua Tagovailoa is
The Miami Dolphins were one of the top offenses in football last season — if not the best overall depending on what metrics you choose to use.
Of course, that was when quarterback Tua Tagovailoa suited up for the entire season while leading the league in passing yards at 4,624 and throwing for 29 passing scores.
Still, even while achieving the success he did en route to an 11-6 regular season record for the club, many fans and media members alike said that Tagovailoa’s success was just a product of head coach Mike McDaniel’s system. They said any quarterback could run the system, especially while throwing to wide receivers like Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle and handing the ball off to running backs like Raheem Mostert and De’Von Achane. Tagovailoa wasn’t a good quarterback, just the beneficiary of insane offensive weapons and a “boy genius” head coach they said.
Flash forward to 2024 — post Tua concussion — and we’ve seen three other quarterbacks take snaps for the Dolphins with the results being… not so good. So, what’s going on? I thought any quarterback could run this offense. At least, that’s what they told me. Last I checked, Hill, Waddle and Achane are still on this team. Why aren’t we scoring points like we did when Tagovailoa was at the helm?
Maybe, just maybe, Tagovailoa is actually good. Who would have thought?!
BAD
Miami’s best players needed to play their best ball and they didn’t
Let’s talk about the aforementioned playmakers, shall we?
The Dolphins badly needed a good performance on Monday Night Football to assuage the unpleasant feelings surrounding the 2024 version of this franchise. They needed their best players to step up and carry the team on their shoulders in this time of hardship in order to show the fans that there’s still something to root for this year and that hope is not lost.
Instead, we got a game filled with mistakes from Miami’s weapons, and it doomed the team to another embarrassing loss.
Throughout the night, we had Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle dropping multiple balls — the first being a backwards pass to Hill on Miami’s first drive that was rightly ruled a fumble recovered by the Titans, stopping potential Dolphins points from being scored early on.
Waddle would match the feat later, dropping a surefire first down grab as the Dolphins were trying to stay in the contest.
Unfortunately, De’Von Achane also turned in one of his poorer performances, missing cutback lanes throughout the game and blowing pass protection reps on multiple occasions as well.
Miami’s playmakers didn’t step up, and as a result, the team was demolished on primetime once again.
UGLY
Mike McDaniel doesn’t have the answers
We’ve discussed the success of the 2023 Miami Dolphins juxtaposed with the lack thereof of the 2024 club. But here’s the dirty little secret…
Miami’s woes aren’t isolated to just 2024. The late-season 2023 offense wasn’t good either after setting the league on fire earlier on in the year. Mike McDaniel’s system was figured out, and he never had the counter-punches to get it back on track.
He still doesn’t.
Through six weeks last year, the Dolphins offense averaged 499 yards of production per game — including three games of 500+ yards. During their final six games (including the playoff loss to the Kansas City Chiefs), that same offense managed to average just 324 yards of production — including three games of sub-300 yards.
The franchise’s head coach had an entire offseason to figure out the reason why his team went from averaging nearly 500 yards per game on offense, to averaging just over 300 yards by season’s end. He didn’t get to the root of the problem.
Albeit, with insufficient quarterback play, this team is averaging just 285 yards of offense through four miserable games this season. They have regressed — and regressed hard — after lighting the league on fire at the beginning of 2023.
That falls on the shoulders of a head coach who was supposed to be an offensive genius. McDaniel needs to figure out how to put a watchable product on the field fast, because the fanbase is growing restless, and his seat could very-well be heating up as a result of the disgusting performances his team — namely his offense — have been putting forth dating back to the end of last season.
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The Dolphins are 1-3 on the season. That’s not fun. Where do your rooting interests lie ahead of next week’s game against the New England Patriots? Do you think the team can turn it around, or would you rather they continue this slide so they can be set up with a higher first round draft pick in the offseason? It’s crazy that it has already come to this. Let me know in the comments below or on Twitter at @MBrave13. Fins up!
