Dolphins Defense Comes up Big in Wildcard Nailbiter

by Jbyrd923 | 3 years ago | 0 Comments

After a succesful regular season where the Miami Dolphins new head coach led the team to a 14-3 record aquiring the 3 seed in the AFC, Byrd found himself versing a familiar oppenent in the wildcard game. For the 6th time in their careers head coachs Hernandez and Byrd would be facing off in the playoffs. After meeting in the confrence championship 3 years in a row when the two rivaled each other in the AFC North they would face off again, Byrd in his newfound Miami home and Hernandez remaining in Cleveland. The two familiar with each others playstyles would be in for another tough outing, the Dolphins got the ball first and scored on the 2nd play when Tua Tagavoila found his favorite target Jaylen Waddle for a deep touch and Miami jumped ahead 7-0. After rookie Jevon Holland intercepted Baker Mayfield the Dolphins got the ball in the redzone with 2 minutes remaining in the first half and capitalized with a score. It was 17-15 to start the 3rd quarter and Mayfield was again picked off, this time by DPOY Xavien Howard and the Jaylen Waddle found the end zone again. In the 4th quarter it looked like the Dolphins had control of the game up 34-23 with 5 minutes left but the Browns drove down the field and scored with 90 seconds left but failed the 2pt conversion and trailed 34-29. Salvon Ahmed took 2 carries to burn Clevelands last 2 TOs and after a costly penalty stopped the clock after 3rd down the Browns had a chance to comeback. Jason Sanders nailed a 61 yard field goal that doinked in and then Mayfield and the Browns had 1:07 left to tie the game. After getting to midfield Emmanuel Ogbah hit Mayfiled to set up a Byron Jones INT to ice the game. Tua had a clean game 237 yard 3TD game where he found Waddle for all 3 of his TDs, Ahmed did his part on the ground running for 124 yards. The difference ended up being Mayfields 4 turnovers to the Dolphins none. The defense came up big when needed and the Dolphins will look to carry the momentum into next week.