Miami Catches Breathe After Reaching .500

by Jbyrd923 | 3 years ago | 2 Comments

Coming off a season where the Miami Dolphins finished 14-3 with a division title and exited the playoffs in a divisional round, the strong season from the squad didn't exactly carry over into the start of the new year. The Dolphins were in for a rude awakening to begin their season as they faced off vs the respective AFC power hosues in the Kansas City Chiefs, Baltimore Ravens, and Clevland Browns early and took loses in all three games. Top that off with two division loses to the Jets and Bills, the Dolphins were starring down the barrell heading into their week 9 bye week. 

Things weren't clicking for the team. Quarterback play was poor, the defense looked like it had taken a step back, and chemistry seemed off. Most of all for Miami, who was a team that didn't have much trouble showing up in big moments, they couldn't finish games when put in positions to win. In week 1 with a little under 2 mins to play the Dolphins had a chance to convert a 4th and 3 to put the team in FG range to win the game but came up short which resuluted in Patrick Mahomes taking the ball the other way to set up a game winner of their own in a 44-41 loss to the Chiefs. The next week traveling to play the defending champs Baltimore Ravens, the Dolphins found themselves in another put away situation. Sitting at the goal line up 1 with 3 minutes left, a touchdown and 2 point conversation would make it a 2 possesion game and all but put it away. But like in week 1, Miami didn't have the dagger in them and settled for a FG, which lead to a Baltimore touchdown drive to go up 3 late. In the following possesion Miami missed the FG to send it to OT and fell to 0-2

Not much went right following the two FG losses as Miami took a bad loss to the New York Jets in a game where QB Tua Tagavoila looked like he was seeing ghosts throwing 2 pick sixes in the abysmal defeat. An undefeated Browns team then handled the Dolphins giving them their fourth loss on the year. At 3-4 Miami needed the next one badly as another inter division loss would be tough to overcome. At home vs Buffalo, the Dolphins found themselves in a similiar position, up 1 in the 4th the Dolphins got stopped on all 4 downs at the goal to try and extened their lead, even so they got the ball back. And on a crucial 3rd down late, Tua Tagavoila threw a pick six to give the Bills the lead and another INT on a drive to attempt to tie it at the end.

Simply put, this Dolphins team has been playing sloppy and crumbling under pressure in big time situations. Luckily for them the next two weeks proved to be better with division wins vs the Bills and Pats to get the team back to .500 with the second half of the season remaining. Lots of the success the Dolphins have had this year has been due to rookie first round draft pick runnning back Kyle Morris who's adding value to the run game that's been missing for Miami. The Dolphina will ultimatley have to run the table the rest of the way if they want a chance at winnning the division title again. The team will have to stop choking and clean up its careless mistakes to do so