Vikings ‘whupped’ Dolphins up front. But their coaches deserve some blame too
The Dolphins’ offensive line had an all-time bad game Sunday.
Miami allowed an absurd nine sacks (tying a franchise record), 11 quarterback hits and 12 tackles for loss in the team’s blowout loss to the Vikings.
Ryan Tannehill, dealing with shoulder and ankle injuries, is lucky to be in one piece after the beating he took Sunday.
Seven different Vikings sacked him, including Anthony Barr and Danielle Hunter, who had two each.
It was a systemic failure for a line that had done a decent, but not great, job of protecting Miami’s quarterbacks this season. A review of the game film is needed to determine who was most at fault, but live it appeared that right tackle Ja’Wuan James was beaten several times.
“We had a lot of sacks today,” said James, who will be an unrestricted free agent this offseason. “It was unacceptable, how many negative plays we had. ... [Tannehill is] a guy we need to protect. We don’t want him getting hit like that.”
Dolphins linemen praised Minnesota’s blitz package, and left tackle Laremy Tunsil went so far as to suggest that the Miami was not ready for what Minnesota did schematically.
“They had a good third-down plan and they attacked us,” he said. “Blitzes, twists. I don’t know what to say. They had a good third-down plan. They sent a lot of blitzes that we probably didn’t really prepare as hard for. We knew it was coming, but every third down was a blitz or a twist. Can’t do nothing about it now.”
Adam Gase, meanwhile, seemed to place all of the blame on his players.
When asked why the team gave up those nine sacks, he responded:
“Not blocking. He had a couple of chances where guys were open but couldn’t get off. We just didn’t block well enough. We knew what we were in for as far as the pass rush. They just beat us.”
This story was originally published December 16, 2018 at 6:22 PM.
