After mauling New England, have the Dolphins found winning combination on the O-line?
The Dolphins’ 2020 playoff hopes might rest on this fundamental question:
Was Miami’s boffo offensive line performance Sunday against the New England Patriots — 42 carries, 250 yards and three touchdowns — an outlier or a sign of things to come?
Because if it’s the former, Tua Tagovailoa will have to carry the offense — with only road games left on the schedule.
But if it’s the latter, then the Dolphins don’t just have a chance to make the playoffs, but actually make some noise there.
“If you have a good ground game, it will definitely up your chances to win,” center Ted Karras said Monday. “This was a great performance for us. We’re going to have to keep grinding and keep working. We have a good opponent coming up here the day after Christmas in Las Vegas, and we’re going to have to do it again.
“That is the task of an NFL O-lineman. Now we have the next challenge coming up.”
The next challenge — the Las Vegas Raiders — might prove no tougher than the last. The Patriots rank 27th in rush defense (133 yards per game) and 22nd in yards-per-carry allowed (4.6). The Raiders, meanwhile, are 25th (125.8) and 27th (4.6) in those same categories.
And the Dolphins have a real chance to get back starting left guard Ereck Flowers, who has missed the past two games with an ankle injury. The status of Solomon Kindley, who has started all 13 games in which he has appeared as a pro, is a bit murkier. He’s dealing with a knee injury and would have missed practice Tuesday if the Dolphins had held one, but should play in the finale if not this Saturday.
The strange thing is, however, the Dolphins seemed to click better with backups Sunday than with starters. The Dolphins had their best game of the year despite using their fourth different starting lineup.
Kindley slid over to Flowers’ spot before suffering his own injury and giving way to Michael Deiter, who saw his first offensive action of the season.
“We didn’t skip a beat,” Karras said of Deiter. “I was very happy for him to come in and play and play in a big moment and play really well. I think the film really speaks to the preparation and the hard work that he has put in these last five or six months in a different role. Coming into a game and playing really well, I was really happy for him.”
Karras has turned out to be a solid free-agent addition and has been the Dolphins’ most consistent offensive lineman. The ex-Patriot has yet to come off the field or commit an accepted holding or false start penalty.
Davis, meanwhile, seems to have found a his best position: right guard. He is far more productive there than he was at tackle (he’s started at both left and right this year).
And yet, Dolphins offensive coordinator Chan Gailey shot down any idea of rolling with the lineup that finished Sunday’s game if every lineman is healthy Sunday.
“I think that the guys that have been playing will continue to play, if they’re available,” Gailey said. “It depends on who’s available. The great thing is we’ve got some guys who we really trust and like in some backup roles and if they have to go in, like Mike had to do, he went in there and played pretty good.
“It’s a plus to have them available when you need them,” he added. “We did some good things in the running game. I think our backs saw some things really well this week. They were able to bounce outside a couple of times where we hadn’t been able to do that before. And our line really stayed on the downs really well. The linebackers, we kind of pushed those guys back into the linebackers, and those linebackers couldn’t see the fits as well. It was a combination of several things there. We had some good downfield blocking as well.”
Gailey’s praise of the Dolphins’ team blocking was earned. With Mike Gesicki out last week, the Dolphins played two road-grading tight ends — Durham Smythe and Adam Shaheen — a combined 85 of a possible 146 snaps. Their presence was felt.
“We take a lot of pride in trying to help the run game have days like we had on Sunday,” Smythe said. “It was something we were focusing on a while now, getting the run game going. You have to run the ball to win meaningful games. The O-line has done a great job of honing in on what we have to do to be successful in the run game. As a tight end group, we take a lot of pride in trying to get that going.”
This story was originally published December 22, 2020 at 2:25 PM.
