Miami Dolphins’ late-season skid follows a history of disappointing second-half collapses
If the last month is a reminder of anything, it’s that projections are simply that: projections.
On Nov. 27, the Dolphins beat the Houston Texans, 30-15, to improve to 8-3 and return to the top spot in the AFC East. After the victory, FiveThirtyEight’s projections gave Miami an 89 percent chance to make the playoffs. Only four AFC teams had a greater probability to reach the postseason at the time.
But since then, the team has lost five consecutive games and lost hold of a playoff spot. To make the postseason for the first time since 2016, the Dolphins must not only defeat the New York Jets at home on Sunday but need the New England Patriots to lose to the Buffalo.
In terms of late-season collapses, you only have to look to last year for the last time an NFL team finished a season with six consecutive defeats and missed the playoffs. The Ravens were 8-3 before losing their final six games and finishing 8-9. This season, the Titans were 7-3 with a significant lead in the AFC South but are in the midst of their own six-game losing streak and will be eliminated from playoff contention with a loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars on Saturday night.
But for Dolphins fans who have watched the team during the last two-plus decades, this season’s late-season skid joins a list of disappointing finishes for teams right in the middle of a playoff spot.
As the team seeks to not repeat history, players and coaches have expressed confidence in the team’s resolve.
“Sometimes, you have to be careful,” tight ends coach/assistant head coach Jon Embree said Thursday. “You can’t just [say], ‘Let’s have a players-only meeting. Let’s do this, let’s do that.’ That, I think, adds to the problem. I think when you look at it, you’ve got to look at it from the standpoint as a coach. I look at it [like]: ‘How are we losing and are we competitive?’ Bottom line, we’ve lost five in a row. But we’ve been very competitive in those five. It’s been a bounce here or there.
“... Our guys have been right there and we just have not made the right play, made the right call as coaches. And that’s the reason why we’ve had five consecutive losses.”
Most recently in 2018, the Dolphins were 7-6 entering the second week of December but lost their final three games to miss the playoffs, and head coach Adam Gase was fired shortly after the season ended. But the franchise’s worst slide came in 1993.
Quarterback Dan Marino sustained a season-ending Achilles injury in Week 5 amid a 4-1 start. Scott Mitchell stepped in as the starter and helped lead Miami to a 9-2 start but also missed a stretch with a dislocated shoulder. The Dolphins lost five consecutive games to end the season 9-7 and missed the playoffs. It made Miami the first NFL team since the 16-game season was installed to start with a 9-2 record then completely miss the postseason.
“This means all the great effort we had early in the year to build our record to 9-2 was all for naught,” Hall of Fame Dolphins coach Don Shula said after the final game, a 33-27 overtime loss to the Patriots. “It’s something we’re going to have to live with, and it’s not going to be easy to erase from our minds.”
This season has followed an eerily similar path. The Dolphins went winless in the month of December — the first time that has happened since that 1993 season. Quarterback Tua Tagovailoa’s absence because of a concussion also hovers over the team’s losing streak. Tagovailoa remains in concussion protocol and has not been on a football field since the Dolphins’ Week 16 loss to the Green Bay Packers on Sunday. There is no return timetable for Tagovailoa, who has twice been diagnosed with a concussion this season.
After last Sunday’s loss to the Patriots, Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel said he didn’t want to use Tagovailoa’s injury — or absences from other key players such as Xavien Howard or Terron Armstead — as an excuse for the team’s recent struggles.
Asked about his experiences as an assistant helping pull a team out of a hole, McDaniel referenced the 2012 season in Washington — a 3-6 start that finished with seven consecutive wins and a playoff berth. But even he acknowledged the uniqueness of this situation.
“Typically, it doesn’t manifest itself in a five-game losing streak, but every year it’s different,” he said. “But I do know one thing, that you end up finishing the season winning or beating the adversity or overcoming the adversity in one way, shape or form, or you succumb to it. That’s pretty cut and dry. There’s only one team that ends the season happy. The rest of them are lumped in a ‘Wish-I-could-of-would-of.’
“None of that even really matters for this particular team. It’s a one-game season to really take all the lessons learned from this five-game losing streak and putting together something that the locker room and coaching staff is proud of as the regular season comes to a close. I’ll definitely channel some of those experiences, but I fully expect a hungry and well-intentioned team ready to go play the Jets next week for the regular season finale.”
