Exploring Dolphins’ issues vs. title contenders on road. What, beyond health, must change
In the fairly early stages of the Mike McDaniel/Tua Tagovailoa/Tyreek Hill era of Dolphins football, this much is known:
▪The Dolphins’ dynamic, explosive offense can overwhelm mediocre and bad teams.
▪ The Dolphins have enough talent and coaching creativity to beat good teams at home, including the Bills 13 months ago.
▪ They’re a playoff caliber team.
Here’s what we don’t know: Does this roster, as constituted, have enough to beat legitimate championship contenders on the road?
Since the start of last season, the Dolphins have had six road games against the most serious of contenders, teams that won at least one playoff game last season. They’ve lost all six, including nearly identical scores against NFC beasts San Francisco (33-17 last December) and Philadelphia (31-17) on Sunday.
There are caveats with some of those six losses: The Dolphins lost their playoff game at the Bills without their top two quarterbacks. They lost the Thursday night game in Cincinnati after Tagovailoa was concussed in the first half.
They lost at the Bills (48-20) and Eagles this season without a key cog to their running game (center Connor Williams) and six-time Pro Bowl cornerback Jalen Ramsey. They played much of the Bills game and all of the Eagles game without Pro Bowl left tackle Terron Armstead.
Against the Eagles, they lost Isaiah Wynn - one of the best left guards in football this season - to a first-quarter quadriceps injury — meaning they were without three-fifths of their offensive line against a particularly stout defensive front. Rookie sensation De’Von Achane also missed Sunday’s game, and Jaylen Waddle played only 22 of 49 offensive snaps because of a back injury.
And there was the peculiar ocean-sized gulf in penalties on Sunday - 10 for the Dolphins, zero for the Eagles, including at least two seemingly egregious calls that went against Miami.
“You can’t be a minus 10 in penalties,” coach Mike McDaniel said. “Penalties occur when you’re out of position in any phase.”
Beyond the need for health, a few other realities have emerged from these half dozen McDaniel era road losses against title contenders, particularly the two this month:
▪ Though the defense had its moments in many of these six losses, the end results weren’t good enough. In those six games on the road against serious title contenders, the Dolphins have allowed 34.2 points per game. As perspective, Denver and Carolina have allowed the most points per game this season (at 31).
This season, with Vic Fangio replacing Josh Boyer as coordinator, the Bills scored 48 and the Eagles scored 31. So it’s no surprise that Miami is 27th in points permitted per game, at 26.7. Of the teams that rank 20th or worse in points allowed per game, the Dolphins are the only ones with a winning record.
Perhaps the return of cornerbacks Jalen Ramsey and Xavien Howard in the weeks ahead will change that.
▪ An inability to do enough against the quarterbacks of those legitimate contending teams.
Over those six losses, Joe Burrow, Brock Purdy, Josh Allen (three games) and Jalen Hurts have a combined 113.9 passer rating, with 17 touchdowns and four interceptions.
The Dolphins sacked Hurts three times, and Jerome Baker scored on Kader Kohou’s deflected pass. But excluding that pick-six, Hurts was 23 for 30 for 279 yards and a 127 passer rating.
▪ The Dolphins offense, and Tagovailoa, need to take the step from decent/pretty good to very good in these toughest of road games.
The Dolphins had eight possessions against Philadelphia. Three ended in punts, two ended on downs, one ended on a field goal, one on an interception and one on a touchdown. So that’s 10 points on eight possessions.
Against the Bills, there were three scores (all touchdowns) on 11 possessions.
So that’s four touchdowns on 19 possessions in those two ‘measuring stick’ games.
As for Tagovailoa, in those McDaniel-era road games against teams that won playoff games last season, he has six TDs, five interceptions and an 85.3 passer rating in what was essentially 4 ½ games.
In all other games, he had 34 TDs, 9 interceptions and a 113.9 passer rating.
One key caveat: Tagovailoa was exceptional on the road against a good Baltimore defense last season, throwing for 461 yards and six TDs. The Ravens lost their playoff opener to Cincinnati.
It’s also important to note that Tagovailoa was sacked six times in those 4 ½ games against teams that won playoff games this past January and February and played without Armstead against San Francisco and Philadelphia (and most of this month’s game against Buffalo) and without Williams in the two losses this season.
Opponent crowd noise has had an impact on the effectiveness of the Dolphins’ presnap motion, Tyreek Hill said earlier this year.
“There’s a lot of pieces that go into our offense, a lot of moving parts,” Tagovailoa said. “I have to communicate to the line, the cadence in a loud environment. It’s hard to replicate crowd noise the way it is here. That’s the next step for us.”
▪ Mistakes. There were 8 penalties for 98 yards in the Oct. 1 Bills game and 10 for 70 on Sunday. The Bills had 4 for 20 and the Eagles had none.
So that’s 18 penalties for 168 yards in the two losses this season, compared with 4 for 20 for the opponent.
And other errors have marked these road losses against the league’s best teams - defensive breakdowns, the key late delay of game penalty in the playoff game in Buffalo, the uncharacteristic Hill drop of a potential touchdown on Sunday and the Darius Slay interception on a Tagovailoa end-zone throw to Raheem Mostert, a Tagovailoa-described “underthrow” with Miami down seven and 11:33 left.
“When Tua watches the film, I’m sure he’ll be critical of himself as the leader he is and where he’s at in his career,” McDaniel said. “I thought Tua had a very, very good game all things considered.”
So how do the 5-2 Dolphins avoid road playoff games? By claiming the No. 1 seed, which would likely require (at the very least) beating 6-1 Kansas City on Nov. 5 in Germany and Buffalo at home to end the season; winning all the games they’ll likely be favored to win (home against New England, Las Vegas, the Jets, Tennessee and at the Jets and Washington) and likely a Jan. 1 win at 5-2 Baltimore. Miami also has Dallas at home.
But even that doesn’t guarantee them a top two seed. The Jaguars (5-2), Ravens (5-2), Dolphins (5-2) and Bills (4-3) all have top-14 most difficult remaining strengths of schedule, per tankathon.com. The Chiefs’ remaining schedule is the ninth easiest.
This story was originally published October 23, 2023 at 11:51 AM.
