Dolphins lose division title in defeat to Bills, will travel to Chiefs in wild-card round
Bills quarterback Josh Allen took one final knee, and the cheers from behind Buffalo’s benches grew louder.
The Dolphins faithful were mute, stunned in the immediate aftermath of another blown opportunity.
The AFC’s No. 1 seed. The first division title since 2008. A rare home playoff game for a franchise that had recently seemed unbeatable within the confines of Hard Rock Stadium.
Miami had none of that to show for the past four months when the game clock hit triple digits.
A 21-14 home loss to the Bills in the regular-season finale on Sunday night capped a disappointing end and a steep descent from the AFC’s No. 1 seed to a wild-card team in the final month of the season.
And it sends Miami, the conference’s sixth seed, to Kansas City for a wild-card matchup with the defending Super Bowl champs and No. 3 seed Chiefs. Kickoff is scheduled for Saturday at 8 p.m., and the game will be streamed exclusively on Peacock. It will also be shown on NBC 6 in South Florida.
“This is a feeling that I can’t console or fix it with the team,” Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel said. “It hurts; it should. We lost a game that we think we’re capable of winning. Hats off to the Buffalo Bills for coming in here and winning the game. But yeah, we’ll focus immediately on Kansas City because that’s the only way you can really get through something like this.”
The Dolphins (11-6), who will head into the playoffs with their first two-game losing streak of the season, led 14-7 entering the third quarter but couldn’t close out a winner-take-all matchup to get a top-two seed for the first time since 1992.
Miami’s offense fizzled late, totaling just 57 yards and three first downs in the second half, while a banged-up defense couldn’t get enough stops on quarterback Josh Allen, who led Buffalo to its fifth straight win and fourth straight division title.
After a fourth-down stop gave the ball back to the Dolphins’ offense for a possible game-tying drive, quarterback Tua Tagovailoa was intercepted by safety Taylor Rapp at the Buffalo 22 with 1:17 left and no timeouts remaining for Miami.
“They played two-man. Tried to anticipate the throw and throw and that was the result,” said Tagovailoa, who completed 17 of 27 passes for 173 yards, one touchdown and two interceptions. In the second half, Tagovailoa was 8 of 14 for 50 yards with his game-sealing interception.
The tide began to turn with a 96-yard kickoff return touchdown by wide receiver Deonte Hardy, which tied the score at 14 with 13:42 left in the game. After a three-and-out for the Dolphins’ offense, Allen drove Buffalo down the field in eight plays and 74 yards, throwing a go-ahead, 5-yard touchdown pass to tight end Dawson Knox. The score gave the Bills (11-6), who secured the No. 2 seed, their first lead of the game and one they wouldn’t relinquish with 7:16 left.
Another three-and-out for Miami’s offense gave Buffalo the ball back with 6:14 left, but Miami stopped Allen on a fourth-down sneak, returning the ball to the Dolphins at their 37 with 1:53 left.
Miami got the ball as close as Buffalo 40 after wide receiver Tyreek Hill (seven catches, 82 yards, one touchdown), who dropped a pass with room for yards after the catch, drew a pass interference penalty. But two plays later, Tagovailoa was intercepted while targeting wide receiver Chase Claypool along the Dolphins’ sideline.
“Taylor Rapp was a little further outside of Chase Claypool than I think Tua recognized, and between Tua and Chase they didn’t connect,” McDaniel said. “That’s a hard play to make that I could have put them in better position to do it. You win as a team. You have all these successes as an offense, as a group, and then when you fail, then you fail as a group. So they out-executed us for sure.”
The Dolphins’ defense entered the game with a myriad of players either sidelined by injuries or entering the game with ailments but held Buffalo to 1 of 4 in the red zone and forced a pair of turnovers on the trips inside the 20. The first came on Buffalo’s opening drive when cornerback Eli Apple intercepted Allen in the end zone after an off-target throw in the face of pressure.
The second came shortly before halftime, as inside linebacker Jerome Baker, playing his first game in a month after a knee injury, stonewalled running back Ty Johnson before he broke the goal line plane, allowing time to expire and preserving a 14-7 halftime lead.
The third and final red zone stop occurred on the second-to-last play of the third quarter when defensive lineman Christian Wilkins strip-sacked Allen on third down and recovered the ball at the Miami 27.
But the Dolphins struggled to capitalize off the Bills’ miscues. Miami scored just seven points off Buffalo’s three giveaways, and the Bills’ punt return touchdown came after a three-and-out that followed Wilkins’ takeaway.
“That was a huge momentum swing that hurt us, that the defense had done such a good job keeping them from scoring points,” McDaniel said. “Points were at [a] premium at that point in the game, so it was a gut punch for sure.”
The defense was dealt additional injuries, as outside linebackers Andrew Van Ginkel and Cameron Goode left in the second half and did not return. Goode, who was carted to the locker room early in the fourth quarter, could be facing a significant knee injury. McDaniel said his ailment “doesn’t look promising.” The team is gathering more information on the severity of Van Ginkel’s foot injury, but his agent told WSVN that X-rays were negative.
Miami’s defense was already playing without top edge defenders Jaelan Phillips and Bradley Chubb, who are out for the season, and cornerback Xavien Howard, inactive because of a foot injury.
But the difference in the division-deciding game could be found in the disparity between Miami’s first- and second-half performance on offense.
In the first two quarters, the Dolphins had four possessions and ran 31 plays, totaling 218 yards and 13 first downs. In the second half, Miami had five possessions and ran just 17 plays. Three drives ended with a three-and-out, one lasted four plays and the final possession ended with Tagovailoa’s interception. Miami was 0 of 4 on third down in the second half.
The Dolphins ran for 101 yards on 17 attempts by halftime, the second-most attempts Miami had in the first half this season. Rookie running back De’Von Achane once again led the backfield with Raheem Mostert (knee/ankle) inactive. Achane’s 25-yard touchdown run gave Miami a 7-0 lead in the second quarter, and after former Dolphin Trent Sherfield tied the game with a 6-yard touchdown catch, the Dolphins retook a seven-point lead before halftime when Tagovailoa connected with Hill for a 3-yard score.
But in the second half, the Dolphins totaled just 7 yards on three carries. Achane had two carries for 1 yard.
“They played some more single safety to stop the run, which we were kind of anticipating,” McDaniel said. “Then it was just herky-jerky when you have some — we had two different penalties and then we just had misfires.”
Meanwhile, the Bills ran 42 plays in the second half, as Allen overcame his three turnovers with clutch play late. Allen completed 30 of 38 passes for 359 yards, two touchdowns and two interceptions. He also rushed 15 times for 67 yards, picking up several crucial conversions on third and fourth down.
The Dolphins were again playing without two of their top offensive playmakers, as Mostert and wide receiver Jaylen Waddle (ankle) were inactive for the second straight game. And on the game-ending pick, Hill watched from the sideline. McDaniel said Hill was getting a play off after “he got hit pretty good.”
It left Tagovailoa to target Claypool, a wide receiver who had only been targeted five times entering Sunday, on the most important drive of the season to date.
“It’s tough for a certain position to have a couple guys go down and then you got to find spot guys to come in and try to play that position the way that a couple of our guys have,” Tagovailoa said. “So it’s tough, but no one is going to feel sorry for us. There are a lot of other teams that have injuries that are going through some tough deals, so we’re not making any excuses. No one is going to make any excuses for us. We’ve just got to come back next week and be ready.”
The Dolphins opened the final month of the season with a win against the Washington Commanders that gave them the best record in the AFC at 9-3 and a three-game lead in the AFC East with five games remaining. The final stretch was daunting, with three matchups against playoff-bound teams to conclude the regular season, but four of the last five were at home, where Miami was 17-2 at the time.
The Dolphins then lost a home “Monday Night Football” game to the Tennessee Titans, in which they led by 14 with three minutes left, before being blown out by 37 points in a road loss to the Baltimore Ravens that eliminated them from contention for the conference’s top seed. Then came Sunday night, with Miami holding a touchdown lead entering the fourth quarter to a division rival that for all the troubles they have given them, showed their infallibility.
As the Week 18 matchups unfolded, the Dolphins’ first-round options shrunk and it quickly became clear that Miami’s road to a home playoff game would not only include a rare win over Buffalo in the regular-season finale — Miami is 2-11 against its divisional rival since 2018 and was swept this season — but another meeting shortly.
A win would have brought Buffalo back to Miami Gardens for the rubber match in the wild-card round. But it’s the Bills who will get the comfort of staying home for a first-round game, while Miami will have to travel to get its first postseason win since the 2000 season.
When asked the reasoning for Miami losing a significant hold on the division and its spot atop the conference in the final month of the season, McDaniel said he would have a more concrete answer after the season. For now, he said, his focus was on Kansas City.
“If you give up an inch, you’ll be punished for it,” McDaniel said. “We didn’t take care of the games we really needed to and that’s what happens.”
But the Dolphins’ reality wasn’t as much about Sunday night as it was the final month of the season — and, frankly, a team that has come up short in the majority of its matchups against top-tier opponents. The themes have been consistent, from an offense that can’t consistently put together drives to a defense seemingly at its limit because of key injuries.
Miami is 1-5 against playoff teams and now faces short rest before traveling to face the Chiefs, a team they lost to, 21-14, in Germany in Week 9. On its surface, it’s a recipe for disaster for the Dolphins — a matchup on the road, where they’re 4-4, against a formidable opponent.
So if McDaniel can’t quickly find solutions for the problems that have troubled the Dolphins during their late skid, it’ll be another quick exit for Miami in the postseason.
This story was originally published January 7, 2024 at 11:30 PM.
