Dolphins’ supposed strength keeps coming up short. And a dozen thoughts, tidbits
A dozen thoughts and notes after the Dolphins’ gut-wrenching 29-27 loss to the Chargers on Sunday, dropping Miami to 1-5:
▪ Here’s a message to anyone in football who has ever said that quarterback pressures are as good as sacks:
They’re not.
Of the myriad factors that have doomed the Dolphins this season, the inability to get the quarterback on the ground has been the most surprising. On Sunday, it was especially damaging.
Jaelan Phillips and Bradley Chubb combined for at least a handful of pressures on Sunday, but neither they — nor the team’s other ballyhooed edge rushers, Chop Robinson or Matthew Judon — could bring Justin Herbert to the ground.
And Phillips’ inability to wrap up Herbert, despite having him in his grasp, was devastating, allowing a short completion that led to Ladd McConkey’s 42-yard catch and run, setting the stage for Cameron Dicker’s game-winning 33-yard field goal with five seconds left.
“He made a great play,” Phillips said of Herbert, who’s one of the most difficult quarterbacks to wrestle to the ground because of his size and strength.
Herbert dropped back 39 times and was sacked only once, by rookie Kenneth Grant. Yes, many of those were quick passes. But also keep in mind that Herbert had been sacked 18 times this season (third most in football) and was playing without the Chargers’ top three tackles.
But one of the stories of Sunday, and much of the season, has been the Dolphins’ inability to produce sacks with a four-man rush. Miami entered with 11 sacks, 17th in the league.
That’s not awful, considering teams often have been playing with a lead against them, but it’s disappointing because that was supposed to be their biggest strength.
Phillips has one sack and one tackle for loss in six games, and Pro Football Focus gives him among the worst run-defending grades in the league among edge rushers.
Robinson has one sack and two tackles for loss in six games and has been unable to build off the promising second half to his rookie season; PFF ranks him among the worst edge rushes in football.
Matthew Judon came to the Dolphins with 72 sacks and remains stuck at 72. He also took a bad angle on a sizable running play on Sunday. Bradley Chubb (four sacks) is the only edge player producing to expectations.
Dolphins general manager Chris Grier has never said that pressures are as good as sacks, but he did say this after drafting Robinson: “For us, [sacks are] an important part, but we’ve always talked about the ability to disrupt the passer.”
Phillips (and Zach Sieler) disrupted Herbert on the first play of the Chargers’ game-winning drive, forcing a throw-away. But disruption did neither Phillips nor the Dolphins any good on the next play, the pass to McConkey.
▪ Tua Tagovailoa mentioned, unprompted, that some players have been showing up late — or not showing up at all — to players’ only meetings, in which position groups go over strategy, assignments and that week’s particular matchups.
How is this an issue?
In making the point that the team had weeded out players who didn’t care enough, Grier famously said in August of his team: “You’re winning. But you look at it and say ‘Hey, I don’t know if we’re winning the right way.’”
It was a stretch, in August, to say they were winning.
But they’re no longer winning the right way or any kind of way.
The brutal numbers: The Dolphins are now 1-15 against the last 16 teams they’ve played with winning records….
For the first time in his career, Mike McDaniel has a losing record. Including two playoff losses, he’s now 29-30, underachieving somewhat with the talent he has been given. He’s 11-18 in his past 29 games…
Tagovailoa fell to 6-17 all-time in his 23 games against teams with winning records.
▪ This loss was on the defense far more than the offense, but it’s notable the Dolphins haven’t topped 30 points in any of their past 13 Tagovailoa-quarterbacked games against winning teams. They’re 2-11 in those games.
They have scored 27 in two of those games (losses to Buffalo and the Chargers, when the defense faltered after Tagovailoa orchestrated touchdown drives). They didn’t score more than 23 in any of the other 11 games.
Blame the defense mostly for Sunday, but your $53 million-a-year quarterback needs to occasionally produce 30 points against good teams. That hasn’t happened in a long time.
▪ On the game-turning play that set up the Chargers’ winning field goal, the fact that McConkey juked out rookie safety Dante Trader Jr. was as damaging as Phillips’ inability to get the sack.
McConkey caught the ball at his own 43 before faking out the Dolphins’ rookie safety. He ran 40 yards to the Dolphins’ 17.
▪ CBS 4’s Kim Bokamper said he didn’t like the team’s “bad body language” even before the third-quarter collapse, when the Chargers had 155 yards and the Dolphins had negative 11.
“Need to find a way to get energy earlier in the game,” he said.
▪ The Dolphins entered worst in the league in rushing yards allowed and gave up 140 yards on the ground, on 5.6 per carry, to a team missing its top two running backs and its best two offensive linemen.
They entered permitting 5.5 yards per rush (second most in the league) and allowed third-stringer Kimani Vidal, a 2024 sixth round pick, to run for 124 yards on 6.9 per carry. Vidal came into the game having averaging 3.7 yards on his first 47 career rushing attempts.
The Dolphins began the day with 19 tackles for loss, fifth fewest in the league, and produced only one.
They entered allowing a 117.6 opponent passer rating to opposing quarterbacks, the worst in the league defensively, then permitted Herbert to post a 112.2 rating (29 for 38 for 264 yards).
▪ Cornerback Ethan Bonner received a package of snaps in something of a rotation with Jack Jones, who committed two costly penalties in the loss to Carolina. McConkey beat Bonner for one sizable gain but Bonner defended him well on an incomplete pass to the end zone.
▪ Ollie Gordon II remained perfect in short-yardage situations on third and fourth downs, converting a third-and-2 in the fourth quarter.
On the flip side, Miami’s defense has allowed eight conversions on nine fourth-down attempts this season.
▪ Rookie Jonah Savaiinea did some good work in the running game but permitted his third sack in two games. He entered having allowed more pressures than any guard in the league.
Because the Dolphins traded third- and fourth-round picks to move up to draft him, this will end up being one of Grier’s biggest mistakes of the past few years if he doesn’t improve.
▪De’Von Achane became the first player since the 1970 NFL/AFL merger to have 17 rushing touchdowns and 12 receiving touchdowns in their first 34 career games.
He averaged 8.0 yards on 16 carries Sunday and has quickly become the Dolphins’ best player.
And though Jaylen Waddle was to blame for Tua Tagovailoa’s first interception, he has 15 receptions for 205 yards in two weeks since Tyreek Hill’s season-ending injury, including several with a high degree of difficulty.
▪ The Dolphins continue to make costly and avoidable special teams penalties. Zach Sieler’s unnecessary roughness penalty on the Buffalo punter ended up being far more damaging than Matthew Butler’s penalty early Sunday, a play in which he had illegal contact with the long snapper in an attempt to gain leverage.
Bad teams do these types of things.
And there have been two especially damaging returns — the Patriots’ go-ahead kickoff return for a TD in Week 2, and Nyheim-Miller Hines’ 40-yard kickoff return that allowed the Chargers to begin their final possession on their own 41.
▪ Tagovailoa’s three interceptions — the first of which bounced off Waddle’s hands and the last of which ended the game — left him with a 54.8 passer rating, the fifth worst of his career. The interception by Benjamin St. Juste preceded the Chargers’ second third-quarter touchdown and was particularly egregious.
▪ Dolphins legend Larry Csonka, afterward, on X: “Don’t know what to say. I keep watching, hoping. I see talent and even some moments of good execution. But we’re inconsistent which boils down to rehearsal. I can hear Coach Shula repeating, “we don’t practice until we get it right, we practice till we CAN’T GET IT WRONG!”
Here’s what McDaniel said afterward and his reaction to Tagovailoa’s admission.
This story was originally published October 12, 2025 at 5:47 PM.
