Five takeaways as the Dolphins fall short to Chargers despite comeback attempt
Tua Tagovailoa had another chance to lead his team to a late-game victory.
Unlike past situations against the New England Patriots and Buffalo Bills, he threw what could have been the game-winning touchdown to Darren Waller. Then his defense once again let him down.
The Miami Dolphins lost a close contest to the Los Angeles Chargers 29-27 after Cameron Dicker hit the go-ahead 33-yard field goal with less than 10 seconds left.
“That’s just not the way that we want to play football and establish what we’ve been talking about through OTAs, training camp, even in our leadership meetings,” Tagovailoa said, admitting that he’s “frustrated.”
This one likely should have gone the Dolphins’ way. With 39 seconds left and the ball on the Chargers’ 41-yard line, the Dolphins’ defensive front swarmed Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert for what looked like a sack. Instead, Herbert managed to get the ball out.
The same thing happened on the following play — except this time, Herbert found a wide-open Ladd McConkey in the flat. A missed tackle from rookie safety Dante Trader Jr. saw McConkey have nothing but green grass in front of him, and he took full advantage, going for a whopping 42 yards to the Miami 17. Four plays later, Dicker’s kick sailed through the uprights.
Miami would get the ball with nine seconds left. Tagovailoa, who completed 66% of his passes for 205 yards and a touchdown, would throw his third interception of the day to effectively end the game.
“A difficult time is losing a second consecutive game after having a lead in the last third of the fourth quarter,” coach Mike McDaniel said. “That’s tough. It forces you to go back to work and focus on the details. You don’t know what detail is going to be the winning element, but it shouldn’t matter. We have a job to do.”
De’Von Achane gets run game gets going
The Dolphins had a disastrous performance on the ground against the Carolina Panthers.
After the team’s 14 rushes gained just 19 yards, there was some belief that maybe the Dolphins couldn’t run the ball.
That couldn’t be further from the truth after Achane turned his second touch into a 49-yard touchdown. “As an offense, we knew that can’t happen again,” Achane said of the team’s rushing performance vs. the Panthers. “This week, it was like, ‘I know we had a bad week, but we can’t dwell on that.’ We worked and had a great week of practice.”
The third-year tailback finished with 128 yards and two touchdowns on 16 carries. He also caught four balls for 22 yards. This was Achane’s first 100-yard game of the season.
Run defense still abysmal
Another week, another backup running back exposes the Dolphins’ defense.
The Dolphins gave up more than 100 yards on the ground to another backup tailback for the second consecutive week. Last week, it was the Panthers’ Rico Dowdle, who put up 206 yards on 23 carries. This time, it was Kimani Vidal, technically the Chargers’ fourth-string tailback, who had 18 carries for 124 yards.
“Honestly, we continue to beat ourselves at the wrong times,” linebacker Jordyn Brooks said when asked about the run defense.
Vidal added a touchdown and another 14 yards on three receptions.
Bend-don’t-break defense
The Dolphins’ run defense obviously still needs work.
Despite being down to their third- and fourth-string tailbacks, the Dolphins gave up a total of 140 yards on the ground.
Still, the Dolphins got a bit stingy when the Chargers got to the red zone. The defense didn’t allow a single touchdown despite Los Angeles’ three trips in the first half. Instead, the Chargers had to settle for field goals.
In the second half, the Chargers did have two red-zone touchdowns — right at the start of the third quarter, a period coach Mike McDaniel described as the “least complimentary football that we’ve played” — yet the Dolphins held them to a field goal on their third drive of the day.
The Dolphins’ defense finished with a red-zone touchdown rate of 33%, a pretty impressive feat considering the Denver Broncos have a league-best 29%. “That’s something we were really good at last year,” Brooks said. “We just hadn’t gotten it rolling this year so I think this game was pretty good for us.”
Waddle can definitely handle WR1 workload
When Tyreek Hill sustained a season-ending injury in Week 4, there were some who questioned whether Jaylen Waddle could handle being the go-to guy.
Then he dropped 110 yards and a touchdown against the Panthers
Waddle added to his resume Sunday when he finished with six catches for 95 yards. The Dolphins went to him early and often during the Dolphins’ two-minute drill just before the end of the first half. Waddle had a huge, 45-yard catch that put the Dolphins inside the red zone and later led to a field goal.
The fifth-year receiver’s only mistake came on the opening drive when he bobbled the ball and it landed into the arms of Chargers safety Tony Jefferson.
Where’s Waller?
The veteran tight had been one of the best stories in the NFL after he caught three touchdowns in his first two games in a Dolphins uniform.
Waller, however, was a non-factor for most of the Chargers game — that is, until he caught that late game touchdown.
With Waller slated for an uptick in snaps, his final stat line — two catches for 12 yards — is a bit disappointing, especially considering that he only had three targets for the entire game.
“Having an effective offense is difficult in this league,” Waller said. “You’re going to run into difficulties. You’re going to run into walls. I was proud of how we responded in the fourth quarter, down 10. It felt like there was a crossroads right there of what we wanted to do as a team, and our team responded, especially offensively. To respond to that wall we hit and give us a chance to win the game is all we can ask for, and I respect the guys a lot for that.
This story was originally published October 12, 2025 at 4:17 PM.
