The Dolphins’ third quarter woes continue. How can they improve it?
Miami Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel was visibly frustrated.
For the second straight week, his team had been on the wrong end of a lopsided third quarter, this time courtesy of the Cincinnati Bengals. So when McDaniel finally got to the podium following the 45-21 drubbing, his emotions spilled to the surface.
“There is a lot of venom and anger just towards the resulting third and fourth quarter,” McDaniel said, later adding “You have to be able to come out from halftime and adjust. We aren’t executing that at all. So back to the drawing board and all things are on the table for that. I knew it was a ratio like that, which bottom line, you’re not going to win more football games than you lose doing things like that or playing the type of brand that we expect from ourselves. So not good enough.”
This, however, has been a reoccurring issue for the Dolphins. Since Week 1, Miami has been outscored 113-27 in the third quarter. McDaniel, admittedly, took responsibility for the issue – after all, it is his job to make halftime adjustments – yet the question becomes why have the Dolphins consistently underperformed in the most critical period of the game.
“We got to be more warmed up and stuff like that, but we just got to come out stronger, everybody just got to do their one and come out stronger,” edge rusher Chop Robinson said. “There really is no excuse or no reason why. We just got to come out stronger in the second half.”
The importance of the third quarter cannot be understated. After both teams take each other’s best punch, the third quarter is when coaching really shines as in-game adjustments become extremely important. To say that the Dolphins don’t make adjustments would be a gross exaggeration; rather, it’s the effectiveness of said changes that deserve scrutiny.
“There’s a multitude of things that I think we have to factor in, but ultimately it’s our ability to start drives, continue drives and finish drives,” offensive coordinator Frank Smith said, explaining “some adjustments” are “things they started in the second quarter.” “I think that’s just something that, as you take in the entirety of the year, there’s just been areas throughout the season of parts when we had success, it went well, and when we didn’t execute in these situations, obviously it was like last Sunday.”
That problem has grown even more apparent over the last two weeks as the Bengals and Pittsburgh Steelers combined for 35 points to the Dolphins’ zero.
“The way I look at it is I’m furious because I’m allowing it to happen,” McDaniel said. “It starts with me. While I’m up here after games, you probably won’t get much other finger pointing besides I need to get it fixed.”
In the Bengals game, it appeared that everything began to unravel after receiver Theo Wease Jr. was called for offensive pass interference during the Dolphins’ opening drive of the second half. That play negated what would’ve been a 31-yard catch-and-run from De’Von Achane. The very next play, tight end Greg Dulcich fumbled.
Miami’s next three drives went as follows: interception, turnover on downs, interception.
“It was a frustrating couple of calls and no calls in that third quarter but again, you’ve got to play between the whistles, and you have to execute,” fullback Alec Ingold said, explaining that he was “Pretty disappointed to see that we didn’t respond in-game the way that I feel like we’ve trained and have been recently the past month, month-and-a-half. It’s something that is definitely going to be harped on in all these meeting rooms and in the locker room because that’s not acceptable.”
Meanwhile, Joe Burrow and the Bengals scored touchdowns on all three of their third quarter drives.
“Execution went down from every phase, from just tackling and execution of calls,” safety Dante Trader Jr. said. “You’ve got to give credit to their offense, too, making plays, there are playmakers on the other side of the field. At the end of the day, we’ve got to be better. We didn’t stop them. There’s no secret sauce; it’s just execution, being in the right spots, tackling, the fundamentals of football.”
What remains to be seen is whether McDaniel can fix this issue by season’s end. The better teams don’t fall apart in the third quarter and while the Dolphins certainly don’t fall into that category following back-to-back losses, this cannot continue to happen. Something has got to give.
