The good (and not so good) news about the Dolphins’ road game struggles since 2016
If the Miami Dolphins are going to make the playoffs this season, they have to do something they haven’t done all season. Indeed, they have to do something they haven’t done much of during the Adam Gase era.
They have to win consistently on the road.
The Dolphins understand if they win their final three games, they are almost certainly going to be in the playoffs. The problem is two of their final three games are on the road, including Sunday’s game against the Minnesota Vikings in Minneapolis. The other road game is at Buffalo in the season finale.
I’ve been to Minneapolis. I can confirm it is most definitely not Miami. It is not the Dolphins’ home.
Neither is Buffalo. I’ve been there, too. Also not Miami or a reasonable likeness thereof.
So the Dolphins have to find a way to string two consecutive road victories together. You know the last time the Dolphins won back-to-back road games?
December of 2016 when they beat the New York Jets and Buffalo Bills to earn a playoff spot.
And now they have to do the same this season at Minnesota on Sunday and at Buffalo on Dec. 30.
That’s asking a lot for a team that is 1-5 on the road this year and 7-15 on the road since Gase became coach in 2016.
The frustrating thing about all this?
The Dolphins obviously have an issue playing on the road. And they seem to have no real idea why.
Gase believes it has to do with the opponent and not so much his own team.
“Some of it has to do with who you’re playing. We’ve played some pretty good teams on the road,” the coach said. “We’ve had a couple of opportunities to win some games and we didn’t finish the game the way we needed to. We had a couple of games where we just got smoked basically. Personally, I felt good going into a lot of those games when we were healthy and we either didn’t play well just on Sunday or we just got beat. I think our guys have the right mindset. We just need to play well on Sunday.”
I’m sure Gase feels that way before every game. His team needs to play well to have a chance.
The problem is the Dolphins sometimes do not show up on the road.
The worst beat-downs the Dolphins have suffered since Gase arrived all came on the road.
The 38-6 loss at Baltimore in 2016.
The 40-0 loss at Baltimore last season.
The 45-21 loss at Carolina last season.
The 38-7 loss at New England this season.
The 42-23 loss at Houston this season.
All road blowout losses.
The Dolphins have lost seven games at home since 2016. Only one was a blowout — a 35-14 loss to New England in 2016.
The point is the Dolphins show up at home but curiously don’t always do even that on the road.
“Obviously it’s something that we need to improve upon,” quarterback Ryan Tannehill said. “We haven’t played up to our standards on the road. We had a couple of opportunities, but we haven’t been able to finish it off. It’s definitely something we look forward to correcting this week.”
Correcting the problem has been a mission of the coaching staff and others within the organization for a couple of years. The team used to fly to games the day before as is the custom in the NFL.
But the Dolphins have begun arriving two days before — they will depart Friday for Sunday’s game — as an experiment.
Problem is the Dolphins flew a day earlier to Houston and Indianapolis. And lost both games.
“Over the last three years, we’ve tried as many different things as we can,” Gase said. “We kind of spitball things around the staff and what other guys have done, or if we’re doing something that just seems out of the ordinary. Even talking to some of the veteran players to see if there’s something strange about why we haven’t won on the road.
“The two-day trips, does that do something positive? Negative? It seemed like the Houston game, at least we were competitive for a little bit and other Thursday games, we just got smoked right out of the blocks.”
That’s one way to view it.
Gase has also paid close attention to see if the preparation leading to road games has been lacking or somehow different. Not that, either.
“I don’t see a difference in the way they prepare, the focus,” Gase said. “When we’re in our meetings, when we’re on the road at the hotel, guys are wired in. When we’re at the opposing stadium, the energy and the attitude, I don’t see a drop-off in that.”
And so we’re back to: Road opponents have been good while home opponents not so much.
Which, of course, is not really true.
The Dolphins got blown out by the Patriots on the road this year. They just beat New England last week at home. Same team.
The Dolphins lost on the road to a Green Bay team that is 5-7-1. They won at home against a Chicago team that is 9-4. Chicago > Green Bay.
The idea that Miami only plays good teams on the road and bad teams at home is groping for an explanation. And that explanation doesn’t seem to find validation with facts.
I have an alternate theory, which of course, is correct:
It’s hard to win on the road and mediocre teams aren’t good enough to do it. It’s not just the Dolphins. All the NFL’s middling teams stink on the road.
In the AFC, six teams have six or seven wins. Only one of them — the Pittsburgh Steelers — has a winning record on the road. In the NFC, Atlanta is 1-5 on the road, Green Bay is 0-6, Carolina is 1-6, and even the Dallas Cowboys are 2-4 on the road.
Mostly it’s the elite teams that have had success on the road this year.
So Miami’s road misery has company.
Here’s a strand of good news: The Dolphins are probably good enough to win their two remaining road games. After all, they already beat the Bills once this season and Buffalo just lost to the New York Jets at home.
The Vikings, meanwhile, are reeling. They’ve lost three of their last four games including a Monday night game at Seattle this week that led to the firing of offensive coordinator John DeFilippo.
Of course, the Vikings struggle on the road. They’re inconsistent and another one of those middling teams.
They are, however, 4-2 at home.
This story was originally published December 13, 2018 at 12:14 AM.
