The Miami Dolphins 2019 season of discontent continues despite a glimpse of early hope
That was an amazing feeling early Monday night wasn’t it? The Dolphins were on national television and they were playing the Pittsburgh Steelers, who are an NFL legacy team like the Dolphins used to be. And Miami was beating the ever-lovin’ stuffing out of the home team.
I long for days when that feeling of the local professional team beating up an opponent returns week after week. I long for the moment when the Miami Dolphins are a good team again.
For a brief 30 minutes or so it was good to see the Dolphins looking like a normal NFL team. Looking like a team playing with a purpose. Looking like a team that was every bit the match of its opponent.
Looking like a team that could, you know, actually win a game.
The Dolphins led the Steelers 14-0 at one point Monday night.
That made the NFL experts and pundits across America that tuned into this game because it’s the league’s only game on television, believe that something was actually right in Miami.
Dolphins quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick had thrown two touchdown passes. The defense was chasing young Pittsburgh quarterback Mason Rudolph out of the pocket. The Miami game plan showed some wrinkles like that touchdown pass to Albert Wilson, who motioned from right to left across the field before the snap, basically scheming him open before the ball was even snapped for his 5 yard scoring pass.
It looked like real NFL football was being played by Miami’s team.
And, friends, it’s been a while since we’ve been able to say this. Because the Dolphins had not won in six previous games this season. And they lost their final three games last season.
And all we’ve heard and talked about since January is how this team isn’t going to be relevant this season. By design, no less.
The Dolphins were playing their seventh game Monday night. But all the facts you’ve just read have made it feel like a too-long season already.
And then that 14-0 lead offered a little respite from the whole messy reality. It offered an oasis in a desert of stink.
Dolphins fans could have easily suspended belief and imagined themselves rooting for a real team again. A legitimate team. A good team even.
It felt good didn’t it?
That’s how people in New England feel every week. That’s how fans in maybe 25 other NFL markets feel because their teams can win on any given game day.
I imagine fans in Miami miss that feeling. I certainly miss that feeling. Because against all evidence to the contrary as the Dolphins took that 14-0 lead over an unremarkable 2-4 Pittsburgh team, I still expected Miami to be Miami.
I expected the worst.
And these Dolphins delivered. They allowed 27 unanswered points. They regressed to mean and lost 27-14. Ho-hum another Dolphins loss in 2019.
The last game of October has been played and the Dolphins, though closer to looking like a real football team than they were the first week of the season, remain winless. They aren’t embarrassing anymore like they were the first couple of weeks.
But they’re not good.
The Dolphins have improved to being merely a poor NFL team.
Think about that last sentence. It should feel like you’re living a nightmare.
Now, if you’re part of the loud and militant tanking crowd on social media, you think all this is awesome. Because you actually want your team to lose. You are as much in the tank as Miami’s record.
But I believe there is a remnant out there that cannot believe what has happened to their once-proud franchise. Yes, they understand the strategy of tanking. They know there’s supposed to be a payoff down the road.
But those folks remember this franchise 45 years ago when the Dolphins were among the NFL’s elite. They remember 35 years ago when the Dolphins captured the imagination of a generation. They remember 15 years ago when a losing season was still as rare as seeing a unicorn.
Not now. Now, we expect a 14-0 lead to disappear at the hands of a second-string quarterback who shares a name with a fictional reindeer. We expect to see Fitzpatrick go from FitzMagic to FitzTragic almost in alternating quarters.
And we expect the Dolphins rookie coaching staff that is trying hard but still getting no results to do some strange things.
We saw the strangest of those things late in the second quarter this game. The Dolphins led 14-3 with only 26 seconds to play in the half. And on a third-and-20 play from the Miami 45 yard line, Dolphins defensive coordinator Patrick Graham called an eight-man blitz against Rudolph.
That means the Dolphins, who simply had to give up a short pass and tackle short of the first down marker 20 yards away, sold their souls for a sack. But the Steelers, who still have a good offensive line, blocked the blitz.
And Rudolph connected on a routine slant. And Diontae Johnson, having already beaten one defender, needed to only split two others to easily get into the end zone.
It was perhaps the worst call I’ve seen from a Dolphins coordinator in a long time. It was aggressive. But it was supremely dumb.
It showed little situational awareness. It showed no wisdom. It showed no experience.
It showed Graham for the rookie coordinator he actually is.
That was the turning point. The Steelers went to the locker room down only 14-10 after having been dominated by Miami.
And soon the second half would take a course familiar to the season we’ve witnessed so far: Xavien Howard, who missed the last two games with a knee injury, injured a knee again. And the Steelers went after his replacement, scoring on a 26-yard touchdown pass by JuJu Smith-Shuster.
And then, of course, Fitzpatrick had to go into desperation mode and throw to rally the Dolphins. And those rallies this year have never worked. The Dolphins try to author a comeback and what typically happens is the defense authors big plays because it knows Fitzpatrick must throw.
And that’s what happened this night. And the Dolphins lost 27-14.
So the 2019 season of discontent continues. At least we have that fleeting 14-0 lead on national TV. That’s all we have right now.
This story was originally published October 28, 2019 at 11:30 PM.
