Promising season for Dolphins, Tua ends in crushing collapse with embarrassment in Buffalo | Opinion
There will be a time to see all of the progress and the good in this Miami Dolphins season.
It isn’t now.
There will be a time to look forward with hope on the unfurling of the Tua Tagovailao era.
That can wait.
What happened Sunday is too big and too raw to set aside that quickly, or easily.
What happened to the Dolphins in Orchard Park, New York, served to make a mockery of so much that went into the accomplishment of this 10-win season.
When Miami, fighting to make the NFL playoffs — such a rare thing these past 20 years — needed to rise up and be at its best, the Fins were closer to no-shows.
The defense that led the league in fewest points allowed entering Week 17? No show. Worst performance of the year. It was Xavien Howard’s league-leading 10th interception of the season surrounded by a stinking pile of [bleep].
The young quarterback looking for a statement win to cap his rookie year? No show. Worst performance of the year. It was three Tagovailoa interceptions, one returned for a touchdown. (And no Ryan Fitzpatrick in the bullpen, as Fitzpatrick’s test-positive for COVID-19 was the dark harbinger of Miami’s nightmare weekend to come).
The Dolphins got spanked by the Buffalo Bills, 56-26, as one team and one team only showed who’s ready to run the AFC East now that New England has at long last abdicated.
The Dolphins finally outlasted Tom Brady’s Patriots reign — only to now confront the roadblock imposed by the Bills’ rising young star QB Josh Allen, who played only the first half on Sunday, twirling three TD passes before resting.
Miami would have clinched a playoff spot with a win Sunday. Period.
By losing, the Dolphins still could have snuck into the postseason by the back door had either Baltimore, Cleveland or Indianapolis been kind enough to lose.
Baltimore routed Cincinnati.
Cleveland beat Pittsburgh.
That left Dolfans with no hope but that Indianapolis, playing later Sunday and needing to win, might somehow lose at home to a 1-14 Jacksonville. They did not.
It was a sad way to end a season that had been mostly full of optimism for the Dolphins. You could almost see the coach of the year votes running away from Brian Flores as his team picked its most important day for its poorest showing.
It also was the learning curve on full display. This is the way the NFL tells you unmistakably exactly where you stand.
Miami’s 10 wins said no more about this team than the one Sunday afternoon in Buffalo, when everything was on the line and everything unraveled for all to see.
Tagovailoa’s promising year — a 6-2 record as starter, 10 TDs and only two INTs before Sunday — said nothing more about him than the last we saw of him: Three picks and a sense of helplessness, with no Fitz off the bench to bail him out.
The game, in microcosm: Miami is down 21-3 but a 32-yard trick-play pass makes it first-and-goal. Three failed plays later, the Fins settle for a field goal to make it 21-6 and squander maybe their only chance all day for any sort of claim to a smidgen of momentum.
Sunday didn’t ruin all that came before; 10-6 is not nothing. Another treasure trove of high draft picks awaits in April. This continues a franchise on the upswing.
Sunday leaves a a bad taste, though. It will last awhile, and it should. Because that is part of the learning curve, too.
Sunday leaves a bad taste because this was reality, too.
This showed how bad these Dolphins are still capable of being.
This showed how much better Tua Tagovailoa needs to become.
This showed that the gap between good and good enough in the NFL, and for Miami, was exactly what it appeared to be on a Sunday afternoon in Orchard Park.
This story was originally published January 3, 2021 at 4:17 PM.
