Kelly: Foundation of this Dolphins team has cracks that spackle won’t fix | Opinion
This is what happens to faulty foundations.
They eventually crack under pressure, and that’s the best way to describe Miami’s 27-24 fourth-quarter loss to the Carolina Panthers, which puts the Dolphins at 1-4 to begin the 2025 season.
There’s only so much one team can bend before it breaks, fractures, and we’re inching closer and closer to that breaking point this season.
These Dolphins have been struggling in the trenches on both sides of the ball most of this season, and the fact that Carolina pushed Miami’s offensive and defensive lines around for most of Sunday’s game was telling.
Especially late, when Carolina was able to wipe away a 46-yard fourth-quarter touchdown pass from Tua Tagovailoa to Jaylen Waddle that should have, could have won the game if the defense wasn’t so fragile.
But that unit, which has surprisingly been the weak link of the 2025 team, is.
“Bizarre is the word for it. We got to be better on the defensive end,” pass rusher Bradley Chubb said. “We sit up here every week talking about ‘We got to stop the run, stop the run, stop the run,’ and we make it an emphasis.
“We need to emphasize it more,” Chubb said, referring to the season-high 239 rushing yards the Dolphins defense allowed.
The Panthers, which gained 418 yards for the game, responded to Miami’s touchdown strike with one of their own, driving 83 yards downfield on eight plays, leaving 1:59 left in the game.
Two incompletions to Waddle and a Pat Jones II sack later and the Dolphins were punting the game away.
A Jack Jones pass interference call sealed the loss, allowing the Panthers to end the game on a knee as time expired.
But it was the Dolphins who bowed all game.
Carolina clogged Miami’s run game, holding the Dolphins to 19 rushing yards on 14 carries. The Dolphins offense became one dimensional in the second half, running the ball five times despite having the lead until six minutes were left in the game.
Tua Tagovailoa was sacked three times, two of which was given up by starting rookie left guard Jonah Savaiinaea, and occasionally moved off his spot by pressure.
And as for Miami’s defense, which finished the game without starting inside linebacker Tyrel Dodson, who sustained a head injury in the fourth quarter, it allowed the Panthers to produce favorable situations for a Carolina offense that was playing without starting tailback Chubba Hubbard, who is nursing a calf injury.
Rico Dowdle, who replaced Hubbard, gained 53 rushing yards on his first run of the second half when he made a right side toss behind Carolina’s third starting right guard of the season. On that play inside linebacker Willie Gay Jr., who started his first game of the season, lost containment and from there it was off to the races until Minkah Fitzpatrick was able to get Dowdle down.
It was the biggest run of the season Miami had allowed, and one that highlighted the main issue the Dolphins had been having all season.
“The defense needs to play better up front. We have to play better as a unit,” defensive lineman Zach Sieler said. “[We have to] take this week to make the corrections and go in there every single day to find a way to figure out what we’re not doing right.”
Miami came into Sunday’s contest against the Panthers allowing 5.1 yards per carry, and if that wasn’t bad enough, the Panthers boosted that average by producing a 7.5 yards-per-carry average on Sunday.
The Dolphins’ defense continues to keep opposing offenses in the game, which explains the 17-10 halftime lead Miami had after starting the game up 17-0 five seconds in the second quarter.
At this point defensive coordinator Anthony Weaver has to be running out of changes he can make.
This week, Jordan Phillips moved ahead of Kenneth Grant on the defensive tackle hierarchy. That’s right, the team’s 2025 fifth-round pick played ahead of, and handled more snaps than Miami’s 2025 first-round pick.
Fitzpatrick, who pulled down his first interception of the season, spent most of the game playing nickel cornerback. Moving the free safety closer to the line of scrimmage couldn’t hurt, right?
But did it help?
Gay started the game as part of a three linebacker packages that also featured Jordyn Brooks and Dodson, Miami’s normal starting inside linebackers. However, that package was only used for a handful of plays because it resulted in more leaks.
But Miami’s offensive line wasn’t much better. Just about every run lane was consistently stuffed, and on a few critical passing downs, like Miami’s last drive, there was an offensive lineman whiffing on a block like what happened in Tagovailoa’s last offensive snap.
If these were isolated incidents it wouldn’t be so damning, but this has been happening to Mike McDaniel’s team game after game, quarter after quarter, and sometimes down after down, and the Dolphins haven’t been able to identify a solution.
And the problem about the NFL that once a team puts something on film every opponent will copycat it, doing the same thing until they figure out how to stop it. So now, the blueprint to stopping the Tyreek Hill-less Dolphins is stack the box, clog the middle of the field, making the offense one dimensional.
“They gave us different looks, bought a couple of pressures and line movements. We just didn’t execute our game plan good enough,” center Aaron Brewer. said after the loss. “You’ve just got to look at yourself in the mirror and fix the issues.”
Problem is, times running out.
This story was originally published October 5, 2025 at 4:33 PM.
