Monday Night’s Week 15 game was a make or break contest for the Dolphins.
As Enrique Martin so poignently asked: Do you really want it?
The Steelers said “Here we go! Ale ale ale!”
The Dolphins said: “No, no, no; no thank you, that’s okay!”
Everything was aligned against the Fins
You know the drill: December game, away, in the cold, in prime time, the Dolphins’ playoff hopes (no matter how small) on the line.
If there’s ever been anything more sure than a Miami loss in those circumstances, I’ve never encountered it.
This time had the addition of a little Mike on Mike violence as Mike ‘Oh no, we should fire him because we only finish over .500 every year for our entire lifetimes, boo hoo’ Tomlin went against Mike ‘I will lose this and still be your coach for the next decade, just watch how bad this can get’ McDaniel battled it out from the sidelines.
People love to play up narratives in NFL games, probably because they run out of interesting things to say after roughly their third season of trying to come up with engaging commentary (which I would know nothing about since I am always innovative and delightful and all of my observations are fresh and new and SHUT UP JERK).
That said, people play them up because they often prove true. NBC flashed the career records of Tua and Aaron Rodgers in games below 40 degrees and, while I can’t remember Rodgers’ because it had too many big numbers involved, Tua’s was 0-5.
Of course, if temperature alone is enough to ensure a loss for you as a professional athlete making more money than some small nations, I would be forced to consider that kind of pathetic.
There was no way that Tua and Company would so easily be defeated by something as innocuous as collective narratives spread by media talking heads with no meaningful perspectives to offer on game day.
Miami would obviously buck the trend.
The Fins would overcome the challenges.
The Fins did not overcome the challenges
Miami didn’t buck the trend. They didn’t defeat the narrative(s). They got thumped and played exactly as poorly as every version of the team you’ve ever seen that has encountered the same situation.
Why huddle? Why drag ass like it’s the National Donkey Pulling Championship?
I’m back in Pennsylvania for the holidays and it’s always so eye opening talking to people who aren’t Dolphins fans when the Dolphins play, especially when it’s against a local team.
The response is never gloating (since it’s always during or after a loss). It’s never “Man, we destroyed you guys! We rule and you got dominated!”
Instead, it’s almost always confusion: “Oh. Yikes. Are you guys, like, okay? What happened? Is that normal? That’s a full NFL team, right?”
What an embarassing conclusion to playoff eligibility.
Why are they passing? Not just early or late, like, at all?
Dear everyone involved in game planning and play calling: How dumb do you have to be?
Week 13 against the Saints, Miami rushed for 164 yards and won 21-17.
Week 14 against the Jets, Miami rushed for 239 yards and won 34-10.
Week 15, they should have rushed for 300 yards and won 42-7.
Instead, they rushed for 63 yards (despite De’Von Achane averaging 5.0 YPC) and lost 15-28.
That’s dumb. You’re all being dumb.
Analysts can try to present evidence that Pittsburgh went all in to take away the run and make Tua beat them (as Troy Aikman contended during the broadcast), but at 5.0 YPC, it didn’t work. MM just freaked out and went away from what was the obvious solution in a northeast winter game and got jack slapped.
Did you know Miami scored 27 points in the 3rd quarter?
That’s my last offensive fact. Read that word with whichever pronunciation you prefer.
The defense was jekyll and hyde
Early on, Miami’s defense was looking sharp. They were swarming to the ball, making solid tackles, and stifling the Steelers’ offense.
Then, after what I have to imagine was a literal funeral dirge at halftime, they came out and decided to be the worst version of themselves possible.
Every non-Minkah safety was suddenly bad. The line could get no pressure against a 4th string LT playing his first snaps as an adult. There was an inexplicable taunting penalty that rivals the most ridiculous things I’ve ever seen.
And worst of all: no one could tackle anymore.
I have this pet theory that Madden (the video game franchise, not the jolly announcer who was afraid of airplanes) has been making NFL players worse for years due to the introduction of the Hit Stick.
A bunch of kids grew up playing Madden, flicking the hit stick, annihiliating their opponents, and receiving positive reinforcement all along the way. Then, those kids realize that they’re some of the world’s best athletes, weasel their way onto an NFL roster, and start trying to Hit Stick (TM) people in real life.
Turns out, you still have to wrap up and tackle the way you were taught in Pop Warner.
Throwing shoulders to get a highlight on the long defunct Jacked Up segment of Sportscenter is a great way to not actually bring a guy to the ground and watch him run away from you for a score. See: DK Metcalf.
For as well as Anthony Weaver’s defense has shown it’s able to play, this display should warrant a back-to-the-basics reassessment of what it means to tackle the ball carrier instead of trying to get on an imaginary highlight reel.
And speaking of things that make my hair turn gray and knees start to feel the oncoming rains as I shake my fist at clouds:
Tush pushing is a nightmare
Sure, it has a rhyming name. That’s where its cuteness ends.
As a regular ol’ fan, I’m so bored of this.
4th and 1: here comes the butt brigade.
Make a rule change and get this mess out of here. It’s boring to watch, it’s repetitive, and the Dolphins don’t even use it because they’re too stupid to take advantage of the most obvious freebee on Earth.
Put Julian Hill under center and get a free 1st down.
Until the league fixes it: Be part of the problem, guys.
Then at least the boredom I feel would be overcome by the brief excitement of the Dolphins being successful.
Until the next snap, anyway.
Weekly Overreaction: Tua should be done
“For how long? For the rest of this year? For next year? For his career?”
I don’t know, pretend bro. But at least for a while.
I’ve been a Tua Middler (like Bette Midler, but not at all the same) since he’s arrived: I think at his peak, he can be elite at the things he does best (a la 2023) and at his worst, he’s a borderline joke (like this week).
But this whole season, it seems like he’s taken such a massive step back that I think it’s in the Fins’ best interest to see what they have elsewhere.
I realize that his contract saddles them with him for next year unless they take a huge salary cap penalty, but it’s pretty clear to me that he’s suffered some long term effects from his previous injuries that have limited him. He’s comically immobile in and around the pocket, his arm strength has lessened, and (unrelated to the injury angle) his ability to read the defense and fire off a quick, accurate pass has nearly disappeared.
Until garbage time, he looked completely incapable against Pittsburgh. For a guy getting a boatload of cash in a do-or-die game: that’s pitiful.
Now, he wasn’t alone. By the 3rd quarter, no one was holding up their end of the bargain. But he’s included in that ‘no one’ and he’s getting paid the most and has the highest expectations among them to not be hot garbage.
Ewers probably isn’t either, but at least he’s as yet unquantified.
Tua, it pains me to say, can’t be it anymore.
It seems like the Dolphins better get drafting.
And at least they have one thing going for them: their offseason starts today.
Why do we do this to ourselves? Do we really need to watch three more of these? What if we all just agreed to meet on Sundays and do puzzles and fist fight? Sling mud in the comments below.
