abeyance (noun) – a state of temporary inactivity
Well, here we are again at everyone’s favorite place: call it the Miami Dolphins’ December to Remember.
Every year the Fins come in with playoff hopes in their little aquatic hearts and then proceed to get tangled in a bunch of fishing nets until they fully drown in a sea of poor play.
It’s true; Miami could still make the postseason. But they won’t. And they don’t deserve to.
If I have to see Miami sitting on the bottom right of that stupid ‘In the Hunt’ playoff graphic one more time, I’m going to be in the hunt for whichever poor intern is forced to make it.
So let’s just pack this one in and see what seeds we can plant for the future.
Maybe ones that turn into ents or something cool like that.
It was a competitive game that showed what could be
You think I’m ‘avin a laugh eh?
Despite the outcome, Sunday’s game against the Houston Texans looked like a normal football game between two teams who you could picture making the playoffs.
While that might not read like the sort of game fans are jacked up to watch, I think of how many games over the years didn’t even amount to that. Backup quarterbacks or backups to backups starting against teams with ten players missing or sitting all of their starters during ice bowl or hurricane conditions. So, I don’t know, if I can find one thing acceptable here, it was that Miami played Houston in a way that could represent a capable group.
The downside to that viewpoint is that a pretty consistent attribute of normal football games between two decent teams is that they come down to a handful of plays and the resulting momentum swings. And that downside was as big as Frosty’s rippling muscles for Miami as every momentum swing served to smother their hopes and dreams.
There were the obvious big things, such as a fumble that resulted directly in a Houston touchdown. Or a successful fake punt by the Texans (following a drop by John Metchie on a surefire first down pass, but let’s ignore that) that resulted directly in a Houston touchdown. Or three (3) interceptions by Tua Tagovailoa, including one to snuff out any remaining hope of a comeback on the first pass of a drive that started with 1:44 left in the 4th quarter.
There were also little things. For example, Mike McDaniel continued his favorite holiday tradition of wasting timeouts, leaving the Fins with none when attempting a game winning two-minute drill. It’s the kind of thing you’d expect him to grow out of by now, if you bothered having expectations.
If it wasn’t so sad, it’d be funny. The Dolphins are over 20 years without a playoff win and this season will do nothing to recify that. Preseason pundits were all over the Dolphins, gearing up for this to be their year. Yet, as sure as the solstice, here we are again: always staring creepily through the window at the bridesmaids inside the venue until a plainclothes officer Terry Tates us into a snow bank.
The O-line is looking like its old self
No matter how that heading reads, I’m actually not contending that the Dolphins’ offensive line is as bad as its been in recent years.
As always, they’re marred by injuries and trotting out dudes who even die hard fans need to look up. That’s just the way she goes. That’s understood.
Beyond being a patchwork of street urchins, however, the line is also back to its classic ways of being completely unable to block in the run game. Miami cranked out 52 yards on 19 carries against Houston, good for a scintillating 2.7 yards/carry.
Those kinds of numbers don’t exactly allow for offensive balance, nor do they strike fear in the hearts of opposing defenders near the line of scrimmage.
Liam Eichenberg, who had seemed to be settling in better this year at RG, got (in the official parlance) blown the f*** up over and over, looking totally overmatched and utterly incapable. It seems to be a given for him that if he’s bracketed by good players, he can elevate his play near theirs, but if he’s looked to as one of the anchors on his own, he struggles monumentally.
One good point about the offensive line, though: rookie LT Patrick Paul looks like a solid player so far, particularly for someone who was thought of as developmental when he was drafted. So, hey. That’s cool. That’s Frosty.
Or wait, Frosty’s hot now. So I don’t know. Nothing is real.
Lack of a run game is a foundational problem
For a big chunk of the year, teams were playing the Dolphins with two high safeties, forcing them to take ‘easy’ yardage underneath, which coach McDaniel and his merry band of screen catchers were more than happy to oblige. Even when it stopped working due to poor blocking or missed timing or dropped passes or inaccurate throws or DBs diagnosing the plays, they kept on insisting that the best way forward was sideways.
Some of that could come back to the offensive line and the coaching staff’s mistrust in their pass blocking. While not world beating, I (a man without PFF to back him up) feel like the line has been reasonable in pass protection for a lot of this season, so I don’t wholly buy that angle.
I see it more as the buzzwordy ‘extension of the run game’. And I think that has to exist in the capacity that it does because the regular ol’ run game is often trash. Houston deviated from the two-high look and had six DBs on the field, essentially begging the Fins to run the ball, which they did not.
Last season Raheem Mostert set a franchise record with 18 rushing touchdowns.
This year he has 2.
Are you really going to convince me that that precipitous of a dropoff is warranted? He slowed down that much in one offseason? For some reason, this year MM pivoted to using De’Von Achane as the lead back. Yes; Achane is explosive, but he doesn’t excel as a ‘traditional’ back who spends his time taking the ball between the tackles into a mass of players, trying to lower his shoulder, and grinding out a few yards (as an aside: Mostert was used this way against Houston on a 3rd and 1 and actually converted it). Instead, Achane finds a crease on a weird outside toss and disappears into the end zone before anyone notices he has the ball.
In 2023, Mostert had 1,012 yards and 18 TDs rushing while Achane had 800 yards and 8 TDs.
Math Blasters unite: that’s 1,812 yards and 26 combined TDs.
In 2024, Mostert has 244 yards, 2 TDs and Achane has 641 yards, 4 TDs.
That’s 885 yards and 6 combined TDs.
Even extending that average for 3 more games lands them at 1,074 yards and 7 TDs, aka a drop of 40% in yardage and 73% in TDs.
The passing game’s numbers aren’t making up the difference (nor are other backs like Jaylen Wright, Alec Ingold, etc.). I’m going to save us all the pain of more Tua dissection (short answer: when things around him are favorable, he can be incredible and when they aren’t, he can be incredibly bad) just to stress how much worse the run game has been.
And for what?
Dear Mister Coach Man: when you put up 1,812 yards and 26 TDs on the ground, that’s not the aspect of your game to change.
My stance is that the failure of the run game has often been the not-so-secret root to the offense’s problems. MM was supposed to be a rushing guru (not him doing the rushing himself, although I’d like to see him rock a guardian helmet and his t-shirt that serves as a direct repudiation of formal education while barreling toward some very surprised D-linemen).
Without a real running threat, the team is stuck leaning on its entirely too timing dependent passing offense, which can be easily disrupted by bump and run coverage, a robber floating in center field, or just watching enough game tape to know what’s coming.
That’s the part to change, Mike.
Defense provides a little cause for optimism
Miami’s defense held the C.J. Stroud-led Texans to 131 yards passing, 77 yards rushing, and 20 points (some of which were practically handed to them by the Fins’ offense’s mistakes).
Zach Sieler continued to be force in the middle of the D-line and Chop porked ‘em again, each notching 1.5 sacks on the day.
The only thing they failed to do was cover Nico Collins in the end zone. He grabbed two short TD passes and that’s all it took.
Certainly some of the players on the defensive side will be different next season, but it’s a tiny sliver of something to think that they’re able to lock down a good team like Houston with a lot on the line.
They had a solid game and can be proud of themselves.
It’s Week 15 and it’s time to look ahead
Before I start looking to the future, I have to look back for one second to say that the injury to Grant DuBose was awful and I wish him a quick recovery (since I’m sure he’s a big fan of the program and reading this as we speak).
As a brief digression, I’d like to remind every Trent Green in the booth that he’s not a doctor and we viewers gain nothing from listening to you idly speculate on injury specifics when you have just as much of an idea as we do about what’s going on, also referred to as ‘none’.
Anyway.
Here we are. Same as it ever was.
I’m not going to bore you with my plans for Miami’s future. You’ll see them play out when I’m named Vice President/CEO of Concessions (both of the stand and settlement varieties).
I hope some young players get a few weeks of play time over guys who the front office knows won’t be around after this year.
I hope nobody else gets grievously injured.
I hope the Bills win nothing.
I know that the team is going to run it back with Tua, McDaniel, Chris Grier, and the whole Sack Lunch Bunch for next season. They’ll note that if Tua wasn’t hurt, the Dolphins are probably at least 10-6 and heading to the postseason. They’ll look at the cap situation and realize a lot of guys just have to stay. They’ll say that this isn’t a 6 win roster (though the standings will prove, it is, in fact, currently a 6 win team).
Me? I’ll keep getting drunk on whatever liquid is nearest to my desk until I enter the fugue state I’m in when I write these things.
We’ve all seen Hot Frosty, right? Like, we all watch it once a day or more? And we’re not getting dumber by the second to the point where society will collapse on itself under a heap of ripped C-list Hallmark actors? Phew. Share your relief in the comments below.