The Miami Dolphins lost to the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday, coming from ahead to fall 16-10. And it was like looking in a mirror for much of what we’ve seen from a tremendously disappointing start to the 2024 season.
For the sixth straight game, the best player in football – Tyreek Hill – was left to be little more than a spectator. And that’s because, in large part, of this organization’s complete and total failure to find a fallback QB option in the event Tua Tagovailoa was to miss time in 2024.
That disconnect was on full display on Sunday, when Tim Boyle, called in to replace Tyler Huntley, who suffered a shoulder injury in the second half, connected with Hill for a gain of five yards with the Dolphins in desperation mode inside two minutes to play. That constituted Hill’s first and only reception of the game.
That is coaching malpractice of the highest order. Hill has to have the ball in his hands, somehow, someway. Few players can break a game open like he can in the open field. Screens, sweeps, motion, something. Instead, they foolishly left their Ferrari in the garage on Sunday.
The head scratching about the coaching wasn’t done there either. Kicking a 54-yard field goal down 13-10 late in the fourth quarter while facing 4th and 1 is scared money of the highest order. Of course, Jason Sanders missed it, and the decision looked even worse.
The team wasn’t quite as sloppy as it usually was penalty wise, but 6 for 50 yards proved big in some key moments. Case in point, a hold on Durham Smythe in the first half – although it was an iffy flag – wiped out a long run into field goal range.
But the players had plenty of their own blame to take on beyond the coaching. Raheem Mostert and Alec Ingold both put the ball on the ground at key points. Both times the Colts recovered. The defense allowed the Colts to go 36 yards in 22 seconds to finish the first half with a field goal. Tim Boyle threw the ball out of bounds on 4th and 2 in the direction of Malik Washington with under 10 seconds left in Colts territory.
Basically, just what bad teams do at the most crucial times of the game.
Ironically, the quarterback who likely could have helped the Dolphins escape town with a win was sitting in uniform on the other sideline in Joe Flacco. The guy that led the Cleveland Browns to the playoffs last year and was a free agent. Instead, general manager Chris Grier elected to stay with the underwhelming options that he had the previous year, and that decision is rearing its ugly head now.
And as a result, the Dolphins – who led 10-0 with 22 seconds left in the first half – are now staring at a 2-4 record that could surely be better with just a little bit of diligence in the offseason.
Sure, Tua Tagovailoa is eligible to come off IR next week and is supposedly set to return to practice. But this is just a bad football team playing bad football right now, and it wasn’t playing much better when #1 was on the field for the Dolphins. And now, that struggling bunch will have to dig out of a hole of their own making.
It didn’t have to be this way. And that’s a true shame for Dolphins fans.