The Miami Dolphins came into the 2024 season with renewed belief that they were ready to take a tiny step forward from 2023. With the way last season ended, that perhaps could have been enough, some thought, to claim their first division title since the 2008 season and win their first playoff game since December 2000.
Over the first two months, the first goal has been completely dead and buried. At 2-6 entering Monday Night Football against the Los Angeles Rams, the AFC East is gone, with Buffalo dominating the division at 8-2.
Speaking of those Bills, after losing Tua Tagovailoa for a month from a concussion sustained during a 31-10 Week 2 loss to Buffalo, the Dolphins floundered, losing winnable games while stumbling through a stretch of winnable games with terribly subpar quarterback play.
However, finally, the Dolphins that everyone expected to see in 2024 showed up in Inglewood, California, and they put on a show in all three phases of the game in Miami’s 23-15 win over the Rams.
Tagovailoa and the Dolphins’ offense wasn’t perfect, but with the performance of their defense, they didn’t have to be. Miami put together two beautifully scripted touchdown drives to start both halves, and that proved to be enough to carry the day on the scoreboard. Tua finished 20/28 for 207 yards with a touchdown.
Malik Washington notched his first career touchdown on a reverse pitch for the game’s opening points. On a day where the ground game struggled (67 yards on 22 attempts), this was the team’s longest run of the day.
MALIK WASHINGTON'S FIRST NFL TD‼️#MIAvsLAR pic.twitter.com/Lkn2XetqAV
— ESPN (@espn) November 12, 2024
The story of the game was Miami’s defense, who had without a doubt its most dominating performance of the season. The strong showing was spearheaded by efforts from players in their first season (Chop Robinson) to their seventeenth (Calais Campbell), both of whom recorded a sack. The run defense was solid with the return of DL Zach Sieler from an orbital bone injury, holding Kyren Williams to 62 yards on 15 carries.
For the day, the defense totaled 4 sacks, 5 passes defended, 6 QB hits, an interception, and a fumble recovery. They also kept the Rams out of the end zone for the game, forcing five field goals for Los Angeles.
Speaking of kicks, Jason Sanders was a perfect 3/3 with a long of 50. Jake Bailey had a solid game, averaging 44.7 yards per punt with a long of 51 and no punt return yards.
This is what the Dolphins were supposed to look like. This is the performance that fans had envisioned when training camp was beginning. Unfortunately, the division is now long out of reach. We’ll see if the Dolphins can use this to kick start a run to a wild card berth, which – with Denver in the final wild card spot just a game ahead of Miami in the loss column – isn’t out of the question.