Watching the Miami Dolphins is comparable to torture
Watching the Miami Dolphins is the NFL‘s equivalent to being tortured
One of my favorite movies that I have recently watched is the film Prisoners with Hugh Jackman, Terrence Howard and Jake Gyllenhaal (must watch movie). During the movie there was a point where one of the alleged antagonist Alex Jones gets taken captive and becomes a victim of torture with physical exertion by the protagonist Keller Dover. Alex gets beaten severely, becomes locked in a box inside of a bathroom and has scorching hot water sprayed on him for minutes at a time.
Now in retrospect, I look back at those torture
and say to myself “If Keller would’ve let Alex watch the Miami Dolphins game for twenty minutes it would have the same effect.” Watching these Dolphins play against the Green Bay Packers this Sunday was torturous to watch, and painful to see.
With the Packers last second drive and comeback 27-24 victory, I felt like a four-year-old child inside of Dueling Dragons at Islands of Adventure in Orlando — terrible. The last drive of the game was tough to endure. At one point I saw the Dolphins defensive line come up with a huge forced fumble, all the way to seeing a fake snap ran by the Packers starting quarterback Aaron Rodgers.
I felt emotions of fear, anger, joy, jubilation and pain wrapped into one emotion during this game and I felt I needed to drink twenty shots of Jack Daniels Tennessee Honey simultaneously, to numb the pain away. The Dolphins kept playing with my emotions because at times they they looked wonderful, and at times they looked like they didn’t belong on the field. Because of the length of the game, this serpentine ride felt like it would never end.
At times I couldn’t even understand what the Dolphins coaching staff were doing (I still don’t). The opportunities for scoring were there many times in this game but the Dolphins didn’t capitalize enough. Early in the first quarter, the Dolphins were at goal line and had a third and one situation. Instead of running the football on the NFL’s worst run defense, the Dolphins elected to throw.
The play was poorly executed and was ruled incomplete. I was sitting there thinking to myself “Okay, worst case scenario it’s fourth down we’ll get the three points and the game will be 7-6.” The Dolphins coaching staff elected to go for it on fourth down with a running play (a little too late) instead of attempting to get the chip shot field goal for three points. The result of their decision resulted in a two yard loss. I was so upset, and it made no sense to me (still doesn’t).
Playing overly aggressive in the first quarter of a football game is not wise, especially when the other team you’re playing against is more talented. The Dolphins should have kept it close, stayed in the game, played to the momentum of the crowd and let the Packers make the mistakes. However, I found myself upset because once again we loaded the .357 magnum pointed it at our metatarsals and shot ourselves dead in the foot.
When I couldn’t think it could get any worse, it did. Ryan Tannehill started reflecting his coaching staff and began making horrible decisions in the pocket. He later threw two interceptions and the game started to look even more gloomy on a sunny day in South Florida. At one point Tannehill was 5-of-12 with two interceptions and fans were already starting to lust over prospective college quarterbacks.
Thankfully, the Dolphins started the second half strong. Tannehill had a huge game in the second half and led the Dolphins to three touchdown drives. One of the drives resulted in a rushing touchdown and the other two were scored through the air.
It was even more impressive to see Tannehill lead these drives because they were long yardage drives of 80, 80, and 79 yards.
On offense the Miami Dolphins have to give credit to Lamar Miller and Juice Landry.
If it had not been for the effort these two players, the Dolphins wouldn’t have been close in this game. Landry was all over the field. He caught a touchdown pass, nearly ran back two touchdowns on kickoff returns and routinely got open for Tannehill. As for Miller, he excelled during this game finding running lanes and gaps to get into the teeth of the defense. Their contributions on offense cannot get praised enough.
The most important reason the Dolphins were six seconds away from defeating the Packers is because of their defense. This season the defense has made me a proud man, and this game the NFL got to see why. During the fourth quarter the Packers were down 17-24 inside of the red zone with four minutes left. The defense held them to a field goal and changed the outcome of the game. Also, during the last drive of the game, the Dolphins defense fought hard and forced a fumble on Rodgers which was recovered by offensive lineman TJ Lang.
Speaking of lines, I was never going to forget to highlight the Dolphins defensive line.
The Packers offensive line had a real difficult time attempting to contain the Dolphins defensive line. One of the notable standouts in this football game was Cameron Wake. He blew up the Packers offensive line early and often in this game. Wake shines best in the biggest games of the year. In fact, Wake had not recorded a sack since the opening game against the New England Patriots.
Going against the Packers offensive line, Wake brought trouble and recorded 1.5 sacks, his first since the week one victory against the New England Patriots. In addition, Olivier Vernon contributed to the sack party and got Aaron Rodgers feeling uncomfortable. His pressure also helped the Dolphins the entire game. Because of the heat that these two created for Rodgers, he had to scramble often and couldn’t get completely comfortable in the pocket.
They give you a little bit of hope and then they get back to their true nature, losers.
The players on the Dolphins played hard and should’ve won this game. The coaching staff did not do their part to help make this an easy victory. The decisions that were being called were highly questionable, not wise, and were too risky no reason. The risks that the Dolphins were taken in this game were not worth the reward and only would yield low gains.
Here were some of the questionable calls in the second half alone:
- Timeout by Miami with 01:07 remaining, on 3rd and 9 at the MIA 47 when the clock was running and the Packers were in the no huddle with no timeouts and scrambling to find a play to run.
- The 2nd and 9 pass attempt on the MIA 36 yard line with 3:05 to go with a running clock instead of running the football to run the clock down more.
- The 3rd and 9 play on the MIA 36 running the football instead of attempting to pick up the first down through the air.
- Not playing press coverage on the last snap of the game with six seconds left and letting Andrew Quarless walk into the endzone on a timing pattern
The coaching staff failed a team who rallied in the second half to attempt to win this game.
Regardless of the loss, there are still some idiots who believe that the Dolphins will have a great season and maybe it’s not too late.
One of my closest friends watched this game with me and started already proclaiming that the season was done, she said this “They give you a little bit of hope and then they get back to their true nature, losers.”
Regardless of her opinion…at least we’re not Tampa Bay.
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