Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Achievement still evident amid rubble of defeat
BALTIMORE — They walked off the field with the air let out of them, like a balloon the day after a birthday party, and filed stone-faced into the privacy of the locker room.
[Expletive!] came from behind the door after this 38-6 loss to Baltimore.
Yes, [expletive]. That summed up the Miami Dolphins’ day as the calendar flipped to December and stakes were raised. The team that couldn’t lose for six games in a row suddenly couldn’t catch, couldn’t tackle and couldn’t wait to get out of town.
“We couldn’t make any plays,” Dolphins coach Adam Gase said.
But there amid Sunday’s rubble you could see the achievement of this season, too. Seriously. Because the surprise about these Dolphins isn’t that Baltimore Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco completed 36-of-47 passes for 381 yards and four touchdowns.
The surprise is more quarterbacks haven’t done the same. The surprise is how the Dolphins have masked radioactive issues for so much of this season. The pass defense was iffy, for instance, even before losing safety Reshad Jones for the year.
Sunday reminded everyone of that like a hammer to the head. Flacco passed his way down the field like a kid playing tic-tac-toe. He completed 14-of-15 passes and for two touchdowns in the sosoft middle of the field in the first half. Tight end Dennis Pitta hadn’t scored a touchdown since 2013. He had two in the first half on Sunday.
With no Jones, with no Kiko
Alonso for a good chunk Sunday (and his hand in a cast the rest of the time), the underbelly of this defense was exposed. Was it safeties? Linebackers? Take a number.
“Everyone had a bad day,” safety Michael Thomas said.
Baltimore coach John Harbaugh had kind words for Miami’s defense this week. But he showed what he really thought on a fourth-and-1 play from his 46-yard line in the first quarter.
He didn’t just go for it. Flacco threw for it. He completed a short pass to running back Kenneth Dixon that went 10 yards.
“Got to stop that, got to get off the field,” Thomas said.
Here’s the thing. The Dolphins have stopped that all year. Through design and timely play, they entered Sunday as the best defense on third down. Baltimore’s offense, meanwhile, was the worst at converting third downs.
Yet on that 18-play, 88-yard drive that symbolized this game Baltimore converted that fourth down and all four third downs.
“Hey, it’s a December game, and it means a lot right now,” Flacco said. “But we’ve played a lot of meaningful games around here, truly meaningful games in January and February, so I don’t want to look at this game and say something like that.”
Not one of these Dolphins has played games like that. Does it matter? Because it wasn’t just the defense that fell apart Sunday. The offense did in some fashion, too.
It ran the ball well against the league’s best rushing defense. Jay Ajayi had 61 yards on 12 carries — a 5.1-yard average. Baltimore had only given up 63 yards rushing the past four weeks.
But their first two possessions ended after good drives on the Ravens’ 28-yard line. On the first, Andrew Franks missed a 46-yard field goal. On the second, Ryan Tannehill threw a touchdown pass that DeVante Parker didn’t come down with — and safety Lardarius Webb did for an interception.
“That’s one that you hope our guy brings down,” Gase said.
At one point Sunday, Baltimore defensive tackle Timmy Jernigan was penalized 15 yards for taunting Dolphins receiver Kenny Stills. At another point, Ajayi was penalized 15 yards for taunting linebacker Zachary Orr.
The difference? The Ravens were cruising to the win on Jernigan’s penalty while the Dolphins were down 30-6 during Ajayi’s. So the Ravens actually had something to taunt about.
So, today, the Dolphins are just another team outside the playoff chase. For the past several weeks, the Dolphins were able to mask their problems, ride their strengths and win a lot on finalplay heroics.
For this Sunday, all their problems were exposed and one frustrated Dolphin shouted what that felt like behind the closed door of the locker room.