Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
DOLFANS PUT ON A HAPPY FACE
Lots of presentation, but short on results after week of change
Dolphins fans enjoy Sunday’s game at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens. Miami ended up losing against the Oakland Raiders, 27-24. The Dolphins are now 4-4 for the season. Dave Hyde’s column and game coverage begins on
So much, so very much, looked changed for the Dolphins on Sunday night. The running back shipped to Philadelphia was just the tip of it. The full offense was like some failing actor who sprinted through a quickie wardrobe change and looking oddly different. And interesting, at times. And effective, in a sporadic way.
And, well, still the same in the only important area as the Dolphins lost to Oakland, 27-24. You know who needed a better night than that? Adam Gase.
This wasn’t just the game after the head coach was beaten in Baltimore, 40-0, called his league’s lowest-scoring offense, “a joke,” traded Jay Ajayi and called out his players.
This was the start of the rest of the season where the focus is fully on Gase. And his ways. Do they work? Is he overplaying his hand?
The offense looked probably more like the manner Gase wants to call an offense — meaning, more movement, more deception and more short passes to running backs in space. Kenyan Drake had nine carries for 69 yards. Damien Williams caught six passes for 47 yards. Add them together and that’s a productive running back. Get the new idea? So you could say a lot changed in presentation. Yet little did in result.
The Dolphins scored a pedestrian nine points in the first half. They still had a great ability to trip over themselves. Take the second-quarter tough of boldness of following a touchdown with an onside kick. They recovered it, too. They drove to the Raiders 24-yard line, as well, where Drake fumbled it back.
Or there was the more common way they started the second half. Guard Jesse Davis was called for a holding penalty. Then he was called for an illegal procedure penalty. So they faced third-and-21 and threw for 12 yards.
That’s how the night went. The Dolphins did answer a Raiders touchdown in the third quarter with one of its own. Drake had a 42-yard run on that drive, the longest of the Dolphins season, and Cutler found Jarvis Landry in the end zone.
So it was 20-16. And the defense tried to set up the win. It really did. Early in the fourth quarter, defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh swatted the ball from Oakland quarterback Derek Carr. When Oakland tackle Marshall Newhouse picked up the ball and ran, he fumbled again and the Dolphins were in business at their 48-yard line.
Here was the chance. Here was the opportunity for it all to work out — this odd week, this big trade, this changed offense, Gase’s big call-out of everyone. All of it.
Instead, in one play, you saw what the new Dolphins offense wants to be — and what it remains to be. One of those short, swing passes to Williams turned into a 30-yard gain to the Raiders’ 21-yard line. Again, that’s the idea here. But it was all called back for a Jarvis Landry holding penalty.
Next possession: Mike Pouncey was called for holding on first down. So it was first-and-20, which led to third-and-22, which meant another grand opportunity squandered. They started at their 48. They went backward 11 yards to their 37. Ugh.
They had 11 penalties for 107 yards. Double-ugh.
The Raiders weren’t exactly an efficient machine, either. On one fourthquarter drive, they had to punt after receivers Amari Cooper and Michael Crabtree dropped first downs on successive passes.
But Oakland had one good idea: Match tight end Jared Cook on linebacker Kiko Alonso and throw the ball. Cook had three catches for 59 yards on the first drive. He had eight catches for 126 yards, both season highs, for the game.
Still, Oakland entered as the league’s most disappointing team for reasons you saw across Sunday. In other words, this is the kind of game a re-directed Dolphins team that had been called out by its coach should have thrown everything into. Maybe it did, too. Probably this is who they are.
Last year’s run to the playoffs gave an injection of hope that the everything was looking up. The Dolphins are 4-4 now. They’re like half the teams in the league on the march through November. They can see who they want to be. But, again Sunday, they kept tripping on their way to getting there.