Frequent flags lead to failure
Dolphins’ penchant for penalties is setting franchise-record pace.
DAVIE — On a day in which the Dolphins managed to foul up so many things, it’s a play that went unnoticed. It hardly was the reason they lost, but it is indicative of why they keep losing.
Midway through the fourth quarter, with Tampa Bay up 20-13, the Bucs had a second-and-10 on their 34-yard line. Quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick handed off to Doug Martin, who ran off right tackle but was stopped for a 2-yard gain by Andre Branch and Ndamukong Suh. But instead of bringing up third-and-long, there was a flag on the field.
Suh was called for defensive holding, giving the Bucs a first down and, although they soon punted, it did eat up valuable time.
How does a defensive tackle get called for holding on a simple running play? The Dolphins found a way on a day in which they were called for 17 penalties for 123 yards, missing the team record by one penalty.
When the Dolphins say penalties are killing them, they’re right, as you’ll soon see.
When the Dolphins say penalties are correctable mistakes, don’t buy it. They’ve accomplished nothing in the way of correcting them.
The first thing to know is that when these Dolphins commit fewer penalties than their opponents, they almost always win (4-1).
Second, when they commit more penalties than their opponents, they always lose (0-5).
Third, the Dolphins have been penalized 84 times for 635 yards. That’s historically awful, putting them on pace to match the team record of 134 penalties and flirting with the record of 1,090 yards (both in 2015).
To further illustrate how far away they are from playing championship football, through 10 games, these Dolphins have blown away the two Super Bowl-winning teams in terms of leaving dirty laundry on the field. The 1972 team had 68 penalties in its 14-game season and the ’73 team had just 52 — 32 fewer than these Dolphins.
Even the lousy teams in 1967 and ’68 went through entire games without committing a single penalty. It can be done.
Getting back to Sunday, Suh’s fourth-quarter penalty only cost Miami clock time, but Jermon Bushrod’s holding call wiped out a 48-yard play and Anthony Fasano’s push-off eliminated his 2-yard touchdown catch. Fasano’s infraction was one of three the Dolphins committed in the red zone.
“We’ve just got to find a way to protect the football and stop having these stupid penalties that are keep killing our drives,” center Mike Pouncey said.
“I had two of them in an area of the field where we can’t have those kind of penalties. It just hurt our football team.”
Coach Adam Gase blamed some pre-snap penalties to the change in quarterbacks at halftime from Jay Cutler to Matt Moore.
“It was disappointing that it really increased when we kind of made the switch at halftime,” Gase said. “For whatever reason, we got a little out of sorts, as far as what was going on with the cadence, which is something we can easily correct. We try to do the best we can to make sure that all the quarterbacks really use the same cadence Jay does, because each guy can have a little bit different rhythm, and that can throw a couple of things off.”
There were two pre-snap penalties in the first half and four in the second half.
As a whole, Gase called the penalty situation “ridiculous” and it’s difficult to argue.
“Some of the other calls that occurred, some of the holding calls, it’s just going back to fundamentals and just doing those little details individual, making sure that we’re doing them clean in practice, just kind of our hand placement, feet, understanding what we’re doing in the protections, who has help, how to use it,” Gase said.
“We really try to put an emphasis on the pre-snap stuff last week. We hadn’t had it that bad. Now over the season, it’s tallied up to be not very good. That’s why for us to really put an emphasis on that, we felt like the total number was getting ridiculous.”