Game 11 thoughts: Dolphins at Jets

The Dolphins traveled to the swamps of Jersey today, and playing with a veritable MASH unit on offense they walked away with a big 20-3 victory behind a stifling defensive effort. The Phins now sit at 7-4 and are very much alive in the playoff hunt.

With Ryan Fitzpatrick starting, the offense was mostly unimpressive thanks in large part to a weak offensive line. The OL allowed constant pressure, with Fitz getting knocked down 10 times and sacked 4 times. Fitz did make some great plays with his trademark ‘throw it up and let the receiver make a play’ style, but for the most part this was a pretty uninspiring offensive effort.

The running game mostly sucked, lowlighted by 2nd half lost fumbles by RBs Matt Breida and Patrick Laird. Those fumbles kept the Jets in the game, but the Miami D made sure it was never close. On the plus side, DeAndre Washington led the team with 13 carries and was able to run out the clock at the end of the game, with help from Fitz and Breida, as the Phins had a 6 minute 20 second drive to finish out the day.

DeVante Parker was a one-man show on offense, with 8 catches for 119 yards. No other Miami receiver had more than 3 catches. The three TEs did combine for 6 catches and 2 TDs, with Mike Gesicki and Adam Shaheen both finding the endzone.

The defense gave up a couple of long runs and passes, but overall they absolutely dominated. The Jets got a FG on the game’s opening drive, and never scored again the rest of the way. Elandon Roberts had the play of the day, as he shot the gap to stuff a 4th down run late in the game. Xavien Howard had outstanding coverage all day, and picked up his league-leading 7th INT. Nik Needham also had an INT. The pass rush was relentless, as Sam Darnold was harassed all day. Four Dolphin defenders combined on 2 sacks, and rookie safety Brandon Jones added another. Rookie DL Raekwon Davis continued to impress, while Christian Wilkins made his presence known after missing the last 2 games. A week after getting embarrassed, this defense came to play today and did their job.

Not much to say about special teams, other than Jason Sanders continuing his monster season with two more 50+ yard field goals.

Overall, this was an impressive win against a rival Jets team that had shown signs of life in recent weeks. It was often a boring game, but style points don’t count – I’ll take the W every time. The Dolphins are sitting pretty right now, and just need to stack some more wins to stay in the race.


Hero of the Game: A few winners today. DeVante Parker gets a share of the honors for his big game, but I also have to acknowledge that Elandon Roberts 4th down stuff…what a play!!! The defense as a whole definitely gets a piece of the action for a stellar performance, constantly bailing out the offense and shutting down the Jets.

Goat of the Game: Matt Breida and Patrick Laird, for the lost fumbles. Unacceptable.

Beer of the Game: Montauk Cold Day IPA…yum!!!

DeAndre Washington?!?! I had no idea he was even on the team You really DO need a scorecard to keep track of who's playing RB!

The Jets have beaten the Fins in this same fashion many MANY times over the years so I'm not complaining Well, not about that at least.

The Dolphins traded for Washington before the trade deadline. I think he had 1 carry before today. The RB position has definitely been a revolving door. Hopefully Gaskin and Ahmed will be back next week.

Great post JMP and thank you! While I expected a more dominant showing I will take a 17 point victory all day.

This team is gritty. It will not get cowed by early adversity. It has leaders at all levels.

Make no mistake it is not a great roster. I have no doubt that Flores and the front office know where they are weak, who is not performing and the priorities for the offseason .

Let’s see if the my can make a playoff run with what they have now.

Go Fins !!!

Btw, I’m sure that the Raiders expected an easy win vs Atlanta today. Well weren’t they surprised.

Savor the win - they don’t come easy no matter who you are playing

I forgot to mention the funniest thing that happened during today's game: the announcers informed us that Sam Darnold's grandfather was a guy named Dick Hammer. He was the original Marlboro Man. What a waste of a great porn star name.

Nothing else to say...this one speaks for itself.

A note on Jason Sanders' unbelievable success this season: should we be giving credit to rookie long snapper Blake Ferguson? Honestly, I don't know the answer...but I do know that Sanders is having one of the greatest kicking seasons I've ever seen.

I really like Flores as coach. This was a sure loss the last 20 years.

The combination of Fitzpatrick to Parker kept this team alive in this game.

The running game is abysmal and much of the blame goes to Grier for failing in FA and not addressing it in the draft. It’s hard to just plug any running back into a system and be productive.

Noah Igbenohene our 3rd first round pick has been a non factor this season. When we desperately needed an infusion of talent at running back.

CarsonChris wrote:I really like Flores as coach. This was a sure loss the last 20 years.

The combination of Fitzpatrick to Parker kept this team alive in this game.

The running game is abysmal and much of the blame goes to Grier for failing in FA and not addressing it in the draft.  It’s hard to just plug any running back into a system and be productive.

Noah Igbenohene our 3rd first round pick has been a non factor this season. When we desperately needed an infusion of talent at running back.

I hated the Igbinoghene pick when it was made (you can check the draft thread) but don't blame Grier for that one, that was a Flores pick all the way. And then Clyde Edwards-Helaire was taken 2 picks later. He's only currently the leading rusher of this draft class, no big deal.

I think every running back was available at that point.

https://dolphinswire.usatoday.com/2020/11/30/dolphins-defense-finishes-dominant-year-over-jets-in-style/

across twenty five possession of football, the New York Jets offense provided the following against the Miami Dolphins this season:
--23 first downs
--6 sacks taken
--5 third down conversions (on 30 attempts)
--4.29 yards per play (on 122 plays)
--3 turnovers
--3 points scored

That is what you call DOMINANCE. Can you imagine how bad it would have been if the Jets didn't have an offensive guru running the show? Adam Gase = Dolphins' bitch.

JMP wrote:Elandon Roberts had the play of the day, as he shot the gap to stuff a 4th down run late in the game.

agreed. i've been pretty critical (for good reason) of Roberts this year, but that stop was awesome.

i can't help but wonder how different this game would've looked/felt without the 2 back-to-back fumbles. if (and yes, i know it's "if") Miami gets a couple FGs or even a FG and TD on those drives, then 26 or 30 to 3 looks a lot more dominant.

i'd also like to nominate the Jet's K Castillo for an honorable mention in missing that 29 yard chip shot before the half. i think that deflated the Jets going into the locker room and they remained flat for the rest of the game.

also a big round of applause for Adam Gase's ability to completely ignore the defense allowing a game plan that was designed to man-cover Parker, thus allowing him to feast all day. as well as the Jets abandoning their most effective weapon (running Gore) in the second half.

overall, a win is a win. back to Miami and on to the Cincinnati game.

Yeah, that missed FG by the Jets was sort of a turning point. We probably win anyway, but that FG would have made it 13-6 at the half and they would have had momentum.

The Miami fumbles were just plain ugly. The defense really stepped up and made those fumbles a lot less important.

Gase's game-planning and playcalling are just so bad...he literally has no idea what he's doing. It really does seem like he's purposely trying to lose games. I've never seen anything like it - it's just complete incompetence.

They will ride Gase to the number 1 pick.

There’s no reason for the Jets to punt when down. Gase does that.

JMP wrote:  The Miami fumbles were just plain ugly

I really think this shows that we cant get by with scatbacks as running backs. Gaskins first fumble was a similar hit to those of Laird and Breida. Vision isn't even on my list of priorities because i just dont think the OL has opened any consistent holes, but i do see a common theme with Laird, Gaskin, and Ahmed...when they get hit, they go sideways and down.

Najee Harris would be my pick.

Yeah, they really need to find a way to get Harris. He's at the top of my list...just an ideal fit for what I think we need.

I was watching the Atlanta game. It sure who was running the ball but some of the holes their back went through were tiny. His shoulder pads were rubbing the lineman’s arms. Once through the tiny hole they would gain chunk yards. Our line gives holes I just don’t think we have backs that see them.

CarsonChris wrote:I was watching the Atlanta game.  It sure who was running the ball but some of the holes their back went through were tiny. His shoulder pads were rubbing the lineman’s arms. Once through the tiny hole they would gain chunk yards. Our line gives holes I just don’t think we have backs that see them.

Our running game is certainly better than it was last season, but it is still not at an acceptable level - not even close.

I think even the worst OLs do open some holes on nearly every play...it's just that some are smaller than others. You need a back with vision that can quickly spot those smaller creases, and then has the quickness and power to get through them - and the speed to turn it into a big play.

One of the other things is that we just don't get any big runs. When we see a Dolphin back get a 10-15 yard run (which is rare), it seems like a big accomplishment. But I see other teams ripping off 20+ yard runs every game. Part of that is lack of breakaway speed by our backs, but I think the bigger reason is we have no downfield blocking. We rarely see linemen getting passed the second level, and our WRs are simply not good blockers.

JMP wrote:....... WRs are simply not good blockers.

Lol. That's because they aren't WR's, well 2 are former QB's. Hollins is a gunner on ST. Parker ok. Grant is 5'6". Callaway only gets 12 snaps a game.

But I see where your going.

A quick check of PFR indicates the Fins have at least 8 runs of longer than 10 yards, and 7 of more than 15. Only two of those runs were longer than 20 yards though, with the longest run so far coming from Grant (29 yards) who lost 9 yards on his other 2 carries. I haven't checked every game yet, there may be more runs of more than 10 yards but I can't imagine that much more.

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/mia/2020.htm

Not sure how this stacks up against every other team, but it doesn't seem good at all.

SO...after going through game by game here's what I found.

The Fins have 21 runs of 10 yards or more. 10 of those were 15 or more. But there were only two runs of 20-plus.

The Texans are the only other team with as few as two 20-plus yard runs so far. Even the lowly Jets have 3. The Browns, by comparison, have 17 with the Ravens at 15 and the Cards at 14.

Only two teams (Panthers and Texans) have a season long run shorter than Grant's 29.

Only two teams that have played 11 games have fewer rushing yards than Miami. (The Steelers also have fewer, but have played only 10 games and are only 26 yards behind the Fins as it is.) The Fins are currently 19th in attempts, making this look *really* bad. And indeed, they are dead last in yards per carry at 3.6 (league average is 4.3). It's better than last season's 3.3 but not by as much as it should be.

Gaskin leads the team with three runs of 15 or more, although Ahmed's got two with 60 fewer carries. Laird, Washington, Tua and Fitz have one each.

Gaskin leads the team with six runs of 10 or more, Fitz has five, and nobody else has more than three. Tua's 17-yarder is his only run of 10 or more so far.

Make of that what you will.

Nice work, 316!

What I make of it is that our running game is even worse than I thought!

Seems like we can reasonably expect Gaskin's return to help..but probably not much.

Great stuff DF. At first blush of those stats, and from what I've seen on game day, my few thoughts:

Ahmed appears to be our most talented runner and the stats bear that out. He has the most potential to make an explosive play running the ball.

Flowers is turning into a liability. An upgrade at LG appears to be necessary.

Hunt should be okay at RT. Davis would be most valuable as a depth chart swing man, he can play almost any spot on the line. But he's not good enough to run behind him. Kindley *might* be a keeper at RG. He was looking much better than now before he hurt that foot.

I'd go ahead and keep Karras, unless we draft a stud at Center. He seems to be doing an excellent job.

In summary, my plan would be to go into 2021 with Davis and Flowers as depth players, Jackson at LT, Hunt at RT, Karras at Center. Find an upgrade in FA or draft at both guard spots. If Kindley wins the RG job in camp, fine.

This is a test for Grier. Do you believe in the trenches enough to keep working on them even with so many picks and money invested? IMO, you don't stop until it looks right. The foundation has to be sound or the rest of the roster doesn't matter.

Here's the REALLY sad part. JJ's '97 team averaged a pathetic 3.1 yards per carry, and the '99 team could do no better than last season's 3.3! Now maybe some of you know why I keep referring to JJ as a snake oil salesman and have a...low opinion of him.

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/mia/1997.htm

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/mia/1999.htm