Game thoughts: Week 13, Dolphins at 49ers

The Dolphins went to San Francisco and got their asses kicked – plain and simple. The defense couldn’t stop a rookie QB (who was the last pick in the entire draft), and Tua and the offense were embarrassingly bad for the majority of the game.

The game started great, with a 75-yard catch and run TD by Trent Sherfield. After that, the offense couldn’t do anything – mostly because Tua kept missing wide open receivers, over and over and over. I really have no idea what was wrong with Tua today, but he was absolutely horrible. I’ve never seen him so inaccurate. Surprisingly, the OL was decent in pass protection even without Terron Armstead, but it didn’t matter – Tua just couldn’t do anything right. He ended his day with a fumble that was returned for a TD, to add insult to injury. Skylar Thompson came in at the end of the game and promptly threw an INT.

The running game was non-existent, as the Phins attempted just 8 runs despite the fact that the passing game wasn’t working. The pathetic offense went 0 for 7 on 3rd downs – just awful.

Tua had a brief moment of greatness on the opening drive of the 4th quarter, which ended in a gorgeous 45 yard bomb to Tyreek Hill for a TD. Hill finished with 9 catches for 146 yards. Jaylen Waddle missed a lot of time with a leg injury, but did return and finished the game with just 1 catch.

Aside from the huge Hill TD, the play of the game was on a VERY gutsy call from Coach McDaniel. On a 4th and 1 from their own 18, the Dolphins actually went for it – and got it, on a Tua to Hill completion. That drive would later end with an incomplete pass on 4th down in Niners’ territory.

The D was terrible and got shredded by rookie QB Brock Purdy, who came in early in the first quarter after Jimmy Garoppolo left with a foot injury. They did get decent pressure at times, but Purdy still managed to get the ball out and hit wide open receivers all day. The story of the day was horrifically bad coverage and tackling. They couldn’t stop Christian McCaffery (who had just under 150 total yards), they couldn’t get off the field on 3rd down, and they couldn’t stop a rookie QB. Embarrassing. Positives: Christian Wilkins had a monster game, with 12 tackles, making plays at every single level of the field, and Xavien Howard had an INT.

Not much else to say. Mike McDaniel got completely outclassed by his mentor, Kyle Shanahan, and now the Dolphins are 8-4 and looking to stay ahead in the wild card race. Hopefully next week’s game against the Chargers goes better than this disaster dd.


Hero of the Game: Christian Wilkins continued his excellent season today. Dude is a beast.

Goat of the Game: Tua was absolutely horrible today, with 2 INTs and a lost fumble, and tons of inaccurate passes. This was easily his worst game ever.

It's a strange season this year. This loss was strictly on Tua. The first half he missed way too many throws. It's a different game if we converted our early opportunities.

I Still believe We were Going to Win 24-23 when Mr Softy Can’t hold on to 4th Down Pass Thank God He Will be Gone Next Year. Than Defense Promply let’s them get the Field Goal, The Game was over at the Point Fumble meant Nothing in the Grand Scheme of Things. Hopefully Next Week get back to Winning.

Miami lost this game in their minds during the week. Also Grier's collection of inactive busts and injury prone FAs.

JEGnj wrote:Miami lost this game in their minds during the week.

How so? Did something happen behind the scenes I don't know about?

This game is on Tua and he knew it. Did anyone else see the camera on him late in fourth quarter? Looked like he was having a nervous break down.

I can only hope the team - and Tua - will rebound. We are missing a running game and our defense isn’t close to playoff caliber. Only hope is to lean on elite passing attack. Odds aren’t good.

Another black mark on Grier. How is it that the 49ers' 7th round QB can play so well and his guy seems to get WORSE as time goes along?

I'm almost certain BTW that I said Purdy was the better QB of the two at some point in the draft thread on the final day.

The D came in allowing nearly 33 points per game on the road BTW. I have no idea why they're so much worse on the road than at home, but it needs to get fixed before they drop to 8-6. What we learned today is that contrary to popular belief, Tua in fact cannot singlehandedly carry this team to a title. He needs at least a semblance of a sliver of an iota of help.

Or maybe Tua just sucks in night games, which means we might as well just give up on the playoffs now.

white1 wrote:This game is on Tua and he knew it. Did anyone else see the camera on him late in fourth quarter? Looked like he was having a nervous break down.

I can only hope the team - and Tua - will rebound. We are missing a running game and our defense isn’t close to playoff caliber. Only hope is to lean on elite passing attack. Odds aren’t good.

At least the Jets and Herberts lost to spare me from complete despair.

Remember, there was a growing school of thought that the Fins could "afford" to lose this game because hell, they could just beat the Chargers (and Bills) anyway, right? We of all fans should know there's no such thing as an affordable or acceptable loss.

Oh as soon as I saw Garropolo go out I thought “we have to win this”.

Only to watch us proceed to lose. It was close for a while . But as I feared the 49ers defense was good enough to contain our offense. And Of course, better than our defense could do - even against a rookie QB.

Cross roads for the team. Will we rebound and make a strong push into playoffs? Or whimper to a 9 win season or so with nothing to show for it. Should be interesting to watch. Hopefully not tragic…

I honestly don't know what the most sickening, disgusting and outright nauseating part of the game was.

1. The media creaming their pants as Tua finally justified their hate again.

2. The D getting shredded by Brock Freaking Purdy, who they passed over for a QB who doesn't belong in the NFL.

3. The blown chance of putting distance between themselves and the Jets/Pats/Chargers.

4. Looking like complete fakes, frauds, charlatans and poseurs.

All of that.

If I had to offer a guess it’s this. We can’t run the ball. With rare exceptions playoff teams can run the ball at least at an ever age level. We are nowhere close.

We knew this going in. It might be our downfall.

It’s not too hard to correct. But we will have to upgrade the offensive line.

Is it that we can't run the ball, or that we don't run the ball? I really don't know if we can run, because we simply don't do it. 8 rushes today was an absolute joke. Terrible job by McDaniel in that regard - just no excuse for that in a close game.

JMP wrote:Is it that we can't run the ball, or that we don't run the ball?  I really don't know if we can run, because we simply don't do it.  8 rushes today was an absolute joke.  Terrible job by McDaniel in that regard - just no excuse for that in a close game.

I mean, he *could* be playing 5D chess and "saving" the RBs to unleash upon the Chargers' decimated D-line. I highly doubt it, though.

Teams this season are now 2-23 when running 15 times or less going into the MNF game. Also, the Fins now have the second fewest rushing attempts in a game this season. So yeah, running still does matter at least a little...

https://stathead.com/tiny/8fvZQ

white1 wrote:All of that.

If I had to offer a guess it’s this. We can’t run the ball. With rare exceptions playoff teams can run the ball at least at an ever age level. We are nowhere close.

We knew this going in. It might be our downfall.

It’s not too hard to correct. But we will have to upgrade the offensive line.

I finally decided which part disgusts, depresses and demoralizes me the most. It's Purdy. Oh, is it ever. I think I could've handled a loss, maybe even a whipping. But not to THAT guy. No, not to that guy...

Yeah, this sucked, it was basically the Jets game again only with Tua out there. Stayed close and then when the bottom fell out late, it REALLY fell out.

But....Tua was bound to have a bad game eventually. Thankfully it happened against an NFC team.

I have a feeling that the guys will get things straightened out next week. It is disappointing to lose when San Francisco is having to play their intended 3rd stringer, no doubt.

white1 wrote:It was close for a while . But as I feared  the 49ers defense was good enough to contain our offense.

That 49ers defense didn't seem to be "all that" to me. I don't think they contained us as much as we just missed too many plays. We had receivers wide open all day and Tua dropped 300 yards (well, 295) on them on a bad day. With Tua's usual accuracy, he would've thrown for over 400 yards and lit up the scoreboard. Unfortunately, it wasn't meant to be. In the end, we came within a dropped pass of getting right back into the game late in the 4th.

DolFan 316 wrote:Another black mark on Grier. How is it that the 49ers' 7th round QB can play so well and his guy seems to get WORSE as time goes along?

I'm almost certain BTW that I said Purdy was the better QB of the two at some point in the draft thread on the final day.

The D came in allowing nearly 33 points per game on the road BTW. I have no idea why they're so much worse on the road than at home, but it needs to get fixed before they drop to 8-6. What we learned today is that contrary to popular belief, Tua in fact cannot singlehandedly carry this team to a title. He needs at least a semblance of a sliver of an iota of help.

Or maybe Tua just sucks in night games, which means we might as well just give up on the playoffs now.

An even greater black mark is the trade we did to move up and get Eichenberg. The 49ers got the better guard with their pick.

An even greater black mark is the trade we did to move up and get Eichenberg. The 49ers got the better guard with their pick.

Excellent point. I will chalk that one up to the constantly changing offense under Flores. Too much collateral damage as we had new coordinators every season.

That's over now. Let's see what he can do with McDaniel and his staff working together on the linemen they need.

CarsonChris wrote:

An even greater black mark is the trade we did to move up and get Eichenberg. The 49ers got the better guard with their pick.

Yes - the Eichenberg pick looks worse and worse, especially considering that we actually traded additional picks to draft him. But like white said, that was with a different coaching regime. So far, since McDaniel was hired, Grier has brought in Armstead, Williams and Shell - all good to very good acquisitions. Now, we need to see what kind of influence McD has with drafting linemen...but at this point the new OL we've brought in are light-years beyond any OL we added with Flores.

If you had told me the game would be tied mid-way through the second quarter with SF on their 3rd string QB and X Howard just picked him off – I would’ve sworn a Dolphins lopsided victory was coming.  But no, it swung just the opposite way.  And even still well into the 4th quarter, the game was still there for Miami to take it.  But they couldn’t.  And yes, the defense had their hand in this loss, but they did pick off pass that the offense promptly ran 4 plays and punted back.  The defense did hold the 49ers to only 3 FGs and 2 punts in the second half.  This loss falls squarely on the offense and primarily on Tua’s inaccuracy on this day.  But why?  Was Tua’s ankle hurting more than he let on and that affected his accuracy?  Was he pressing against a good defense?  The most depressing (and telling) stat of the day was that Purdy went 11 of 13 for 81 yards on 3rd down and Tua didn’t convert a single 3rd down all day.  That is the game in a nutshell.

In the end, this is one game.  And shit stain of an ugly loss, but still just one loss.  Far more important is to see how Miami, and most importantly Tua, responds this coming Sunday night against San Dieg…LA.  Not much more to say.  It was a crappy game.  Suck it in.  Learn.  Move on and prove it was ONE game and not the harbinger of things to come.

Great post, merc. This team hasn't dealt with adversity sine Tua came back. Now we see what they're really made of.

This was supposed to see how they handle adversity after almost being embarrassed by the Texans.

All the games Miami lost they could have won if not for pathetic breakdowns and sloppy play.

It's not just one game and still in the playoffs hunt. In those loses they did not gut it out. They got manhandled. They also have slug fests wins with shit teams.

This was supposed to see how they handle adversity after almost being embarrassed by the Texans.

I don't think Houston was much of a learning moment. We stormed to a 30-0 lead and took our foot off the gas. The game was never in jeopardy.

Yesterday was far different. Emotionally charged atmosphere due to the head coaching ties, both teams fighting for playoffs, elite players on the field like McCaffrey, Samuel, Bosa, etc.

Chargers game will be similar atmosphere. Excited to see us rise to the challenge.

JEGnj wrote:This was supposed to see how they handle adversity after almost being embarrassed by the Texans.

All the games Miami lost they could have won if not for pathetic breakdowns and sloppy play.

It's not just one game and still in the playoffs hunt. In those loses they did not gut it out. They got manhandled. They also have slug fests wins with shit teams.

The Dolphins destroyed the Texans - that game was over well before halftime. Not a shred of "almost embarrassed" in that game, and there was no adversity in that game.

I don't think we've been manhandled in any game we lost. Every loss - even the Bengals game - was close entering the 4th quarter. The 49ers certainly didn't manhandle us at all. In fact, our passing offense was shredding their "great" defense even with Tua's off day and a backup LT. If Tua was his usual accurate self, we would have blown them out.

And yesterday absolutely was just one game, and a non-conference game at that. We are still exactly where we want to be, in a position to control our own destiny and even win the division.

I get it - we lost and it sucks. But it doesn't mean the season is over - not even close. We are 8-4 and have an excellent shot at the playoffs in the first season with a rookie head coach.