The Dolphins Make Me Cry.com - Forums

This season was lost when we lost to the 1-3 Colts in October to go 1-4 with a bunch of tough games coming up.  2-3 would've been a lot different, both in record and morale.

And if you look at how we lost, scoring 17 points -- that was a must-win game and we couldn't come out with a victory at home.

That's when it was over.  We weren't going to battle back to be competitive on the back half of the schedule.  But worse now is that the team that lost to the Colts is the same team that lost to the Titans in the last week.  ...same kind of thing.

We should beat the Colts at home.
We should beat Atlanta.
We should beat Jacksonville.

And we probably should lose to the Saints on the road, so we got lucky in some spots.

But you just can't drop that game to go 1-4 and then make the playoffs with this team.  We are going to end the season on an amazing tear and still fall well short of being competitive.  The decision on how to change this team starts with games like that.  We come up flat in big games and have for years.

In Grier/Flores's first season the team was 5-11.  Then it went 10-6.  The illusion, then, was that it was on a steep upward trajectory.

The Vegas over/under for wins for the Dolphins in 2021 however was 9.5, worse than last year's record.

That had a lot to do with the kind of information in this article:

https://jaydpauley.medium.com/why-your-favorite-nfl-team-might-win-or-lose-five-more-games-next-year-ff9749145d22

We should be 9-7 in great position right now.

We have been rooked by the refs this year twice on pass interferences.

The Oakland player literally tackled our receiver in end zone week three.  If that is called, that's an almost certain win.

Then, on the last play of a KC-LA Chargers game, LA mauled two KC receivers on a hail mary.  That should have allowed for one more play at the one yard.

Imagine if Miami was 9-7 and LV and SD were 8-8 and Miami had a tiebreaker over LV.  Huge difference.

Last week was just a bad game.  Those happen during a season.  The key to making the playoffs is to win the close ones.

Every win during the streak was pretty comfortable.

And the reality is, it depends on your opponents as much as you.  When I say, they were three plays away from the top seed, I am referring to the three close losses.  If, say Matt Ryan does something stupid and throws a pick six, Miami beats Atlanta.

Disagree.  The Colts are a good team that beat the brakes off the Bills and put up quality wins against AZ and NE.  The only questionable loss they had in the first 3 games was SEA, and that was before Wilson hurt his finger.

ATL and JAX were the losses that killed the Dolphins' season.  Getting swept by BUF yet again didn't help, and the absolute debacle at TEN just put the team out of its misery.

Agree with all of this.

Was it really a debacle though? After watching the game Miami was in the game (at least they had a chance) up till 10 minutes left in the game and up to that point Tua had been playing poorly other than a couple of good throws. The defense was holding them in the game, but the offense couldn't find any answers and then Tennessee scored again to go up 24-3 and the game was over but that's 1/3 through the 4th quarter against a very good team on their home turf in conditions that are not favorable to a warm weather team. We weren't expected to win this game and we didn't. I don't think that's a debacle. It's a bad loss with so much riding on the game, but not a debacle. People will remember the game as a debacle, but I think that's unfair. Miami didn't play poorly in my opinion other than Tua...he had a bad game...other than that I thought Miami played about as well as can be expected and the game got away from them in the 4th quarter. All the dropped passes were in the last 10 mins of the game, up to that point I counted 1...maybe, wasn't sure if a defensive player got a hand on the ball and knocked it away or not. I think it's quite possible they come back to beat New England this week or at the very least be in the game till the end. This game didn't really change anything for Miami, it was the 7 game losing stretch that really ruined the season.

A week 1 win over a rookie QB in his first NFL game raised expectations unrealistically.

I'll counter that and say a 10-6 record last year where the Dolphins won several very close games and several others with timely turnovers raised expectations unrealistically. Not EVERYTHING is about the Patriots.

I don't think it raised anyone's expectations.  Don't get me wrong, happy for the win, but it's not like the Patriots were coming off the SB.  BTW Miami's QB on that day really wasn't more than a rookie QB either, not to mention it was a home game for the Patriots. 

Now if Miami plays a good game this week and beats the Patriots (when Miami has nothing to play for), then that might raise my expectations for next year.