A quick look at the high points and low points of the Dolphins loss to New  England.

The HIGHS:

Caleb Sturgis hit on a long field goal. He has slowly become more reliable as the season’s gone on. Let’s hope this continues into next year. And I don’t think the blocked field goal was his fault; the right side of the line just caved in on him.

Mike Wallace made a few incredible catches, some of which were on underthrown balls that he had to adjust to.

Lamar Miller continues to do his job well and earn my respect. I
underestimated him at the beginning of the year. Why the coaches don’t run him more in the second half is beyond me.

Jason Trusnik‘s interception set us up early and showed the players that Brady could be stopped. The Pats were on their way to making it 14-0 early, but Trisnik’s play single-handled got us some momentum back. Before long, the potential 14-0 game was actually only 7-3.

I’ll give Joe Philbin a high point here for calling his timeouts right before halftime. A lot of other teams cower away from New England, and they would have let Brady run out the clock and accept a 14-6 halftime deficit. But Philbin showed some guts and wanted to go into halftime trailing 14-9. Good things happen when you take chances, and Philbin was rewarded by getting a great punt return and then a touchdown. Instead of 14-6 or 14-9, suddenly his decision made it 14-13.
The LOWS:
Joe Philbin has to take some blame. The aggressive nature he showed right before halftime needed to come out much much sooner. On our first series, we hit a deep pass and were instantly in New England territory. A few plays later, it was 4th and 2 from the N.E. 23 yard line. You have to go for it there. You have to show your team and show the Patriots that the Miami Dolphins can and will score on you. John Harbaugh went for it against us on 4th down the week before…from inside Ravens’ territory. That is how championship coaches operate.  Instead, Philbin took the field goals chance, and suddenly it was 7-0 New England. They never looked back.

Philip Wheeler was overmatched all day long no matter what he tried to do:  coverage, tackling, shadowing, etc.
The Patriots are teasing Tom Brady this week about his plodding, methodical, slow, miraculous 18-yard run on third- and-long. Wheeler allowed that play to happen, and it pretty much summarizes his play all year. And the play of all Dolphin linebackers.

Jimmy Wilson was chosen to cover Gronkowski in what seemed like a very good scheme. In theory, you put a defensive back out there to cover Gronkowski, which shows respect for his pass-catching abilities. Other teams stubbornly put a LB out there to cover Gronk, and it never works. So we put a coverage specialist on him instead. Great idea, but someone forgot to tell Kevin Coyle that Jimmy Wilson can’t cover anyone. And to think that Chris Clemons got cut a few weeks ago and we could have had him.

Ryan Tannehill gets a couple of low marks for his interceptions, which pretty much sealed the game. He kept overthrowing the ball, even when he had time to pass. Then he fumbled a shotgun snap that was right to him. Not a good game when we needed him most. Only one touchdown drive several weeks in a row.

19 Comments

  1. After viewing the pic. As a coach do you call time out? Should a player have called timeout? Or is this an almost perfect scenario for a fake FG ? There’s lost of wide open space to the left. Or is this a perfectly acceptable and safe line up for a FG? I surely don’t think so.

    1. Author

      I’m not sure about calling a timeout or not, and from the coaches’s angle on the sideline, you cannot tell that NE is lined up illegally. One of the players should spot that and inform the refs immediately.
      NFL Rules dictate that you must have 6 men on one side of the ball, and 5 on the other side. Above, you can see that New England clearly cheated and had SEVEN men on the right side. Player number 4, is directly in front of center John Denney, and I think that is a penalty also. He has to pick a side, and not be in the middle.
      But clearly and definitely, New England players numbered above 5-11 are seven different guys lined up on one side. Positively illegal, and it gave the pats 7 free points.
      PhinsUp, great catch. I did not see that earlier. It just proves how hard it is to beat the Pats at their home turf when the refs are always on their side.

      1. And I honestly say I knew nothing about that article before I posted the pic. I was rewatching the game and saw just how loaded one side was and thought sheesh 7 vs 4 is not very good odds. Plus at least one lineman # 3 had nobody in front of him. Your right about lining up on center for a kick. But Im not sure if he’s considered “lined up” or not. If he is that’s 2 penalties missed . And for a Belichick coached team I so doubt this was a mistake, its ahem well suspicious. I will say again this is a Belichick coached team risking a 1st down on a very bad and illegal line up annnnd gets away with it? Still think the league doesn’t play favorites?

    2. Author

      When this still is taken, you see 12:50 left in the first quarter. If you back it up for about 3 seconds, the illegal formation is even more obvious. If you can freeze it at 12:53 left, you see all 7 illegal Patriots getting lined up one that one side. There’s like a huddle of Patriots on one side of the ball, and every single ref decided to look the other way.
      This was not a shift at the last second or anything like that. Instead, it was calculated and planned, and you can see their illegal formation forming at the 12:53 mark.

    3. Heres another question. Look at this pic. Its the missed pass to Charles Clay in the endzone on our 2nd drive. You see the Pats defender making contact with Clay and in the upper right you can see the ball. Down low you see a Ref clearly looking at both players. Isnt this Pass interference? The Pats defender isn’t going for the ball, hes looking at and in my opinion ,interfering by making contact and obscuring Clay’s view? Thoughts? Should this have been called? If so, there was a perfectly placed ref with an excellent view. If not why? Im honestly curious.

      1. Author

        Our friend PhinsUp is a mindreader, because I was going to mention this too. It was an obvious P.I. that the refs decided not to call, once again because N.E. gets all the calls at home. Incidentally, it used to be that you couldn’t try to block the view of a receiver, which the DB is clearly doing above. But they changed the rules to allow this. So the DB can have his back turned and wave his hands in front of Clay…no penalty. But the moment he hit Clay and would not allow Clay to raise his right hand (as clearly proven above by PhinsUp’s photo), then it becomes blatant P.I.

        1. I wouldn’t go after this because I understand there is some give and take when enforcing the rules. But when its a TD on the line ,the reff is in perfect view, and there is obvious contact from a defender not playing the interception. Its too blatant no matter how minimal the contact is, its contact none the less. Thanks admin for confirming this. And I haven’t even finished re-watching the game. Stopped here when I saw it. LOL!

  3. This truly disturbs me…it seems that every fucking week the patsies do something. Last week it was a team doctor doctoring up the records when releasing a player to save the team his signing bonus. It’s bad enough that you have to play a good team on the road but when they cheat at every turn what the hell are you supposed to do??? Last year it was the batted ball call, countless missed PI, etc…I honestly can’t stand this shit anymore it’s not like they need help like this!!!

  4. This situation isn’t surprising, as y’all have mentioned, given that the Pats’s history.

    I don’t think that games are “fixed”, per se. But there is definitely systematic league preference for certain teams; and that manifests itself with rulings on the field.

    It’s impossible to say whether the binary outcome of the game would have differed. However, instances such as this certainly call that into question. There’s a stigma against losing teams bringing up these issues, and the press tend to emphasize the final score in their coverage of the issue – as if that matters one iota. (Case in point, the link provided by PhinsUp.)

    What matters is that an officiating crew from a league which has taken countless public steps to show they are impartial, was clearly not being impartial.

    I agree with Admin that although the loss was lopsided, this play seemed to suck the air out of the room, and indeed may have changed the morale of the team in a big way.

    Nonetheless, we should have played better overall. This loss is hard to swallow for the ramifications; but also because we didn’t really have a fair shake at winning outright in the first place.

  5. Momentum is huge in football theoretically the Fins could have been leading at the half 20-7 if they received a first down on that play. Not saying that they would have won but they would have had a far better chance to play their game…run the ball more etc…it’s just a piss off that the league still misses stuff like this.

  6. Author

    So I looked into this further and found a few things. The guy hovering over the center looks to be okay. You can’t be directly in front of the center, but as long as you’re a yard away from the line of scrimmage, he is okay.
    BUT….the SEVEN men on the right side is absolutely illegal. It is almost forgivable if the refs missed it because New England had 7 on one side and 4 on the other side…but the Pats had 7 on one side and only 3 on the other, with the 11th man in the middle.
    How can every single ref watch N.E. line up with only 3 guys on the left and not notice? Just look at that photo and how lopsided the N.E. formation is. That should have sent up alerts to every single ref. But no. In New England, you will not get those calls. Ever.
    This play cannot be reviewed. The only reviewable aspect is if N.E. had 12 men on the field. But other illegal formations are not reviewable…and Bill Belichick knows this.
    This formation led to a N.E. touchdown, so any review would have to come from the booth. And it didn’t come. As we mentioned several times during the year, the announcers always saying “All scoring plays are reviewed” is simply not true.
    And even if the booth did call for a review, the 7-men situation is not a reviewable aspect.
    The rule needs to change. If the old men in stripes miss something, the team should be allowed to point it out. Any time, as often as needed.
    It’s like a teacher being allowed to correct a kid’s math homework only twice per test. And if there is only one minute left in the school day and the kid says 1+1=4, then the teacher is not allowed to correct him. THAT is how complicated and restrictive the NFL rulebook is, all in an effort to protect the feelings of the old men in stripes who blow call after call, week after week.
    It is convolutedly unfair to let NE get away with this because the Dolphins are only allowed to challenge certain ref mistakes, but not all of them. And then in some instances, only replay officials can ask the refs to correct their mistakes.

    1. But once again we get 1st down penalties all day long on us which kill any momentum and rhythm we are trying to build. I don’t want our team any unjust and uncalled penalties to get an unfair advantage. But the pile of controversial calls and even more suspect mis calls these past 2 weeks makes me wonder if the NFL is in a way like Pro Boxing. The challenger almost never wins a close decision, they have to knock the champ out to guarantee the win. And the Dolphins will have to overwhelmingly win and overcome even more when it matters most. Sure we didn’t play well but at what point did all that BS become a morale crushing blow to our pride? And with the fear of being next on IR hidden in the recesses of our players minds, how much more would it take for them to take their foot off the pedal just enough to allow NE to run through us? It only takes a few players to slack off, even if they don’t say a word about it , the other players notice and most likely fall in. Its contagious and it only takes a tiny spark to start a brush fire, then the whole building collapses. Its easy to blame Philbin but you can only lead a horse to water but you cant make him drink.

  7. to the point of tannehill being a low. I thought he would have definitely been one of the highs. His deep ball accuracy was spot on. mike wallace 1st drive was a bit of an underthrow but completed. mike wallace TD. Damiam Wiliams drop. harltline where he lost the ball in the sun was a perfect throw. makes you wonder why he wasnt throwing the ball deep more often throughout the year. was it the opinion that he cant throw the ball deep OR was it Joe Philbins pussy coaching style? Maybe Joe was scared to throw the ball deep because it MIGHT get picked off. Or scared to throw the ball in the redzone because it MIGHT get picked off. If Philbin had balls we could have gone up big in the first half by taking some chances in the red zone. Oh by the way, i definitely think that the NFL is fixed. Ive watched too many games throughout the years with phantom calls and no calls. What about the 2 illegal man downfield penalties the week before against Baltimore? If they dont call the first one we go into half time up minimum 13-0 possibly 17-0 and the whole game is changed. its bullshit, we never had a chance the last two weeks

  8. Author

    Greg, good points, and those T-hill throws were all great long balls…but unfortunately, they were all in the first half. The INT in the 2nd quarter was high, and that hurt bad because the guy returned it 60+ yards. And when our defense decided to take the 2nd half off, we needed T-hill more than ever, but the INT and fumble happened. When the Pats defense wasn’t playing so good and they gave us 13 points, Tom Brady came out and said Enough! Tannehill couldn’t do that Sunday.
    He did do it against Denver and he got us 36 points that day, so I know he has it in him. He just hurt us badly in 3Q and 4Q

  10. Pats fans are saying that the 7 guys have to be on the line for it to be a penalty. I’m not sure anyone have a clue? That doesn’t make any sense as you can have guys pushing the line from behind.

  11. @FlyerFinFan

    7 Guys were on the line not even counting the guy in the center standing about 2 yards off the line. It may look like 2 Pats players are not on the line as lined up on the far right. But they are, the formation of the fins with a sloped c shape gives the impression they aren’t on the line but they are. Its illegal formation until someone of expertise says different. And for the sake of saying it wasn’t , our kicker, place holder, or lineman should have seen something wrong and called timeout or stalled the play so they could adjust to the Pats formation. The pic tells potentially 2 stories. Depicting a very obvious non call by the reffs but equally a lack of awareness of all 11 Dolphin players. I would have never run this play and I know squat about football formations.

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