Dolphins Officially Defeated by the Raiders

The Miami Dolphins are 4-4 at the midpoint of the season and perhaps it’s expected from a mediocre team with stars that don’t shine at critical moments. Aside from Ndamukong Suh, the rest of Miami’s defensive “playmakers” took the night off, particularly on third down. Exasperation mounted on every third-and-long the Raiders made with inexplicable ease.

The joke in Oakland must have been Kiko Alonso in man coverage. According to the Miami Herald’s Adam H. Beasley, Alonso allowed five catches for 82 yards to Jared Cook and gave up a 12-yard pass to Michael Crabtree. Five of the six catches went for a minimum of 10 yards, including four third-and-long conversions.

It took Matt Burke a full quarter to switch from man coverage, to a holier than Swiss cheese zone. The zone was not helped by Cameron Wake who had only one tackle and no QB pressures. The poor defense also featured Rashad Jones trailing badly on third down and TD receptions.

There simply was no pressure on third down, no pass rush and with LBs and secondary unable to play man coverage, Burke could not blitz. For the second consecutive home game, the sod at Hard Rock Stadium came out of the ground in divots that would make Tiger Woods proud. These games each followed a Miami Hurricane home game the previous night and the next home game will also follow a Hurricane’s home game.

Stay calm Adam Gase, hopefully this is the worst the NFL can throw at a young coach when the officiating crew piles it on. On the surface, the crew for the Raiders game can point to parity in numbers as a justification of fairness. The Dolphins committed 11 penalties for 107 yards Sunday, including five in the fourth quarter. Oakland had 10 penalties for 105 yards, parity right? It was timing of these penalties that destroyed Miami.

Gase said. “We'd start a series out and Damien [Williams] has a huge play and we've got a holding call and we're on the 20. Who knows, maybe if we don't get the holding call he gets tackled at 10 yards, but we'll take, so it's not first-and-12 or whatever.” On a play with 12:46 left in regulation and the Dolphins down four. Williams caught a short pass, got to the right edge and raced down the sidelines. A big-gainer, wiped out because Jarvis Landry held. The Dolphins’ drive stalled immediately thereafter. Three minutes later, on another possession with good field position, Kenyan Drake ran for four yards on first down.Mike Pouncey held turning a second-and-6 into first-and-20, another Dolphins drive squandered.

The defense had two late secondary penalties on Oakland’s game-winning touchdown. A Xavien Howard pass interference call gave the Raiders a first-and-goal at the 3. It was perhaps the only legitimate penalty in the game. The Raiders got to that position because of a highly questionable flag thrown on the play before. The Raiders converted third-and-6 when Derek Carr connected with Seth Roberts for 29 yards along the right sideline. But the refs tacked on 15 more by saying Reshad Jones illegally hit a defenseless receiver – a debatable call, to say the least. Jones said after the game that there was nothing he could have done differently on the play.

The Dolphins still had a slight chance to make it a game late, but Jermon Bushrod all but ended that by holding on fourth-and-9, wiping out a 14-yard completion to Julius Thomas.

The Dolphins average of 7.5 accepted penalties per game. Many of these flags can be thrown on any play in an NFL game, yet the officials chose to pull the flag every time Miami made a play that would change the momentum of the game. Fans turn away when it appears officials dictate the outcome of games. Why bother playing or watching a game decided by referees?

Pointing fingers at officials inevitably leads to the standard comments about being poor losers, etc. The Dolphins have to figure it out or they will end up like the Miami Hurricanes with yellow flags littered field and officials dictating the outcome. Plays like Drake fumbling at the 18-yard line do not help overcome a flag filled game.

Miami must generate pressure from its defensive line. The DL features the highly paid Suh, Wake and Branch, plus 1st round draft pick Harris. Wake cannot come up empty and leave it on Alonso to cover receivers for 4 to 5 seconds. The defense will only go as far as the DL takes them. Suh played a great game, his diving strip-sack should have won the game if not for the flag happy referees.

If Miami is going to depend on speed rushing ends to generate pressure the playing surface must be built for speed. This surface is hindering Miami from getting the best performance from their best players. The field must be repaired or replaced.

In a season that has moved from one calamity to the next, add the field and the officials to the list of obstacles this Miami Dolphin team must learn to overcome.

Miami Dolphins 2016 Schedule (Recap)

The 2016 regular season schedule was released back in mid April, so now that the season is actually upon us. Here is the Miami Dolphins schedule recap.

Though Miami didn't host their third home game at it's own venue until week eleven during the season of 2015. For a first historic such stretch in both home stand instances. The Dolphins in 2016 will sleep in their own beds for the entirety of October between September 30th through November 10th which includes weeks five, six, seven, eight/bye, and nine of 2016's season at Miami's newly named/refurbished Hard Rock Stadium.

The Dolphins will reside in Southern California upon week ten through eleven as they are hosted by the San Diego Chargers and Los Angeles Rams on successive weeks.

Otherwise, though parts of the schedule appear to be quite favorably manageable. Three of their first four games are on the road at high caliber 2011 - 2015 playoff teams. Miami opens the season with a week one visit to the NFL's loudest venue in Seattle, they follow that up as the homecoming opponent of the bitter rival Patriots while the third road trip comes on a short week Thursday Night Game at Cincinnati on week four.

They have a second such stretch with three out four games being on the road during weeks ten, eleven, thirteen (and/or depending on how one segregates it), on weeks thirteen, fifteen, and sixteen. Either way, five of their last eight games are away from home.

The Dolphins start and finish to the 2016 season will be quite the telling task as they start in the farthest possible NFL city from Miami at the Goliath Seattle, and follow that up at Arch Nemesis New England.

Maybe a good thing to get them both before they get warmed up?

Miami also closes-out the season with a trifecta against the AFC East with two of the three being Saturday games on the snow-covered road and/or tundra. For the second successive season the five consecutive years AFC Championship participant Patriots end the year at THE MIAMI DOLPHINS!!

Here it is, Miami Dolphins 2016 schedule.

ROAD (1) at Seattle Seahawks (Sept 11, 4:05 EST)

ROAD (2) at New England Patriots (Sept 18, 1:00)

HOME (3) Cleveland Browns (Sept 25, 1:00)

ROAD (4) at Cincinnati Bengals (Sept 29, 8:25, Prime-Time THURSDAY)

HOME (5) Tennessee Titans (Oct 9, 1:00)

HOME (6) Pittsburgh Steelers (Oct 16, 1:00)

HOME (7) Buffalo Bills (Oct 23, 1:00)

BYE (8)

HOME (9) New York Jets (Nov 6, 1:00)

ROAD (10) at San Diego Chargers (Nov 13, 4:05)

ROAD (11) at Los Angeles Rams (Nov 20, 4:05)

HOME (12) San Francisco 49'ers (Nov 27, 1:00)

ROAD (13) at Baltimore Ravens (Dec 4, 1:00)

HOME (14) Arizona Cardinals (Dec 11, 1:00)

ROAD (15) at New York Jets (Dec 17, 8:25, Prime-Time SATURDAY)

ROAD (16) at Buffalo Bills (Dec 24, 1:00, SATURDAY)

HOME (17) New England Patriots (Jan 1 2017, 1:00)
Thanks to this previous match-up last season,
The Miami Dolphins are 1 - 0 in 2016 ; )) .


What'Cha'Think' ??

GOFINS!!!

Pre-Season Game Four Refresh/Chat, Titans At Dolphins

Keep an eye on first time NFL reps for regular season starting corner back number 25 Xavien Howard, Running back #32 Kenyan Drake, and Hard Rock Stadiums coming out party.


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Just continuously hit the refresh button to converse with others.


GO MIAMI DOLPHINS !!!