Final NFL Week 12 Observations ... With Miami Dolphins Angles
The Miami Dolphins took care of their business in Week 12, but it wasn't necessarily a great week around the NFL in terms of other games that had some impact on them.
The most obvious result that hurt the Dolphins was Houston's Thanksgiving Day blowout of the Lions, which not only expedited the departure of Detroit head coach Matt Patricia but also dropped the Texans' first-round pick to 11th overall.
It was a second consecutive victory and third in four games for Houston, which has games remaining against the badly-fading Bears and the Burrow-less Bengals, and DeShaun Watson is on a roll at quarterback.
Houston, though, got a double dose of bad news Monday with the suspensions of their best offensive player not named Watson (wide receiver Will Fuller) and arguably their best defensive back (Bradley Roby).
Fuller's suspension came a few days after the Texans released, by mutual agreement, former Dolphins wide receiver Kenny Stills, who went unclaimed on waivers and now is free to sign with any team.
-- The Dolphins also didn't get help from the Chargers, who lost by 10 points at Buffalo despite outgaining the Bills and forcing three turnovers in the fourth quarter alone. Quarterback Josh Allen passed for only 157 yards, but the Bills had their second-best rushing performance of the season with 172 yards.
-- The Dolphins' next opponents, the Cincinnati Bengals, didn't exactly light it up in their first game without the aforementioned Joe Burrow. With Brandon Allen starting at quarterback — the Bengals apparently already have given up on 2019 fourth-round pick Ryan Finley, who they traded up in the draft to get — Cincinnati had only 155 total yards. Allen completed 17 of 29 passes, but for only 136 yards. Of course, it didn't help that they were without running back Joe Mixon, who is on IR with a foot injury and will miss the Dolphins game.
-- We explained Monday how the NFL's decision to make the Dolphins-Raiders Week 16 a Saturday night matchup was expected, but we also have to wonder whether the Raiders' "performance" at Atlanta caused the league office any hesitation This was, put simply, brutal — and troublesome for Raiders fans who might be having flashbacks to 2019. The Raiders were 6-4 last year before they were blown out by the Jets and tumbled to a 7-9 finish. The Raiders were 6-4 this year heading into the Atlanta game, during which Derek Carr threw a pick-six and lost a fumble all three times he was sacked. Yikes!
-- No, I don't mean to pick on Isaiah Ford (really nice kid, great team player), but, yes, it needs to be mentioned that he still has yet to play a game for New England since the Dolphins traded him Nov. 3. That's three consecutive inactives, and that's worth mentioning for those suggesting the Dolphins made a mistake by trading him.
-- That was quite an unusual situation in Denver, with utility player Taysom Hill — sorry, can't bring myself to calling him a quarterback — facing off against practice squad wide receiver Kendall Hinton and combining for 91 gross passing yards. That was the lowest total in an NFL game since 1982 when the Dolphins and Patriots combined for 89 yards. That game was the infamous "Snowplow Game," which the Dolphins lost 3-0 despite Pats QB Steve Grogan passing for a whopping 13 yards (he completed 2 of 5 passes) while David Woodley passed for 76 yards for the Dolphins while completing 9 of 18 passes.
-- We'll close with the Patriots, who still appear like long shots to make it to the playoffs in 2020 but clearly won't go down without a fight. New England improved to 5-6 with an impressive victory against a pretty good Arizona team where the Pats were able to pretty much shut down Kyler Murray and DeAndre Hopkins. New England had only 179 total yards in the game, but played the kind of defense that could be problematic for the Dolphins come Dec. 20 when the Patriots are at Hard Rock Stadium.
