Dolphins-Bills Week 15: The Five Biggest Plays
The Miami Dolphins dropped to 8-6 on the season with their 32-29 loss against the Buffalo Bills at Highmark Stadium on Saturday night.
We rank the five biggest, most important, plays of the game:
1. The Defensive Pass Interference in the 4th Quarter
The Dolphins lost the game on Buffalo's 86-yard drive in the final 5:65 and the longest gain was the 21 yards the Bills got when Kader Kohou was called for defensive pass interference against Isaiah McKenzie. The call came on third-and-6 from the Miami 34 where an incompletion would have meant a 52-yard field attempt. Kohou was called because he made contact with McKenzie without ever turning back to look at the ball. It's also worth noting that Kohou also was flagged for defensive holding on the play, so the Bills were getting a first down on that play regardless. But when the ball was spotted at the 13 on the DPI, it put the Bills in chip-shot field goal territory.
2. The Failed Third-and-1 in the 4th Quarter
After trailing at halftime and taking the lead in the third quarter, the Dolphins had a chance to create some distance after Jaelan Phillips strip-sacked Josh Allen and Christian Wilkins recovered the fumble. After a 6-yard run and a 3-yard completion, the Dolphins faced a third-and-1 from the Buffalo 27-yard line holding their 26-21 lead. Despite the success of the running game, the Dolphins went with a pass play that had tight end Durham Smythe running across the field behind the line of scrimmage. But the play was doomed from the start, with Tua Tagovailoa getting immediate pressure and three Buffalo defenders at the line ready to swarm. Smythe was hit immediately by safety Taron Johnson after catching the pass and was tackled for a 2-yard loss that forced a field goal. It left the margin at eight points instead of two scores.
3. Allen's Pass to Davis on the Final Drive
After the Dolphins failed to get into scoring position on their final drive in a 29-29 game, they put themselves in good position defensively with a Zach Sieler sack that put Buffalo in a second-and-18 situation from its own 13. But the Dolphins couldn't get any pressure on Josh Allen with their four-man rush (Christian Wilkins, John Jenkins, Jaelan Phillips, Sieler) and that gave him time to find Gabriel Davis near the left sideline for a 15-yard gain. That made him a lot more manageable third-down situation for the Bills and they converted.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
4. The Botched Wide Receiver Screen
As we mentioned earlier, the Dolphins had first shot at taking the lead in the final minutes and got into Buffalo territory. They faced a second-and-9 from the Buffalo 40 with 6:52 left when the call was for a wide receiver screen to Tyreek Hill. But the execution was off from start to finish, beginning with Hill not making any kind of move forward to get cornerback Kaiir Elam to back off a bit. Because Elam was right on top of Hill, wide receiver Trent Sherfield couldn't get a block on him after coming in motion across the formation and Elam actually was right there for the ball when Hill got his hands on it. Hill somehow was able to make the catch, but the play ended up losing 3 yards and the Dolphins ended up punting after Tua's third-down attempt to Jaylen Waddle on a slant fell incomplete.
5. The Touchdown at the End of the First Half
There are several candidates for significant plays, including Hill and Sherfield failing to come up with very makable catches in the end zone at the start of the second quarter to force the Dolphins to settle for a field goal, or the curious decision to have Tua drop back on third-and-1 from the Bills 11 in the first quarter, only to get sacked. But in each case the difference was four points. In the case of Josh Allen's 4-yard touchdown pass to James Cook, the difference was seven points because Allen made the mental mistake of holding on to the ball so long on a play that began with 8 seconds left that the clock had run out when he threw the pass. So had the completion not been made, the Bills wouldn't even have been able to attempt a field goal and the halftime score would have been 14-13 instead of 21-13.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks for reading. Make sure to bookmark this site and check back daily for the latest Dolphins news and analysis year-round. Also, you can follow me on Twitter at @PoupartNFL, and that's where you can ask questions for the regular All Dolphins mailbags. You also can ask questions via email at fnalldolphins@yahoo.com.
