Dolphins Lessons from Conference Title Games
The Miami Dolphins' 2023 season ended with a very disappointing performance in their playoff loss against the Kansas City Chiefs, but if it's any measure of consolation, they did lose to the AFC champions.
And the offensive struggles against Kansas City's somewhat overlooked but borderline brilliant defense maybe don't look quite as ugly on this day after the Baltimore Ravens, led by likely NFL MVP Lamar Jackson, couldn't get much going against the Chiefs in the AFC Championship Game.
Kansas City's return trip to the Super Bowl meant that the team that defeated the Dolphins in the playoffs became AFC champion for the fifth time (excluding AFC Championship games where a trip to the Super Bowl is at stake.
It also happened in 1998 with the Denver Broncos, 1994 with the San Diego Chargers, 1990 with the Buffalo Bills and 1979 with the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Here are some takeaways from the AFC and NFC Championship Games:
K.C. IS STILL THE ONE
While Patrick Mahomes was Patrick Mahomes again and made clutch plays for the Chiefs, the AFC title game was more about the Chiefs defense and the Ravens self-destructing.
And Kansas City's ability to avoid those self-inflicted wounds is part of what makes the Chiefs so difficult to knock off.
The Chiefs didn't commit a turnover during their 17-10 victory against Baltimore and have only two in three playoff games. One of those was a fumble against the Dolphins, but it came with a little more than a minute left in the game when they were up 26-7.
Beyond Mahomes and tight end Travis Kelce, the Chiefs have a lot of really good defensive players — DT Chris Jones, LB Nick Bolton, CB La'Jarius Sneed, CB Trent McDuffie, S Justin Reid — to name five, plus a great head coach in Andy Reid and a brilliant defensive coordinator in Steve Spagnuolo.
They're also currently more than $28 million under the cap (per overthecap.com) for 2024, so will be in position to re-sign Jones in the offseason.
As for the Ravens, they looked like a team not ready for the moment, and that included everything from Jackson seemingly too reluctant too run, a weird game plan that focused so heavily on the passing game, and of course poor decisions all over the place.
One of those came from Dolphins linebacker Kyle Van Noy with his unnecessary head butt of Kelce after tempers flared up at the end of a play late in the first half. The free 15 yards that Van Noy gave the Chiefs paved the way for a drive that ended with a 52-yard field goal right before halftime — because, of course, the Chiefs have a clutch kicker (Harrison Butker) on top of everything else.
Faced with pretty consistent pressure, Jackson was a bit off with his passing and had a bad force on his fourth-quarter interception in the end zone. More than anything, though, this felt like a game that called for him to make a difference with his scrambling,
Whether Baltimore can duplicate its major regular season run of 2023 is dubious, particularly given the state of the offensive line, which has a lot of age on it.
DAN CAMPBELL'S GAMBLES ... AND MIKE McDANIEL
Everybody seems to love head coaches not afraid to take chances and going for it a lot on fourth down, and that applies to Dolphins head coach Mike McDaniel, just as it did all season with Dan Campbell.
But there's a cost when the gambles backfire, and Campbell and the Lions paid a big one in their 34-31 loss at San Francisco.
And while it was a perfect storm of miscues and bad bounces that paved the way for the 49ers' comeback from a 24-7 halftime deficit — the first such comeback in a conference championship game — the turning point clearly was the failed fourth-down attempt when Campbell passed up a 46-yard field goal attempt that could have given his team a 27-10 lead halfway through the third quarter.
And despite what the analytics might say, it says here that restoring a three-score lead by answering the 49ers' field goal to start the second half would have been huge and Campbell didn't need to try to go for the kill shot there.
Campbell also bypassed a 48-yard field goal attempt that could have tied the score at 27-27 when he went for it on fourth-and-3 from the 49ers 30, the result again being an incompletion followed by a 49ers touchdown drive that basically sealed the outcome.
And then there was the brutal call for a running play on third-and-goal from the 1on Detroit's final drive that resulted in a 2-yard loss and the Lions using a timeout to stop the clock, essentially leaving their only hope at a comeback on recovering an expected onside kick — which basically never happens anymore in the NFL because of the recently changed rules limiting the number of players on each side of the ball.
If we're bringing this conversation back to the Dolphins (and McDaniel's aggressive ways), we certainly can't assume that Miami wouldn't have made the same decisions on those two fourth-down calls. We most definitely can assume that McDaniel wouldn't have called for a running play on that third-and-goal, though.
