The Good, Bad, and Ugly From Dolphins Loss to Colts

It’s hard to imagine the Miami Dolphins playing a worse game than they did on Sunday against the Indianapolis Colts. The final score of 33-8 was probably closer than the actual game.

Although we’ve already reviewed the film, we’re taking a look at the good, bad, and ugly from Week 1. As much as we could make this story just the bad and the ugly, we dug deep to find some positives.

Let’s dive in.

The Good: It’s Only Week 1, Running Game?

Just going with “it’s only Week 1” felt like a cop-out, but it’s by far the biggest positive from this game. As bad as Miami was Sunday, it still only counts as one loss on the record sheet.

The team has plenty of time to get things corrected and play closer to the talent it has on the roster, and one way to do that might be to lean on the running game. The Dolphins couldn’t run the ball much because they fell behind so quickly, but De’Von Achane finished with seven carries for 55 yards.

It’s a small sample size, but that’s 7.9 yards per carry. The Dolphins’ offensive line had a few poor reps in the running game, but players like Patrick Paul and Aaron Brewer also had some positive ones that led to big plays.

Are we grasping at straws here? Perhaps, but there’s literally no other facet of the game where Miami put up respectable numbers on Sunday.

If the Dolphins don’t turn the ball over early and often against the Patriots, they should lean into the running game significantly more. This remains true even with James Daniels set to miss a few weeks with a pectoral injury, according to coach Mike McDaniel.

The Bad: No Pass Rush

There are a million things that qualify for this category, but the team’s pass rush was incredibly disappointing Sunday.

Miami recorded one sack and just eight quarterback pressures, its lowest mark since Week 9 against the Buffalo Bills last season. Frankly, some of those eight pressures were pretty generous after watching the All-22.

Miami’s entire defense is predicated on Zach Sieler, Chop Robinson, Jaelan Phillips, Bradley Chubb and Matthew Judon getting home. Chubb recorded the sack, and Phillips had a few good rushes, but the pass rush was barely a factor Sunday.

That allowed Daniel Jones to sit comfortably in the pocket and find gaps in a lackluster secondary. Miami’s pass rush has to protect the secondary this season. If it can’t, the Dolphins will have plenty of games that look like this one.

Now, you’d be right to point out that the Dolphins didn’t have many ideal pass-rush opportunities. On the Colts’ 15 third-down attempts, only five were more than five yards to go for the first down. One of those came in garbage time, too.

Miami was losing on first and second down so often that its pass rushers rarely had a chance to pin their ears back and get after Jones. Still, that group needs to be much more impactful the rest of the season.

The Ugly: Nothing Ever Changes on Offense

The jury is still out on the running game, but Miami’s other offensive issues on Sunday mirrored the same ones we’ve become accustomed to under McDaniel.

Setting aside Tua Tagovailoa’s brutal game, every single narrative issue that has followed Miami’s offense the past few seasons popped up on Sunday. What makes this “ugly” and not just “bad” is that the Dolphins spent the entire offseason acknowledging these issues.

The team talked at length about adjusting to two-high defenses, ironing out pre-snap confusion, and invested in different prototypes of players at key positions like wide receiver, tight end, and guard.

What did we see Sunday?

The offense ran the same concepts to no avail against two-high looks, players were consistently lined up in the wrong place out of the huddle (or the huddle broke with too little time on the play clock), and undersized players like Achane and Tanner Conner were getting run over in pass protection. It was all the same issues from the 2024 tape.

The moniker “Same Ole Dolphins” can be overused on social media at times, but this truly was the “Same Ole Dolphins” under McDaniel.

Offenses always have to make adjustments. It can be like playing whack-a-mole from season to season, but the Dolphins have been whiffing at the same moles since the final stretch of the 2023 season.

The “good” news is that a more traditional game script, and hopefully, a jarring wake-up call in the form of a blowout loss, forces the coaching staff to make adjustments. Although we also said that after the team’s Week 18 loss against the New York Jets, and here we are.

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