Dolphins Week 2 Instant Takeaways: Depressing Defense, Small Ball, and More

Well, that was depressing.

There's really no other way to put what happened to the Miami Dolphins at Levi's Stadium on Sunday when they were embarrassed by the San Francisco 49ers.

The weird part is the Dolphins actually were competitive in the first half — offensively at least — until they looked in the second half exactly like the team many expect to battle for the first overall pick in the 2027 draft.

At the risk of bringing back traumatic memories, but the Dolphins looked in the second half like the early version of the 2019 team that got blown out by the Baltimore Ravens and New England Patriots to kick off that season.

The Dolphins got better in some areas against the 49ers from what we saw in Week 1, specifically with the run defense and getting De'Von Achane getting more involved on offense, but they badly regressed in other key areas like pass coverage as well as getting the passing game going.

The end result was a loss even more sobering that the Week 1 decision against the Las Vegas Raiders.

WHERE WAS THE DEFENSE?

-- Where to start with this mess? Guessing the place is the defense, which allowed a touchdown on each of San Francisco's first five possessions.

-- Stop us if you've heard this one before, but there basically nothing resembling a pass rush. Sure, Michael Taaffe got close to Brock Purdy one time while blitzing, but Purdy was able to get the pass off for — yep, an easy completion. Taaffe also induced a grounding penalty on third down to secure the first defensive stop of the game.

-- There was nothing from any of the interior defensive linemen and nothing from any of the edge defenders, and nobody can blame Chop Robinson this time around because he wasn't in uniform. We knew the pass rush was going to be a problem for this defense, but zero sacks in two games is rough.

-- The funny part is the run defense actually was very good — of course, if we don't count the Brock Purdy scrambles because the Dolphins had no answers for that.

-- Maybe the biggest problem on defense were the mix-ups that led to wide open receivers (George Kittle twice) and the Purdy touchdown runs. We saw too often two defenders covering the same players in one area and letting another loose, and Willie Gay Jr. was involved in two of those situations.

-- It actually was very difficult to find one player on defense who had anything close to what we'd call a good outing. The Dolphins didn't force any turnovers, didn't make any kind of stand whatsoever until the outcome long had been decided.

-- As we mentioned before, there was reason to think after the Las Vegas game, with a good performance by Jacob Rodriguez and some good work here and there by other young players that the defense could take a step forward, but it's difficult to feel very optimistic after what he saw in Santa Clara.

TOO MUCH ACHANE, NOT ENOUGH DOWNFIELD

-- We spent a good part of the deal pushing back against the idea that the Dolphins committed this grave violation by not giving Achane the ball more often against the Raiders by pointing out it wasn't necessarily a cure-all for the offense. Well, Achane certainly was a focal point for the offense in this game, but this "small ball" approach has its limitations.

-- As proof, the Dolphins did a very good job of moving the ball in the first half and chewing up the clock behind Achane, yet they could only produce six points and were behind by eight because while the 49ers had only two possessions, both ended in touchdowns. That's what happens when you don't get chunk plays and/or there's a setback like a penalty, and the Dolphins had too many of those.

-- Really, the Dolphins aren't anywhere near good enough to overcome pre-snap penalties and they had three of those against the 49ers.

-- And while the offensive line was solid in run blocking, the pass protection again was brutal. There's no other way around it. For most of the game, Willis had somebody in his face almost immediately, and that's no way to run a passing game.

-- While he certainly wasn't the only one who struggled in pass protection, Austin Jackson continues to be a major concern for the Dolphins because his performance isn't up to par so far and it's not like Miami is bursting with other options.

-- It was cool that the Dolphins were able to get the long touchdown near the end of the game, but that was very minor cause for celebration.

-- After getting burned by long returns by the Raiders, the Dolphins tightened up in that area, but then Riley Patterson missed a field goal attempt at the end of the first drive of the game and then Bradley Pinion just simply dropped the ball after fielding the snap cleanly and beginning his three-stop drop. So like the rest of the team, it's one area collapsing the week after it was something else.

-- So this season-opening West Coast trip was pretty painful on the scoreboard with the Dolphins outscored a combined 62-26, but as we've heard many times this is going to be a process.

-- The Dolphins will have their home opener next Sunday against the Kansas City Chiefs, and the only hope has to be that there's some progress made.

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