Five Biggest Reasons the Dolphins Are Not in the Playoffs

The NFL playoffs kick off this weekend, and for the first time in Mike McDaniel's tenure as head coach, the Miami Dolphins will not be part of the postseason party.

The Dolphins remained in playoff contention until the final Sunday of the regular season, eventually finishing two games out of the seventh and last playoff position in the AFC standings.

It was an uphill battle all through the second half of the season, with the Dolphins eventually coming up short despite a valiant effort to overcome a 2-6 start.

So how did we get here? Why the Dolphins miss the playoffs after qualifying the previous two seasons?

There are a multitude of reasons we could list, but we'll narrow it down here to the five biggest, presented in no particular order (we'll leave it up to you guys to rank them):

1. THE TUA IR STINT AND THE SUBSTANDARD BACKUP QB PLAY

Yeah, we have to start with the obvious.

It's a massive blow to any team to lose its starting quarterback, but what happened to the Dolphins when Tua Tagovailoa landed on IR because of his third diagnosed concussion in three years really shouldn't happen.

The Dolphins' decision to go with Skylar Thompson as their backup quarterback was dubious all along, but in the end the Dolphins also were bitten by not protecting themselves more with a third quarterback on the roster, which would have prevented them from having to use Tim Boyle or getting Tyler Huntley off the practice squad.

The Dolphins averaged 10 points in Tagovailoa's four games on IR, which is no way to win in the NFL. That the offense would take a step back without Tagovailoa was logical, but never to the extent we saw, as evidenced by other teams around the NFL being able to function with their backup with quarterbacks as good or better than Tua.

The Dolphins went 1-3 in those four games without Tagovailoa and it easily could have been 0-4 if not for a New England receiver's back foot touching the end line. It would have been 3-1 with any kind of decent quarterback play.

2. FAILURE TO STEP UP WITHOUT TUA

Playing without Tua called for everybody else on offense to step up, but instead just the opposite happened.

You want examples? OK, how about Tyreek Hill's drop of a swing pass early in the Tennessee game that resulted in a turnover when he failed to go after the loose ball and it was ruled a lateral? How about the fumbles by Raheem Mostert and Alec Ingold in the six-point loss at Indianapolis? Or the numerous penalties in that Indy game?

The Dolphins offensive players needed to make life easier for the backup quarterbacks, not harder.

3. UNTIMELY DEFENSIVE FAILURES

The Dolphins defense overall had a very good defense, finishing fourth in the NFL in total yards allowed and ranking among the best in red zone and third-down defense.

But the defense also failed to close the door in Tagovailoa's first two games back, and that resulted in the last-second losses against the Arizona Cardinals and Buffalo Bills.

The Buffalo loss was particularly painful because the Dolphins had a third-down stop with a chance to get the ball back and drive for their own game-winning field goal undone by safety Jordan Poyer's overaggressiveness that resulted in a personal foul penalty.

Had the Dolphins been able to win even just one of those two games, they would have been in control of their playoff fate in Week 18 instead of having to depend on Kansas City's JV team to defeat the Broncos in Denver.

4. SHORT-YARDAGE SHORTCOMINGS

The Dolphins offense took a major step back in 2024 — and it wasn't all because of Tagovailoa's absence — but one area that unfortunately remained the same was the team's ineffectiveness in short-yardage situations.

The Dolphins faced 34 third-and-1 or fourth-and-1 situations in 2024 annd converted only half of them, including an 0-for-3 showing on fourth-and-1 runs.

Ugh.

One of the defining sequences of the season came in the Thanksgiving night game against the Green Bay when the Dolphins were trying to fight their way back into the game after trailing 27-11. If you've forgotten, the Dolphins had a second-and-goal from the 1-yard line before De'Von Achane was stuffed for no gain on a run, Tagovailoa thew an incompletion to Jonnu Smith on third down before getting sacked on fourth down.

With the absence of explosive offensive plays in 2024, the Dolphins couldn't afford to be this bad at picking up first down in third-and-short or fourth-and-short spots.

5. THE PARCELLS PRINCIPLE

"You are what your record says you are."

How many times have we heard it?

Maybe instead of trying to come up with reasons, excuses and justifications for the Dolphins finishing 8-9, we should just accept the fact that this was a mediocre Miami team.

For example, the Dolphins' record of 6-5 in the games that Tagovailoa did start doesn't exactly scream Super Bowl contender.

And, of course, there's the ever-popular performance against better competition, where the Dolphins came up short — again.

Beneficiaries of the softest schedule in the NFL the way things played out, the Dolphins wound up facing six teams with a winning record this season. They were 1-5, the only win coming against the Los Angeles Rams in the Monday night game at SoFi Stadium.

And all but one of the losses came with Tagovailoa starting at quarterback, the one exception being the Week 3 game at Seattle.

As many disillusioned Dolphins fans were screaming from the rooftops toward the end of the season, what would the expectation have been of any kind of playoff run had the Dolphins been able to sneak into the postseason?

This simply was not a very good Dolphins team and it produced a not very good season.