Quick Takeaways from Dolphins Week 17 Loss

Instead of putting themselves one step closer to the playoffs, the Miami Dolphins put themselves one stop closer to finishing off the greatest collapse in franchise history.

While the hope is that it doesn't get to that, if the Dolphins fail to make the playoffs in 2022, it will top the collapse of 1993 when Miami lost its final five games to go from a league-best 9-2 record to finish 9-7 and miss the playoffs.

As much as the Dolphins were rolling while getting to 8-3, that's how much they're struggling now in all aspects of the game now.

-- The Dolphins now are 0-3 in the games started by somebody other than Tua Tagovailoa, and one thing that really stands out is that in all three of those the new starting quarterback had to be replaced.

Look around the NFL, and in-game QB changes related to injury or ineffectiveness usually don't work out well — unless you're the San Francisco 49ers, who have done it with Jimmy Garoppolo replacing an injured Trey Lance and Brock Purdy replacing an injured Jimmy G against the Dolphins.

And while there was bad luck involved in his first start, Teddy Bridgewater is now 0-for-2 in being able to finish his starts with the Dolphins.

-- As for his performance, it will be remembered for the ugly pick-six he threw when he failed to spot safety Kyle Dugger in the deep middle of the field and on top of that threw his pass behind intended receiver Trent Sherfield. That's a nasty double whammy there.

Before that, though, Bridgewater's passer rating was 113.9, so he did the job outside of that one poor throw.

Outside of that, and one third-down pass thrown behind Jaylen Waddle, Bridgewater did a solid job, mostly of checking down.

Like recent opponents, the Patriots were going to make sure not to let Tyreek Hill or Waddle get behind them, particularly in obvious passing situations.

Head coach Mike McDaniel went with a conservative approach on offense, running the ball on 14 of 17 first-down plays when Bridgewater was at quarterback, and he explained after the game it had something to do with protecting against defensive touchdowns.

While that makes sense to some degree, it's not like the Dolphins were having big success on the ground and it also goes counter to what has been so successful all season for Miami, which is attacking with their passing game.

It says here that where McDaniel maybe focused too much on the passing game in recent games, there was too much compensation the other way in this one.

-- The way they're playing right now, the Dolphins just can't afford to have Jason Sanders keep missing long field goal attempts.

They simply don't have that kind of margin for error right now.

-- The Dolphins played their next-to-last regular season game of the season minus what they expected to be their top three cornerbacks heading into 2022 — Xavien Howard, Byron Jones and Nik Needham.

Because of that, maybe we can't ask too much of the defensive backs in the game against the Patriots — Kader Kohou, Noah Igbinoghene and Keion Crossen — but it doesn't completely excuse some of the bad penalties they committed.

The one against Crossen to set up New England's final touchdown, which made it 23-14, was particularly egregious. Crossen never turned around for the ball and made heavy contact with Jakobi Meyers long before the ball got there for a call even the most ardent Dolphins couldn't dispute.

And then in the first half Kohou was flagged for defensive holding to keep the Patriots' first touchdown drive alive, and that's been a season-long problem for him. Kohou is a great tackling cornerback with a bright future, but he's got to fix his problem of being too handsy with receivers in the open field.

-- We explained before the game that the key to the Dolphins winning streak against New England had been the running game and takeaways on defense. The Dolphins rushed for 86 yards with a 3.2 average Sunday and got no takeaways. End of winning streak.