Dec
7
This offensive performance was beyond brutal. Here’s a look at the offensive grades.
Quarterback: F
It was a throwback to the Tony Sparano-Chad Henne days—only Ryan Tannehill was nowhere near as efficient as checkdown Chad was in his heyday. Instead, he was methodical in his mediocre-at-best play.
Even his best throw was a terrible one that wide receiver DeVante Parker bailed him out on by an excellent leaping effort.
Overall, it was not a good look, considering this was a game in which Tannehill was supposed to have more of a say in the play-calling. On the bright side, there were no turnovers for Tannehill.
Running Backs: B
The best offensive player was Lamar Miller, who got 20 carries and ran for 113 yards on 5.7 yards per carry with a long of 22 yards. Even he tried his best to lose the game thanks to a fumble late in the fourth quarter that gave the Ravens great field position. Had Justin Tucker been the Justin Tucker of old who made those long field goals routinely, that fumble would have lost Miami the game.
Wide Receivers: D
DeVante Parker was Miami’s second-best offensive player thanks to three catches for 63 yards and a 38-yard touchdown reception. Said touchdown was a bailout of a Tannehill throw that was a bit too high; however, you can’t complain too much when you have receivers like Parker so your quarterback can go deep and have a decent rate of success.
As for the rest of the receivers, it wasn’t pretty, as no other receiver had more than five yards. Jarvis Landry was unusually quiet with two catches for five yards.
Tight Ends: F
Once again, Miami’s tight ends were a disappointment. Dion Sims and Jordan Cameron combined for two catches for eight yards, and Cameron, in an attempt to line up with his hand in the ground, drew a false-start penalty for flinching.
Offensive Line: B
Miami’s offensive line was pretty good despite the horrid performance of the rest of the team on that side of the ball. It created holes for Lamar Miller to run through while limiting the Ravens defense to one sack.
Defensive Line: A-
Olivier Vernon had a huge game with two-and-a-half sacks, while Derrick Shelby had half of a sack of his own to go along with a pick-six late in the first half that wound up being the deciding score of the game.
Meanwhile, Jordan Phillips got a nice pass deflection that led to a Reshad Jones interception—which set up the Tannehill-to-Parker touchdown on the next play—and Ndamukong Suh was quiet but impactful with two quarterback hits and two tackles while allowing the defensive ends to get to the quarterback frequently (Miami had 10 quarterback hits).
Linebackers: B
I received a tweet asking if Koa Misi was always this good. Granted the tweet was from a writer from Baltimore, but it’s still interesting that I got said tweet. Misi was good on Sunday thanks to seven tackles, three of them for a loss. Kelvin Sheppard was also fairly good. In fact, the one linebacker who didn’t perform up to snuff was Jelani Jenkins, who is usually Miami’s best linebacker.
Defensive Backs: D
Other than Reshad Jones and Bobby McCain, this was not a good effort for the Dolphins secondary.
Brent Grimes continued his transformation into Frank Grimes as he was burned often, while the rest of the corners had issues with slippage on the field.
Now, the Dolphins would have avoided some of that slipping had they played a straight man-to-man press scheme, but I’ve only had that complaint about the team for four seasons.
Special Teams: C
There was nothing special about Miami’s special teams. Matt Darr punted a lot (nine times to be exact), but his last punt bounced harmlessly into the end zone and gave the Ravens a good 10 to 15 yards more than they should’ve had.
Andrew Franks missed an extra point and had another one blocked; however, the official waved both those off because of Ravens penalties. It does say a lot about Franks that the Dolphins decided to go for two on the third chance.
The return game was once again plagued by mistakes. It wasn’t a good outing for special teams.
Coaching: D
Good news: The Dolphins won. That doesn’t automatically warrant a high grade.
The play-calling on offense started off well with plenty of runs, but in the fourth quarter, specifically the final offensive play, I was puzzled as to what was going on. Yes, there was “balance” in terms of play-calling, but it wasn’t rhythmic or smooth in the least.
I’ll give offensive coordinator Zac Taylor the benefit of the doubt because it was his first NFL game calling plays after the firing of Bill Lazor, but it didn’t have to be that much of a disaster.
On defense, the continued decision to play off-man coverage in the secondary nearly killed the Dolphins. Had the defensive line and linebackers not showed up to play, the results would’ve been a lot worse.
Open all references in tabs: [1 – 3]
Comments
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.