they lost to the Steelers 28-15<\/a>. It\u2019s tough to win five straight games in the NFL and the Dolphins didn\u2019t come close Monday night.<\/p>\nHere are 10 thoughts on the game:<\/p>\n
1. Stat of the Game: 0 for their past 14. That\u2019s the Dolphins\u2019 record in games under 40 degrees. It was 17 degrees at kickoff on Monday night in Pittsburgh. That doesn\u2019t just apply to this particular team, or era, obviously. But \u2026<\/p>\n
2. Tua had another troubling game and it\u2019s hard to just blame the cold even as he fell into 0-6 in games under 40 degrees. Pittsburgh\u2019s game plan was to take away the run and force Tua to beat them. He threw a lobbed, moonball pass that was intercepted in the first quarter. That was his 15th interception of the year to lead the league and set a career-high mark. He then ran on third-and-2 and slid short of the first-down marker in a repeat of a failed run against New Orleans. The Dolphins offense didn\u2019t pass 100 yards on the night until early in the fourth quarter. Down 28-3 then, Tua completed two touchdowns to Darren Waller in the fourth quarter to make the numbers look good. He completed 6 of 10 passes for 65 yards and the interception through three quarters. He ended up completing 22 of 28 for 253 yards, two touchdowns and the interception. Game rating: 113.2<\/p>\n
3. Why was there absolutely no sense of giddy-up offense as the Dolphins fell behind in the second half? They didn\u2019t pass the ball downfield. They sped up nothing. It was understandable down 14-3 to not hurry anything. But down 21-3? Or 28-3? Down 28-9 with under seven minutes to play, most teams would have at least tried to hurry up the tempo when they had the ball. The Dolphins kept huddling and taking their time.\u00a0 \u201cThey kind of waved the white flag as far as the fourth quarter is concerned,\u201d ESPN\u2019s Troy Aikman said. He later said he was \u201cflabbergasted\u201d as the Dolphins called a timeout with 2:14 left: \u201cIt\u2019s about as ridiculous a fourth quarter as I\u2019ve seen in a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n
4. Stat of Game: 167 yards to minus-20. That\u2019s the yardage for the teams in the consequential third quarter. Up 7-3 at half, Pittsburgh had touchdown drives of 71 and 77 yards and was 19 yards into another touchdown drive against the Dolphins defense when the quarter ended. Yes, this Dolphins defense got dragged up and down the field in the second half as Pittsburgh scored four straight TDs. Aaron Rodgers had a night with two touchdowns on 23 of 27 passing for 224 yards. The Dolphins, meanwhile, had two, three-and-out possessions in the third quarter for minus-8 and minus-12 yards.<\/p>\n
5. How\u2019d last summer\u2019s trade look in this head-to-head reunion? Well, as you\u2019d guess, Pittsburgh\u2019s Jalen Ramsey and Jonnu Smith had more fun than the Dolphins\u2019 Minkah Fitzpatrick. To break it down:<\/p>\n
* Fitzpatrick had six tackles, including one for a loss, but his most visible play was being tossed aside by Pittsburgh receiver D.K. Metcalf on what became a 28-yard touchdown to make it 21-3. He was then injured in the fourth quarter and laid on the ground to the point both teams\u2019 benches come out to wish him well. He got up and wanted back in the game.<\/p>\n
*Ramsey sacked Tua for a 13-yard loss in the third quarter for his notable play. He had six tackles, including four solo.<\/p>\n
*Smith negated a big Steelers run with a holding penalty in the first half (blocking was never his thing with the Dolphins), but the bigger play was a tight-end run for a 14-yard touchdown early in the fourth quarter to make it 28-3. It was Smith\u2019s first rushing touchdown since 2020. He also caught two passes for 12 yards.<\/p>\n
6. It\u2019s time to track the Dolphins spot in the draft: They\u2019re 11th right now. At 6-8, they win the strength-of-schedule tiebreak against Kansas City and Minnesota (they have the easier schedule which means they\u2019re the worse of those teams). The Dolphins last picked 11th in 2017 when they took Minkah Fitzpatrick. They also picked Ring of Honor recipient Bill Stanfill 11th in 1969.<\/p>\n
7. Not-the-Play of the Game (but it could have been): Tomlin went for it in the first quarter. He used the same tush-push play using tight end Connor Heyward the Dolphins just stuffed for no gain on third down. Tomlin had more risk than return here, considering if the Dolphins repeated that result they\u2019d get the ball in good position. Kansas City\u2019s Andy Reid tried this two weeks ago, didn\u2019t get the first down and the game flipped on him to the point he said it was a mistake. No such luck for the Dolphins. Heyward got 2 yards for the first down.<\/p>\n
8. It became a footnote (pun alert!), but Riley Patterson\u2019s 54-yard field goal broke the ice (ha-ha!) to give the Dolphins a 3-0 lead in the second quarter. It was a career-long kick and continued one of the good stories of this season. When Jason Sanders was injured this summer, it led to a question of where to find a reliable kicker. Enter Patterson. He\u2019s made 24 of 26 field goals. That included 3 for 3 in an overtime win over Washington (including the game-winner) and 4 for 4 in a 21-17 win against New Orleans.<\/p>\n
9. Quick Hits:<\/p>\n
The Dolphins were 1 for 7 on third-down conversions.<\/p>\n
Asante Samuel Jr. \u2014 remember the Dolphins flirting with him? \u2014 intercepted Tua in the first half.<\/p>\n
Zach Sieler got another sack Sunday to give him three-and-a-half sacks in the past two games.<\/p>\n
The good news: No more ha-ha 6-7 jokes.<\/p>\n
ESPN\u2019s Troy Aikman on the Dolphins: \u201cAfter winning five of six and four in a row, I think they kind of ran out of gas.\u201d<\/p>\n
10. Next week: Cincinnati at Dolphins. It looked like such a good matchup when the schedule was made it was originally set as the Sunday night game. That changed of late. Cincinnati, at 4-10, lost its season when Joe Burrow missed nine games. He provided a spark in returning, but that went missing in Sunday\u2019s 24-0 loss to Baltimore. Burrow or no Burrow, the Bengals have the league-worst defense in allowing 31.2 points a game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The playoffs are officially gone. The four-game win streak is a thing of the past. The Miami Dolphins…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62071,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[6549,19386,73,75,74,1833],"class_list":["post-62070","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-miami-dolphins","tag-monday-night-football","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-pittsburgh-steelers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62070","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62070"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62070\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62070"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62070"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62070"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}