Miami Dolphins put in terrible performance in loss to Cincinnati Bengals
Atrocious. That is the only word I can even think to describe the Miami Dolphins performance on Thursday night against the Cincinnati Bengals. Losing by a final score of 22-7, the Dolphins offense put in an absolutely terrible performance against the Bengals. A performance I would personally rank as one of the worst that I’ve ever seen.
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Yes, the defense was not innoncent during this contest, but they played well when the situation’s got tough. Allowing only one Bengals touchdown, the defense forced five Cincinnati field goals to keep their offense within a shot of the win. Though the cornerback duo of Xavien Howard and Tony Lippett did struggle to defend AJ Green, that performance cannot be blamed for the result of the game.
In my mind, the responsibility for this loss falls on three different areas of the offense. The play of quarterback Ryan Tannehill, the offensive game plan for this week, and finally the play of the weakened offensive line. However, that said, one group did a far better job at losing this game than any other.
Ryan Tannehill had arguably his worst game as a Miami Dolphins’ quarterback. Turning the ball over twice — one interception and one fumble — Tannehill’s stats just don’t tell the whole story of how bad he was at times.
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Remove the 74-yard touchdown pass to Kenny Stills and Tannehill was 14-for-24 passing with 115-yards. The other area that is most upsetting is that most of those passes and yards came late in the game while the Bengals were in their lax zone/prevent defense.
Some of the blame also lies with the team’s offensive line. Banged up and patched together for this game, the O-line allowed more than a few sacks and pressure plays to get to Tannehill and the running game. I’m not sure how much better they would have played with a healthy offensive line but it surely would have been better than what this group did.
The final piece of tonight’s puzzle was the offensive gameplan. Possibly because of the short week, the game plan just wasn’t ready for this Bengals defense. The rushing game was nonexistent again. Playing well with the empty backfield, the Dolphins completely went away from that for the rest of the game.
Now 1-3, I’m hoping for either a respectable last 12-weeks of the season or a terrible one. With a couple of quality quarterbacks likely to be available, maybe Miami should take the Colts advice from 2010 and begin their effort at tanking now. Then again, this team may not even be able to do that right.
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