The Dolphins kick their way into the playoffs after nail-biter against Cowboys

[TheFish]

Not one, not two, not three, not four, but five, that’s the amount of field goals that Jason Sanders made against the Cowboys to kick the Dolphins into the playoffs. Sanders, who had been struggling this season on field goals from over 50 yards, was able to knock in three from 50+ against the Cowboys, including a career-long 57-yard field goal. Everyone knows he was the hero of the game, so why don’t we take a look at everything else that happened in the game? First things first, the Dolphins won, and that’s all that matters, but at the end of the day, it was a really close game, and they didn’t have a perfect game. The play-calling by coach McDaniel was good for the most part, except for when he decided to go for it on 4th and goal from the 5-yard line and called a fade to Cedrick Wilson. The problem is not that he decided to go for it, but the play he called. These fades don’t work, and they haven’t worked for us the entire season except for once in week one against the Chargers, but McDaniel himself has admitted that it’s a bad play call in the past. Other than that, everything looked good. The only problem was that the Dolphins weren’t able to execute the plays properly sometimes, and Tua missed some throws that he usually makes. Tua was good for the most part, except for those throws he missed that I just mentioned, but the good thing is that he didn’t make a mistake this game; he had no turnovers. There was even one play where there was a bad snap, and he was able to just pick it up from the floor and throw it to Smythe for a nice gain. This was Tua’s fourth game in a row without throwing an interception. Hopefully, he can keep this up for the rest of the season. There were a lot of questions coming into this game about the offensive line’s health, but overall, they had a great game and only allowed one sack. The run blocking wasn’t necessarily the best, but it was good enough to win. There was one play where Terron Armstead seemingly tackled Raheem Mostert and injured him; of course, that wasn’t on purpose, but he should be more careful next time; thankfully, Raheem was able to come back to the game and score a Touchdown. The biggest surprise of the game, in my opinion, is that the Dolphins didn’t run the ball as much as expected. After watching the Bills run through the Cowboys’ defense last week, everyone thought that the Dolphins were going to play a run-heavy offense against the Cowboys, but it wasn’t that way. This could be because McDaniel knew they would have adjusted from last week and be more ready for the run this game, so he went heavy on the pass. Another reason could be that the Dolphins didn’t find the early success on the run, and McDaniel decided to pull back from it. On the other side of the ball, Vic Fangio’s defense was great this game. They didn’t have the best start, allowing the Cowboys to just put together a long drive, but they were able to escape that drive without allowing any points after the Cowboys fumbled at the goal line. But the fumble wasn’t the best defensive play for the Dolphins because the best play came right before it, when Deshon Elliot made an amazing tackle to stop Tony Pollard short of the goal line and make the Cowboys run another play, which resulted in the fumble. Everyone is talking about why did Fangio not put Ramsey on CeeDee Lamb and I was wondering the same, but during the broadcast, they explained the reason, and it was a good one. They said that it’s not that it makes it any harder on Ramsey, but it makes it harder for the other defensive backs to adjust to a different coverage. Vic Fangio has his system, and it works. Every player has his own role in that system or scheme, and if you start moving around players, it makes it harder for everyone. The question is, why did he have Ramsey shadow Garret Wilson the week before? And the answer could be as simple as that they were playing the Jets, and there was nothing to worry about; you don’t really have to play good defense against the Jets; they are the Jets. Overall, the Dolphins played a great game on all three sides of the ball, including their best game on special teams, not only Jason Sanders and his field goals but also Jake Bailey and his punts and Braxton Berrios with his return. The Dolphins played the field position game and won it; they had a much better starting position in their drives than the Cowboys. Everyone did their job; they got the win and now have a spot in the playoffs with a chance to win the division next week against the Ravens and potentially get a first-round bye if they win against the Bills, too. FinsUp.

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Source: https://dolphinstalk.com/2023/12/the-do ... t-cowboys/