Miami Dolphins: All Fitz, No Magic

The Miami Dolphins regular season got off to a rocky start. Facing the New England Patriots in Foxboro is never easy, but without true home-field advantage due to lack of crowd, it should’ve been a bit easier. While it wasn’t the complete disaster of the 43-0 opener last season, it at times wasn’t pretty at all.

Clearly, the Dolphins and quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick were a little rusty without the preseason. Game speed, even just preseason is a whole different element than practice. Guys can take hits and get pushed around it clearly throws off a rhythm. Without tape to review, the offense looked like it struggled more than once on miscues. Receivers failed to get separation and forced Fitzpatrick to make tight throws.

If you’ve watched Fitz throughout his career, you’ve seen what happens when he’s forced to make tight throws and it showed up yesterday. He’d finish the game under 200 yards, three interceptions, and a goose egg on touchdowns. Luckily for him, the reworked offensive line this year kept him relatively upright with just 1 sack for a loss of nine.

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Speaking of the offensive line, they didn’t get beat up too bad as you’d expect from a unit still trying to gel early on. With the exception of Jordan Howard, who finished 8 carries for 7 yards, the run game was solid as well. Matt Brieda and Miles Gaskin both averaged 4.4 yards per carry, even Ryan Fitzpatrick ran for 3.6 ypc himself. They spent a good deal of the offseason focused on the offensive line and it looks to have paid off.

Despite the miscues and bad plays, the Dolphins were very much in the game against the Pats. Sure the score made it look worst than it was, but with fewer mistakes might’ve told a different story. Miami lost but they didn’t look like a complete embarrassment. You’re not going to win them all in today’s NFL so a loss is a loss. Hopefully, there will be plenty of tape on this game and adjustments to be made. If not, fans will be calling for Tua Tagovailoa in no time.