Miami Dolphins Sunday After Game Balls

The Miami Dolphins looked good, played well, and came out of London with a victory that put them back at .500 for the season. It seems that two games is all Miami loses as penalty for beating the Patriots. That was a joke.

Miami played very well in all phases of the game but that does not mean all players deserve our weekly game balls. So without going overboard here are our day after game balls.

Ryan Tannehill played an almost flawless game, when it meant something. The offense kind of sputtered in the 3rd quarter and later in the 4th Tannehill was credited with an interception that really should have gone to TE Dion Sims who dropped his pass into the hands of a Raider defender.  All in all Tannehill showed poise in the pocket once again and his passes were crisp and on point hitting his receivers in stride. Tannehill should have had three touchdown passes on the day but that’s getting nit-picky. After a long week of media hammering Tannehill came out strong and took the team on his shoulders. Now he needs to feed off of that energy and keep it going.

Lamar Miller didn’t have the yards that he has a week before losing to the Chiefs but he had his first two touchdown day of his career and should have had three had it not been for the 1/2 yard from the goal line fumble. Miller ran very well and was quick to the holes, decisive and deliberate. He ran very physical as well and is starting to gain some attention across the league.

Brian Hartline made some critical third down catches and as a result of the targets he led the team in catches, six, and 74 yards. It was Hartline best game of the season thus far. Mike Wallace took the score but it was Hartline who extended drives.

Brent Grimes had a very good game following a very bad opening drive that surrendered the first points to Oakland. Grimes finished the day with five tackles and an interception that he returned to the four yard line of the Raiders. Grimes was all over the field and he shut down most of the passing attack of Oakland on his side.

The defensive front line gets a nod all around for keeping pressure on Derek Carr and holding the Raiders to 53 yards rushing on the entire day. The Dolphins defensive line also added two tackles and forced Derek Carr to move around and make errant throws.

Honorable mention:

Damien Williams gets a nod here for his two kick-off returns that averaged 30 yards per return setting the Dolphins up with good field position to start drives. The Raiders kicked off three times the entire game, once after their opening score, to start the 2nd half, and after their mid-4th quarter score. Regardless the Dolphins did well cleaning up the mistakes they had made on ST’s a week before.