Miami Dolphins Week 11 Game Balls

The Miami Dolphins needed to come up big on Thursday night in order to remain entrenched in the 2014 playoff chase. While the team didn’t blow the socks off the Buffalo Bills, defensively they played tough and offensively did enough to secure a 22-9 victory. The game could have and should have been more wide open.

The Dolphins continue to struggle inside the red-zone and turnovers at the wrong time are still hurting this team. It’s something they need to fix immediately if they have any chance of winning what most believe to be a minimum four of six. There is very little room for error and the Dolphins will next face the Denver Broncos in Denver.

Despite a few hiccups during the game on Thursday night the Dolphins still won and as we do every week, win or lose, we hand out game balls and ask you to tell us who you would have nominated (tell me who I missed).

Thursday was a great game to watch if for no other reason to watch the Dolphins finally take the Bills down when they needed to the most. The win puts a damper on the Bills season who will now need a lot of help. The Bills, for now become our friend as they still face playoff contenders in the Cleveland Browns and New England Patriots. Hard fought win not withstanding, kudos to the players who receive game balls this week.

Ryan Tannehill:

26 of 34 for 240 yards and two touchdowns is a very nice outing for Ryan Tannehill. It’s a good outing for just about any quarterback. Tannehill has really settled into his role with this team and it shows. On Thursday night he had a few missed opportunities and still couldn’t hit Mike Wallace deep and he threw two passes that were almost intercepted but there is no question that despite being knocked around all night, Tannehill kept his cool and delivered a winning game to his team.

Jamar Taylor:

Taylor got his first start in the NFL on Thursday and did a great job shutting down Robert Woods who only had two receptions on the game. Taylor also made two great tackles one for a loss as well. He has been waiting for his chance and he played well enough to get more opportunities sooner rather than later.

The offensive line:

Individually they all wouldn’t have received game balls. In fact I might not have even nominated Mike Pouncey, Samson Satele, or Shelley Smith but as a full unit it can’t be stressed how important their line play was against the number one defensive front in the NFL. The Dolphins gave up 5 sacks total on the day, 3.5 to Mario Williams alone but their play kept Ryan Tannehill standing most of the time and allowed him to complete a good night. In addition they opened the door for 127 team rushing yards. 86 of which came on the legs of Lamar Miller.

Lamar Miller:

Miller returned to his role as the teams featured back and ran the ball 15 times for 86 yards and looked as though he hadn’t missed a step from his absence. Miller added two receptions for 12 yards and played tough. He reeled off his longest run of the season as well, 33 yards.

The defense as a whole played well or the team wouldn’t have got the win. A few names stand out but I’m not quite sure they deserve game balls so we will call it an honorable mention. Jelani Jenkins looked very good again and Dion Jordan looks really solid in coverage, Earl Mitchell and Olivier Vernon both got sacks but overall the D’line pressure on Kyle Orton was lacking until later in the 2nd half. Still as I said a very good night for the Dolphins defense as a whole.