3 things we learned in the Miami Dolphins deflating loss to the Bengals

It’s not fun at all writing this. Not fun at all. The Miami Dolphins lost last night against the Cincinnati Bengals 27-15. But as well know that isn’t the story. The story is that Tua Tagovailoa got badly hurt and it was a terrible scene when it happened.

We all saw the play. Tua booted to his left, held the ball for a while and then got whipped to the ground by a giant. It wasn’t a dirty play. It’s just that Tua isn’t that large and that guy is crazy strong. It’s like when guys used to run into Shaq. It wasn’t his fault they would ricochet of him like pinballs.

And then we saw one of the more gruesome and gut-wrenching scenes, at least, I have ever seen on football field. Tua’s hands were locked in a bad position. At first, I thought h broke his fingers. He didn’t. He hit head and the force of it sent signals to his nervous system and his body just did that.

The team came out and huddled around him, praying for Tua’s health. The stretcher came out and he was sent to one of the top neurology hospitals in the country.

The rest of the game was so worthless to watch. I watched it but I had zero emotion to it. I wasn’t thinking about the outcome of the game to much. I thought the worst things about how the injury to Tua might be life altering to him. Like, I started to think about Ryan Shazier and stuff like that.

Teddy Bridgewater came in, played averagely, and the Miami Dolphins lost to the Bengals. The team is 3-1 with 10 days off heading to New York to play the Jets, a game where I will be at.

But my head isn’t thinking about how the Miami Dolphins can beat the Jets. It’s thinking about how I hope Tua will be okay enough to walk around easily.

Fortunately, some good news came out last night.

These are all great signs that Tua is at least able to walk around and communicate. No idea when he will be able to play but that doesn’t matter right now. What matter is getting healthy enough to live. Football comes after that.

What this means for the Miami Dolphins organization that once again finds itself in the middle of controversy, who knows?

Mike McDaniel stood up after the game and answered every question thrown at him. He pretty much echoed the same thought again and again saying that Tua passed every test and protocol since he got injured on Sunday.

If you’d like to go through the whole interview from McDaniel, here you go;

This is going to get very loud and annoying for us fans because the Miami Dolphins, once again, are going to look like a clown show of an organization letting Tua play whether they were in the right or not. Again, Tua passed everything he needed to. The issue for Mike McDaniel and the league is whether or not when a player passes the concussion protocol should the team step in and over-ride it when the player appears fine? I don’t have an answer for that.

I do know that the player association is going to continue their investigation and that new protocols will sooner than later be put in place. Book it.

There was an actual football game and even though you can tell that the Miami Dolphins looked like they’re in state of fog after the incident, we did learn a few things, I think

The Miami Dolphins have a real offense for the first time in decades

Yes there are plenty of things the Miami Dolphin’s offense can improve on such as the running game, and finishing drives. But make no mistake, for the first time in decades, the Miami Dolphins have a legitimate, adult offense that can be relied on to score a lot of points.

When Tua was in there, the offense was moving the ball up the field on the Bengals. They were just settling for field goals, which isn’t ideal I know. But they were getting chunk play after chunk play to Tyreek Hill, Jaylen Waddle, and even Mike Gesicki.

It just seems like they know they can get those play-action/RPO plays over the middle whenever they want.

Then, Mike McDaniel seems like he got a bit greedy and was looking to pump the ball deep. Tua threw the INT late. Also and I don’t know why but Tua will throw some deep balls so high in the air that the ball has no choice but to die up there. The second deep ball he threw that ended up going incomplete had much more velocity on it and was thrown on a line.

But the offensive concepts are working. There hasn’t been as many boots the last few games but the production is there.

Obviously, it helps when you have Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle but there’s teams out there that wouldn’t know how to use them. Past Miami offensive coaching staffs would be tripping over themselves trying to figure out a way to get those guys the ball. Not Mike McDaniel. He knows how to keep feeding them and how to get them open when everyone knows the ball is coming to them. It will continue.

With Teddy Bridgewater at the helm for who knows how long, the offense will look different.

Teddy Bridgewater came into a tough spot. Not only did his teammate get wheeled out on a stretcher, but he had to come in and man the ship. A ship he probably didn’t get to many reps with on the short week.

He looked average. He looked alright but nothing that made me feel great. The deep ball to Tyreek Hill was solid because it was a throw Tua can’t make but other than that he looked like a guy that was looking to check it down whenever he could.

With Tua at quarterback, he runs the play-action passes so much more smooth and silky and is able to feather throws over linebackers in small windows effortlessly. Bridgewater, when he does play-actions, looks like a guy who isn’t that comfortable. It even looked like he ran into the back when he had to turn his back to the defense a few times.

Also, Teddy isn’t that good at making those throws over the linebackers between the safeties. Mike McDaniel is going to have adjust and build game plans that highlight what Teddy does well. That’s obvious and it’s something he knew was a possibility when he brought him in.

I’m sure McDaniel has a whole Teddy playbook already streaming in his brain.

With the defense playing stout enough, the offense is going to need to their part. The Dolphin’s schedule gets a bit easier for the next few weeks but that doesn’t mean that the offense should be looking to get to 17 points and think that’s a great accomplishment. This offense is built to score points and I’ll be damned if Teddy holds it back.

Don’t forget, Skylar is lurking.

The defensive line had a weak offensive line in front of them and they didn’t do much.

I hate to say it and it’s something I feared might happen but the defensive line, which is deep and talented might just be average at getting to the quarterback. Sucks to say but that’s what it looks like.

Jaelan Phillips got his first sack of the season and overall had a solid game with his pressures but it just seemed that Joe Burrow was able to stand back there.

There were a few times where Burrow escaped what should have been a would-be sack, which was highly frustrating.

I guess my main frustrations is that the Bengal’s offensive line was awful coming in to the game, giving up the most sacks in the league and the Dolphin’s defensive line didn’t take advantage of that.

Miami is all about the cover 0-life, which is fun. But when the pressure doesn’t get there it’s leaving the secondary, often times very inexperienced secondary vulnerable as we saw last night. Guys like Burrow and his receiving core are to good not to be able to shake man coverage and be wide-open a few times a game.

This is why the defensive line needs to generate more pressure. Did you see when the guy for Bengals, Sam Hubbard, ran over Greg Little putting him to the ground, and got to Bridgewater? I want Ogbah, Phillips, or anyone for that matter to do that.

Ryan Fitzpatrick’s interview with Tua Tagovailoa. It was fun to see them together but nothing came of it. Wish they showed more. However, Fitzpatrick after the game, mentioned how lucid Tua was. Interesting hearing it after the injury.

Al Michaels and Kirk Herbstreit on the call for Amazon Prime. I upgraded my modem after week 2. Amazon Prime was lagging bad for me. Now it isn’t. Good move on my part.

The Miami Dolphins are undefeated in coin tosses.

The tackling by the Miami Dolphin’s defense wasn’t stellar. No excuses of course, but the effects of Sunday were being felt on a short week, No excuses. Hayden Hurst breaks a tackle on 3rd and 1 and gets 15.

For the first half, it seemed like every 3rd down for the Bengals was 3rd and 1 and they were getting ever time. Super annoying.

The personal foul on Keion Crossen was the right call. He didn’t need to jump on him when he was on the ground.

Man alive did Al Michaels sound like he was dying coming back after the first commercial. Sounded terrible.

I really hate the navy blue muff that Tua was wearing. Orange, white, aqua, pick one of our colors. Hated the navy blue.

Raheem Mostert is the starter. He ran hard all game. I think this is McDaniel’s guy but Chase Edmonds will also be highly involved.

Jaylen Waddle had a pedestrian game. 2 catches for 39 yards. He was a guy visibly and reported very distraught after the Tua injury. Makes sense. He’s been very good friends with Tua for many years. I fully expect him to heal up his groin over the next 10 days and be back to his awesome form.

Chase Edmonds dropped the easiest TD of his life. It really felt like that drop TD was the start of a very average night for the offense.

Love how Jerome Baker picked up Perine on a 3rd and 8. Last week, the Dolphin linebackers were not guarding the backs out the backfield when they brought pressure.

What are the odds Tyreek Hill gets holding penalty? It negated a 12 yard run.

Not great alert- Miami takes two timeouts in three plays because they are confused. It’s really not their night.

I don’t understand the graphic for next week’s game between the Colts and Broncos. Why do they want Jonathan Taylor stand like that? They did the same thing for Tua in the graphic last week. So weird.

You can’t say a bad word about the Dolphins short yardage defense. They stop a lot of plays for nothing especially near the goal line.

Elandon Roberts has limitations no doubt. But he is the real deal when it comes to plugging up a hole.

Jason Sanders, not the best night. He got blocked from 52 and he missed an extra point. Those points, naturally, mattered. He is going to be needed even more going forward. Need to get in the lab and get focused up.

Hey Amazon Prime, keep showing Tua’s hands after he got hurt. Everyone wants to keep seeing it. Doofuses

Tee Higgins blew by Xavien Howard. Howard is definitely dealing with an injury. This we knew but it was apparent last night. He’s another guy that needs rest.

Nice TD to Chase Edmonds on what looked like an unnatural flip by Teddy. I’ll take it. Good play call on 1st down inside the 5.

Biggest missed opportunity of the game was after the bomb to Hill. Miami inside the five and they settle for a field goal. We all knew that was going to hurt.

Start of the 4th quarter and believe it or not Miami is up 15-14.

Nice play by Kader Kohou breaking up a 3rd down pass to Tyler Boyd. This guy is a diamond in the rough.

I don’t see the Dolphins running to much to the left side.

Teddy gets picked off on a miscommunication to Gesicki. Looked like it should have been challenged by the booth, but nothing happened.

Dolphins lose 27-15.

The outcome is inconsequential because Tua’s health is priority #1. Here’s the latest.

It’s amazing after what we saw that he was able to go home and is in “good spirits.” Who knows when he will play football again. That’s not important.

We will find out what this team is made of. For everyone who wondered how Mike McDaniel will handle adversity, we shall see.

Also, beware of all the Twitter doctors that think they know exactly what’s going on. We aren’t there and we weren’t there when Tua’s tests happened. Let’s not act like we can diagnose stuff from our couches.

Follow me @2ndSatSports