Horrible clock management dooms Miami Dolphins in loss

The Miami Dolphins season is over and Mike McDaniel needs to spend the offseason learning that there is a play clock in the NFL.

Miami wasted three timeouts in the second half including two in the fourth quarter when Mike McDaniel couldn’t get plays in on time and had to use timeouts to get out of delay of game penalties. He didn’t learn anything.

Facing fourth and one, down by three, McDaniel again couldn’t get the play in, the team huddled with 8 seconds on the play clock and took another delay of game penalty that set up 4th and 6 and they couldn’t convert.

Was this why the Dolphins lost the game? No, but it prevented them from having a shot at winning the game.

O.k., now that’s out of the way, the Dolphins, huge underdogs came within three points of beating the Bills in Buffalo with three starting offensive linemen out, their starting quarterback out, their second-string quarterback out, their starting running back out, and still managed to put up 31 points thanks to a stellar defensive outing early in the 2nd half.

Miami clawed back into a game they were down 17-3, led in the 2nd half, 24-20, and then clawed back again after being down 10 to get within three. Regardless, their season ends in the first round.

The Dolphins have a lot of things to be happy about but they also have a lot of questions that need answering and McDaniel needs to do better. Today, his inexperience showed.

For Miami, the off-season officially starts on Monday but they were so close to pulling off one of the biggest upsets in NFL playoff history. So close, but yet, so far.