3 things we learned in the Miami Dolphins "the sky is not falling" loss to the Eagles
By Matt Serniak
The Miami Dolphins felt the Eagles' physicality on both sides of the ball all night long.
When I said earlier that the Eagles' brand of football travels and can be woken much easier than the Dolphin's brand of football, I was eluding to the fact the switch of physicality can be flipped on quicker than theatricality and deception.
Think of when Bane broke Batman's back in The Dark Knight Rises. Batman throws all types of gimmicks at Bane. He throws his smoke bombs and turns the lights out on Bane and Bane just stands there and laughs at his weak attempts to beat him. Then Bane just beats Batman down and then breaks his back with brute strength. That is what happened last night.
The Dolphins did all their motion that put the bad teams who aren't that physical in a blender and it worked out. Against a team that couldn't care less what you're doing who knows they're just going to blow up your effort by being stronger and nastier, you get what happened last night.
We knew the Eagles front four were serious men who love to cripple offenses. Sure, life is easier when you're down two starting linemen, and then a 3rd gets hurt on the first drive, but it doesn't matter. We live in a no-excuse society. The Eagles love nothing more than punching another team in the mouth and that's what they did on defense. They murdered the A and B gaps and forced Miami to change course.
Even the Eagles offense, who we knew had one of the best offensive lines in all of football, leaned on Miami all game. The Dolphins fought valiantly but the Eagles are consistent in their approach. It also doesn't hurt that they have the most unstoppable play since giving the ball to Bo Jackson in Tecmo Super Bowl. The Brotherly Shove can't be stopped right now when the Eagles run it and it's something we're just going to have to deal with right now. Personally, I'm cool with it because I'm all about the idea of just stopping it if you don't like it.
The Eagles were 4/4 on the Brotherly Shove and it really made a difference in the second half. Miami was down seven and the Eagles were at like their 28 and they took that timeout to think it over on a 4th and 1. Obviously, we knew they were going to go for it and we knew they were going to get it. They did it again about three minutes later.
The defense was gassed at that point and it's why Hurts was able to hit AJ Brown deep to seal the game. Defense is really hard and when you keep giving up 4th and ones, it's natural to have a bit of a letdown at times. It's human nature. I don't like the result but I understand it. Simply saying something "You just can't give that up" is not taking into account just how much effort the defense was putting in.