Dolphins continue finding creative ways to lose

By Hugo Guzman  |   Monday, October 08, 2007  |  Comments( 2 )

Miami Dolphins
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Most will point to Kris Brown's superhuman effort as the main rationale for Miami's demoralizing 22-19 loss to the Houston Texans on Sunday. Brown kicked five field goals on the day, three of which were 50-plus yards, and his 57-yarder with just one second left put the final nail in the Dolphins' coffin.

However, a closer look reveals several familiar trends that helped put Miami in an insurmountable 0-5 hole to start the season.

Because we're on the topic of field goals anyway, let's talk about a rather disturbing offensive trend that has plagued Miami throughout this young season: its inability to score touchdowns instead of field goals.

On Sunday, kicker Jay Feely converted on all four of his field goal attempts. That's great news for one of Miami's key free-agent acquisitions; unfortunately, though, three of those four field goals came on possessions in which Miami was afforded a short field and had driven close to or inside the red zone. The Dolphins scored on each of their first four possessions, but they found the end zone just once, when suddenly elite running back Ronnie Brown barreled in from 3 yards out.

Sure enough, the Dolphins' lack of killer instinct near Houston's goal line early on came back to haunt Miami in a big way as the game progressed.

And why, pray tell, did the Dolphins struggle to score touchdowns? Mainly because of their inability to convert on third down. Entering the game, Miami was converting roughly 15 percent of its third-down attempts, a brutally telling statistic. They were a bit better Sunday, converting 5 of 11 attempts, but only one of those five conversions occurred when the Dolphins were in or around the red zone.

On the flip side, Miami's defense continued to give up an inordinate amount of long third-down conversions through the air, including a 16-yard completion during the Texans' opening touchdown drive and a 13-yard pass early in the fourth quarter that help set up Brown's game-tying field goal with 5 minutes, 26 seconds left to play.

The Dolphins' inability to stop third and long is the result of both an inconsistent pass rush and poor secondary; although, to be fair, both Will Allen and Michael Lehan seemed to hold up their end of the bargain on the day, offering up solid coverage in several key situations.

Unfortunately, their efforts were not enough to overcome a fairly uninspiring defensive effort, especially in the second half. Jason Taylor did have two sacks in the game, including one which resulted in a fumble that was recovered by a surprisingly effective Rodrique Wright, and Andre Goodman came up with a nice interception early on. However, as the game wore on, Miami's pass defense became more and more suspect.

The poster boy for the Dolphins' lackluster aerial 'D' was safety Cameron Worrell, who was picked on repeatedly and looked incapable of delivering NFL-caliber pass coverage.

Just imagine how the game might have turned out had Worrell been tasked with providing over-the-top coverage on Andre Johnson. It's a good thing for Miami that Johnson was out with an injury; otherwise the matchup could have gotten ugly in a hurry for the Dolphins.

The one thing that Miami's defense was able to do consistently was stop the run, allowing just 74 yards on the ground. However, it's likely that result directly attributed to the fact that Houston was playing without its top runner (Ahman Green); they were forced to trot out Ron Dayne and Samkon Gado.

In any case, it had to be encouraging for fans to see the team put a stop to its trend of giving up huge yardage on the ground; still, its pass defense rendered the effort null and void by turning in a pure stinker.

Nevertheless, despite all of these rather demoralizing trends -- along with the loss of starting quarterback Trent Green late in the first quarter and a pedestrian effort by backup Cleo Lemon, who was incapable of stretching the field vertically -- Miami still found itself in a position to ice the game late in the fourth quarter.

With the game tied at 19, Lemon was able to move the offense into Houston territory. Predictably, tough, the drive stalled when Lemon was unable to convert third-and-9 on the Houston 38. Cam Cameron chose to forgo a long field goal attempt, instead relying on punter Brandon Fields to pin the Texans deep in their own territory, and Fields made the decision look brilliant by pinning Houston at its 3.

Sounds like a recipe for success, right? Not for Miami and its fans, who know all too well how the story ended -- with yet another defeat.

Experience Miami Dolphins déjà vu at RealFootball365.com
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About Hugo Guzman

Trying to bring an objective approach to NFL analysis.
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