CHARLOTTE — You get even madder when you see good pros like Jordyn Brooks and Zach Sieler try to hold it together afterward with class and style, standing in another somber Miami Dolphins locker room and grabbing for empty phrases, like, “We’ve got to find answers,” and “Everyone needs to be better.”
Brooks and Sieler aren’t the big issue. They’re just left holding the bag in another embarrassment like Sunday. They’re just paying the dues, play after ugly play, for bigger problems in this franchise that led to a 27-24 loss to the Carolina Panthers.
When you see this sad performance, when you see the defense get run over in unimaginable ways and the offense again do too little, it’s fair to get mad about what people in charge have done to the Dolphins to reach this point. Seventh year of the rebuild. Or four, if you want to cut it to coach Mike McDaniel’s years. And this is it?
This is what should annoy you. Not just this loss to one of the league’s worst teams. But these scenes that showed how bad it is and why the question about the future of general manager Chris Grier and McDaniel isn’t so much if they’re going but when they do.
Here was one scene: Carolina Panthers running back Rico Dowdle ran so far, so fast through this Dolphins defense he had to come out of the game with cramps in both calves and drink four jars of pickle juice on the sideline to heal them. He still had 206 yards on 23 carries.
Another scene: Carolina coach Dave Canales was so surprised by Dowdle’s 53-yard run to start the second half that he didn’t have a next play ready. It was foreign to him to have a play go like that. The Panthers took a delay-of-game penalty — one of two in the game plus another for 12 men on the field to go with their two turnovers.
That’s the sad team the Dolphins were dragged around the stadium by for the final three quarters. They couldn’t even blame anything on missing Tyreek Hill. They led 17-0 one play into the second quarter.
“That’s what hurts the most, honestly,’’ said Brooks, the veteran linebacker. “Losing that lead and then losing the game. We’ve got to figure it out.”
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They had a week to figure out how the sad-sack New York Jets ran for 199 yards against them. Now they have another week to figure how Carolina, the NFC’s version of the Jets, won a game with a backup running back and a bottom-third run game.
This isn’t about scheme or mental work. When you get bloodied in the trenches like the Dolphins keep being it’s simply about not being fundamentally good or organizationally tough enough.
Carolina had 5 yards rushing on two carries after the first quarter. So, do the math. That means the Dolphins gave up 234 yards rushing on 30 carries in just three quarters.
Is it time to sit rookie defensive tackles Kenneth Grant and Jordan Phillip down? Maybe. Can you question defensive coordinator Anthony Weaver for not having an answer? Sure, why not.
But this again is about something bigger than such details Sunday against Carolina or the previous month of this season. It’s about this team’s assembly. It’s about how the mistakes made year after year above these players.
“Soft,” was the word Brooks described this team last year in a loss at Green Bay. He didn’t use that word again, but Sunday was softer than anything the Dolphins have put out there in a while.
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The Dolphins ran for 19 yards on 14 carries themselves. They got that 17-point lead thanks to two turnovers that Bryce Young gift-wrapped. On the first, he simply dropped by ball, untouched, and the Dolphins’ Bradley Chubb fell on it.
The Dolphins offense found one spark from that early lead when Tua Tagovailoa threw 46 yards to Jaylen Waddle for a touchdown and 24-20 lead with a couple of minutes left.
Dowdle ran 16 yards up the middle on Carolina’s next play. The day was on its way to being over in the worst of ways for the Dolphins. Carolina scored quickly enough so
“We thought we were prepared for this and clearly we weren’t,” McDaniel said. “
“You don’t give up that many yards unless you’re uncoordinated in some way,” McDaniel said. “It can’t go on like this. It’s gone on too long.”
It’s been going on years, really. The only difference is Carolina is the bad teams the Dolphins have always beaten. They’ve always lost to the better teams.
“We’re a much better team than letting a 17-point lead go away,” McDaniel said.
They’re not. Sunday showed that. If you could kid yourself that the season was alive at 1-3, there’s no kidding at 1-4 considering how this team keeps looking.
They’re not just losing. They got run over Sunday by one of the league’s worst teams, which tells you where they stand, too.
