After a bad first half, the Dolphins offense found rhythm in the second

The Miami Dolphins offense had trouble getting much of anything going on Monday night against the New York Jets. In fact, they only had 291 yards of total offense. Breaking that down, they had 74 rushing yards and 217 passing yards. While this might seem average on the surface, the offensive struggles go deeper than that and doesn't tell the whole story.

Bill Lazor, who called it a bad game but a good win, said that you have to win games like that at various points throughout the season. He credited the offense for never giving up and never panicking, despite their struggles throughout much of the game.

“I hope they come out of it with confidence and the fact that they can win a game at the end. Confidence that all the things you talk about in situational football can come up. So at the end of the first half would we have liked to make it a touchdown, yes. But we got points. I think it made a difference going in at halftime when you get some points and you know that you are getting the ball back. I think when you go down the field at the end of the game to score to win, your just different after that. This is my first year of having been here, so I don’t know how many times these players have done it, but for this year for them to do it I expect them the next time it comes up to be different.”

Not panicking and staying committed to what they've done all season while trusting each other led the offense to create big plays down the stretch of the second half. Lazor said that the offense was finally able to get into a rhythm late in the game, which allowed them to do things they weren't able to do in the first half.

“Obviously, the beginning of the game was not what we planned or envisioned. Two of the first three series were three-and-outs. It was hard to get in a rhythm because we could not stay on the field. Then the second drive where we did stay on a little bit longer, we had some errors. We had a penalty and a sack, if I remember that right. We had a hard time getting in rhythm. Some of that was my fault. Some of that were errors that we made, so that was disappointing. I was kind of disappointed in myself a little bit. I was hoping I would help them get off to a better start. The positive is that we really kept our composure."

Lazor noted that after coming out of the locker room after halftime, he had a lot of confidence in his unit that they were going to go out and do everything they could to win the game.

I felt really good about how the team was at halftime in the locker room. I felt good about how they were on the sideline in the second half. I had confidence watching them that, ‘Hey, we are going to win this football game.’ I was asking let’s do it now, but it ended up being in the fourth quarter. The good things you take away are that guys made plays at the end of the game. The run game, I thought the last drive to score (that) we had some good runs in that drive. We had some good pass completions. I’m hoping that is a maturity that is coming about on the team.”

Story written by Matthew Cannata. Follow him on Twitter: @PhinManiacs

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