Dolphins had momentum throughout the game but couldn’t capitalize

Written by Matthew Cannata | Twitter: @PhinManiacs
There were several moments in the game on Sunday where the Dolphins had momentum but just couldn’t capitalize on the opportunities. These included the drives after both of Jarvis Landry’s kickoff returns for 40 and 70 yards, respectively. Another opportunity was when the Dolphins sacked Alex Smith in the end zone for a safety and then towards the end of the game, when Brent Grimes stripped the ball from Kniles Davis. Joe Philbin understood that the team failed to take advantage.

“As I said to the team, when we got to the 20 and 15 in the fourth quarter, we’d be in great position to win the game, but to their credit, we were never able to consistently maintain the momentum in this game. You have to give Kansas City credit, but we certainly didn’t help ourselves.”

“Once we made a play to get some momentum, we’d have a penalty, we’d have to kick the ball back there, throw fifteen yards further…they’d get the ball. I think it was maybe 14-10 at that point in time and they go right down and score. We got the safety to make it 20-15 I think, and I don’t think we did anything with the ball on offense at that point in time. We just never built – one of the things we talked to the team about this week was complimenting one another. The units helping each other out, building that momentum, but again, we didn’t do that well enough, for sure.”

Ryan Tannehill said that part of the reason for that because of the penalties or something else that slowed the offense down.

“It was a couple of drives where I felt like we were getting into a rhythm and then there was a penalty or something that would slow us down and take us out of our rhythm. We’ve got to be able to sustain that and sustain a long drive and we didn’t do that all night.”

Brian Hartline, who had 3 catches for 25 yards, agreed with Tannehill.

“It’s probably a hold here, a drop there, they are things that we are doing to ourselves that makes things more difficult. But if you’re playing the odds, eventually you can’t overcome them all. So it gets tiresome and it kind of wears on you, but I think in the end we don’t put ourselves in a good light when we need to step up and make a play.” 

This is a problem that has showed up all three weeks so far this season and doesn’t appear to be getting better. Hopefully the Dolphins can respond and pick up a win on Sunday against the Oakland Raiders.

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