Miami Dolphins playing much better over past four games

Written by Matthew Cannata at 9:40 AM EST | Twitter: @PhinManiacs

Starting with the game against the Oakland Raiders, the Dolphins have won three of the last four games and would’ve been four out of four had it not been for a last second touchdown pass by Aaron Rodgers. However, 3-1 is pretty good over that stretch and Joe Philbin has been pleased with the effort from his team over that time.

“I think we are just playing a little better football. The last two games, we are plus-five in the turnover margin. I think that’s a pretty good place to start and give yourself a chance to win football games is protecting the football. The one game we lost in that stretch I think we were minus-three in the turnover margin and we lost the game on the last play of the football game to a pretty good football team. I think it kind of starts there for us. I think maybe our offense is starting to come together a little bit. Like I said, it’s still not there, but I just think we are playing a little better overall football. I think we are tackling better on defense. I think we are protecting the ball a little better on offense. We are getting more takeaways defensively also.”

The Dolphins own by double digits against the Jacksonville Jaguars but in the locker room afterwards, you would hardly know they just dominated a team, never mind beat them. Players were subdued and weren’t pleased with some of the things that went wrong during the game. Again, Philbin was happy to see this as it means the players want more and want to get better.

“Some wise man said, ‘Dissatisfaction is the basis of all progress.’ Yeah, I think it’s good. Again, it’s not easy to win. I told the team there’s no need to apologize for the game. The game is the game. It stands on its own. That’s what we did for 60 minutes. It’s on tape. We made some plays when we had to. Oliver Vernon blocked a field goal, that’s a huge play in the game. We come out, they bust a 40-yard run and we make a stop. Bang, here we go and we have the momentum. That was close to being a touchdown. We almost had one of those. There were a lot of plays like that. Then, as we said, at halftime I told the team, it was no secret they had 219 yards and we had 56 at halftime. We were struggling on offense and I think we were winning the game by a touchdown. It’s a team, so we have to pitch in a pick it up in other areas.”

Every game the Dolphins have won this year has been by double digits but it’s not shaping up to be that close of a game on Sunday against the Chargers. They’ll need to be firing on all cylinders for a full 60 minutes if they want to give themselves a chance to win.

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