The Miami Dolphins have said a lot of the right things this year. They have discussed addressing their issues. They have spoken about watching the film and holding each other accountable. They have held meetings and they have met with the media. They have said all the things a struggling team should say as they look to turn around what has moved from a disappointing start to a long year into being a complete embarrassment of a season.
The problem is all they seem to be doing is talking. The film work,
the adjustments, the practices, and the performances on game day are not getting it done. At this point, the Dolphins’ words are louder than their actions.
Sunday’s performance against the Carolina Panthers should be more than just an embarrassment. This should be the humiliation that either wakes up this team or sends it into oblivion. This was a game that either turns a team into a storybook climb from the depths of despair or into a team that is already looking toward next year.
Based on the actions we have seen so far, the preparation for 2026 may be the only answer remaining for the Dolphins.
Before the season, national pundits all projected Miami to fall apart. They were looking at the loss of players like Jalen Ramsey, Jonnu Smith, and Calais Campbell as to why the 2025 Dolphins would not be playoff contenders. The players missing have not had the impact the analysts expected.
Instead, it is the players on the roster and the coaches on the sideline that have caused an implosion of galactic proportions. And Miami is about to be swept into the black hole of their own making.
Miami gained 150 yards on its first three possessions, scoring a field goal and two touchdowns on Sunday. Over that same span, Carolina tallied 33 yards with a fumble and an interception.
After jumping out to a 17-0 lead, Miami tallied just 88 more yards on seven possessions – and 46 of those yards came on one pass from quarterback Tua Tagovailoa to wide receiver Jaylen Waddle for a touchdown.
The Panthers gashed Miami for 418 yards over the rest of the game.
Miami held a 17-0 lead early in the second quarter. They lost 27-24.
“I’m going to say last year, we were lying honestly. Point blank, period,” linebacker Bradley Chubb, who recorded two tackles, a sack, a forced fumble, and a fumble recovery on Sunday, said back in June of the player-accountability culture the Dolphins were supposed to instill last year. “ I would say this year, we’re doing that. I’m not sure how it’s going to turn out for us, but we are putting forth that foot to change it because last year, like I said, we said we wanted to change, yeah, we’re doing this, we’re doing that; but it’s not going exactly how we want to.”
It is not going to turn out well if the Dolphins continue to have their words be the only thing speaking for them. When will the actions match up?
Head coach Mike McDaniel pointed toward the plane ride home as the start of Miami trying to fix everything that went wrong on Sunday, especially with stopping the run, where the Panthers ran for 239 yards including 206 yards from Rico Dowdle. “If you expose yourself and we can’t get it right during the game, they’re going to continue to do the least risky thing,” he explained. “It’s not how you win football games in this league, so, we have to figure that out immediately. I’ll start on the plane and move into tomorrow and throughout the week so we can be ready to play a Chargers team that will see the tape and go into the game trying to run it just like they did.”
He added, speaking again of trying to stop the run, “I think the issue, I can’t point anywhere but directly at preparation and how we execute stuff. Ultimately, I look at on me, I thought we had a good plan. I thought we got some stuff fixed. We’ve known the issues we’ve had and we thought that we’re prepared for this and clearly we weren’t. I think we were out-gained 200 yards in the run game. Collectively, from the two sides of the ball, that is not good enough. You’ll rarely win, if ever. We had a shot because we were plus two, but bottom line is that on top of (that) you have critical mistakes at critical points in the game, whether they’re penalties or the critical situation, MAs, where we’re giving up I think there was a fourth down and the last touchdown. So bottom line is that is not good enough. We are a much better team than letting a 17-0 lead eviscerate, so we will be extremely focused on getting that stuff corrected immediately because we have no time to waste.”
Chubb weighed in on the game as well, providing his view of what happened, stating, “Bizarre is the word for it, I guess. We got to be better on the defensive side of the ball. We started of hot and I don’t want to speak for everybody, but in a sense, felt like we got comfortable and 27 points after that. That’s not winning football. That’s not winning defense. At the end of the day, we got to all look in the mirror and bow up and see who’s going to be here for each other, who’s going to be accountable for their actions in terms of throughout the week, throughout the days, throughout every little single thing because it’s not just going through the motions. It’s making a change. We sit up here every week talking about, ‘We got to stop the run. Stop the run. Stop the run.’ And we make it an emphasis. We got to stop the run and we need to emphasize it more.”
How many times can the Dolphins “emphasize” something before they realize it is not working?
Asked if he felt the team became comfortable with the 17-0 lead, Tagovailoa did not see it the same way as Chubb, but he did not rule out the possibility. “I would say I didn’t sense that feel from the guys, but, we’ll look at the film and we’ll see and get a better gauge,“ he explained. We can say one thing, but is our play doing the other? We’ll look at that. We’ll talk about that and we’ll address it.”
Will the team be ready for their game next week against the Los Angeles Chargers? Tagovailoa believes they will be, saying, “Oh, 100%. 100%. I am 100% showing up, getting myself ready, getting the guys that are going to be in the game as ready as possible for us, to give us a chance. To go out there, score, do what we need to do
to help us win a ball game.“
Tagovailoa turned toward looking at the film to figure out why the Dolphins’ running game did not work, saying, “I think it’s one of those whereas we’re looking at the iPad, hard to gauge, hard to tell. You can ask the question to the linemen, you can ask the question to the running back what he’s seeing, but got to watch the film and the film will tell the truth for what we did, what we need to do better, and how we can move forward from a performance like that.”
The question the fans have is not if the team is watching the film. It is if they are doing anything besides talking about what they see. Where are the adjustments? Where is the team getting better, because it seems like they are continuing to regress. They are continuing to fall apart. And they are continuing to lose games they should be able to win.
Asked about the play calling and why tight end Darren Waller was able to have success early only to disappear in the second half, McDaniel replied, “You’re trying to be balanced as you can. You’re trying to understand or understanding that if they know you’re going to pass every play, you probably won’t have production that way. So, we’ve got no rhythm. I think we had a couple first downs in that whole collection of time, but the main
thing was they just said we’re going to stop your run game with our front and they did. So, they committed everybody else to the back and to the pass and unless you’re going to take 50-50 ops on receptions versus pick, that’s not a good idea. You have to establish stuff on the line of scrimmage. Clearly whatever we’re doing I could have done a better job. Any play that I would have picked other than the ones that I was calling, I guess, stand a chance to be productive. But you’re not going to get far if you can’t establish the line of scrimmage.“
Chubb thinks the team will be able to respond – in part because that is all they can do. He explained, “Yeah, we’re built for it. We’re built for it, man. We’re built in the fire. We’ve seen adversity. We’ve shot ourselves in the foot on defense as much as we could, so there’s no other thing we can do but respond.”
Except, it is again words. The Dolphins are saying the right things – but they are not showing us the actions. They do not back up their words.
And, actions speak louder than words. Until the team shows improvement, demonstrates the fixes, and actually puts together multiple performances that do not resemble what was seen on the field today, they will be questioned. And they will be doubted. And they will have people asking if they are going to be a part of the future of this team.
The Dolphins keep talking about 2025, but when are they going to show us something?
This season is quickly becoming about the future, not the present, and the actions that will go with preparing for 2026.
