The Miami Dolphins hosted the Detroit Lions at Hard Rock Stadium on Sunday afternoon for an interconference battle, and Miami lost the contest 19-9, dropping to 1-7 about halfway through their 2026 campaign.
One of the big issues for Miami in this loss were the penalties, as the Dolphins were flagged 11 times for 87 yards. One holding penalty even negated a completion of 50+ yards between Malik Willis and Kevin Coleman Jr.
After the game, Dolphins head coach Jeff Hafley addressed the penalty problems, and he clearly wasn't happy.
"Give their defense credit. It's a really good defense. Their front is really good, and they're hard to block," Hafley said. "But the timeliness of the holds, I mean, we had a touchdown on the one, and we had some big
plays. It was second behind the sticks a lot. You're not going to be able to score points and move the ball. So we have to get the penalties fixed. We'll look closely at every one. Was it fundamentals and technique? But we need to do better there."
Hafley wasn't the only one annoyed by the unnecessary mistakes.
"I think the O-line did a great job sealing off the back side," quarterback Malik Willis said. "And even the plays where we got penalties in, that just got wiped out of the game. I think guys did good stuff, and then it was one of those situations where the last few weeks I've been telling you, we need to have all 11 out of 11 doing the job instead of 9 out of 11 or 8 out of 11. And it just showed up more today in the penalty factor, and it's unfortunate.
"We can't keep saying the same things like, 'We gotta get better. We gotta get better.' We gotta continue to fight to actually do it and make sure that shows up on game day."
Miami's offense isn't good enough to overcome double-digit penalties. Their defense held one of the top offenses to just one touchdown and four field goals on Sunday, and Miami still lost by 10 points. That should be evidence enough.
This article originally appeared on Dolphins Wire: Dolphins coach, QB react to penalty-filled effort vs. Lions
