Week 9: 'ARP! ARP! ARP!' Is Dolphin for dynasty building
Also: Daniel Jones, Pro Bowl QB? RIP Alex. And the Pain Index welcomes the Bucs
What can the Dolphins bring to the table?
Miami was supposed to be the worst team in professional football last season. Instead, the Dolphins exceeded expectations under first-year head coach Brian Flores to finish 5-11 and ruin the Patriots’ playoff bye week plans in the process.
This was supposed to be another rebuilding year in South Florida as a new quarterback was eased into the starting role and a handful of free agent acquisitions got acquainted with a new home. Instead, the Dolphins needed only half the season to match last year’s win total and now find themselves squarely in the AFC playoff race. After starting 0-7 in Flores’ debut last fall, the Dolphins have since gone 10-7 to set a playoff pace even with a roster filled with question marks.
That includes Sunday afternoon’s 34-31 victory over the formerly 5-2 Arizona Cardinals. The jewel in the middle of this latest crown was rookie quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, who improved to 2-0 as the team’s starter in an efficient showing in the desert. Tagovailoa squared off with a defense headlined by a pair of passing game stalwarts in defensive backs Budda Baker and Patrick Peterson and averaged an efficient 8.9 yards per pass in a 248-yard, two-touchdown performance.
Tagovailoa finished his day with a 122.3 passer rating. For comparison, the Cardinals held MVP frontrunner Russell Wilson to an 84.8 rating in an upset win in their last appearance. The former Alabama star was wonderfully effective when targeting his top wideouts and tight ends; he completed 17 of his 21 attempts to DeVante Parker, Jakeem Grant, Preston Williams, and Mike Gesicki. In short, Arizona knew where Tagovailoa was going to throw the ball, but still rarely found the extra gear needed to stop it.
This was massively encouraging on a day when injuries made undrafted free agent Salvon Ahmed the team’s leading rusher. Miami’s offense is well ahead of schedule after scoring fewer than 20 points per game in 2018 — not coincidentally Adam Gase’s last season in Florida. Defenses will have plenty of opportunities to figure out Tagovailoa’s offense — he only had one game of NFL tape to parse before Sunday, after all — but a 2-0 record is all the Dolphins could have hoped for after shunting Ryan Fitzpatrick to the bench despite a better-than-expected beginning to 2020.
There are concerns, however. Miami’s strength was supposed to be its defense. The Dolphins combined the brain behind several dominant New England defenses in Flores, and his unit was bolstered by the addition of free agents Byron Jones, Kyle Van Noy, Shaq Lawson, Manny Ogbah, Clayton Fejedelem, and Kamu Grugier-Hill at a cost of more than $190 million in contracts.
While that group had helped transform a dead-last defense into a top-11 unit through eight weeks, it was gashed repeatedly by a Cardinals team that averaged nearly seven yards per play. Kyler Murray accounted for four touchdowns and could have had a fifth if not for a late 49-yard field goal attempt that, somehow in the NFL in the year of our lord 2020, fell short.
Miami has given up 440+ total yards in four of its eight games this season, which is a recipe for disaster in an AFC dominated by elite quarterbacks. While it’s entirely feasible Jones and Xavien Howard level up over the back half of the season and limit opponents’ aerial attacks, it’s also entirely reasonable to look at the Dolphins’ top-four blitz rate and last-place QB hurry rate and conclude that those guys have entirely too much pressure on their shoulders.
This is all to say the Dolphins are punching above their weight class, but also cultivating mass as the Flores era churns on. And after cultivating comes the harvest:
At some point, teams are going to take a running start and be unable to move Flores’ Dolphins. They aren’t quite there yet, but you can see how this could be a problem for the rest of the AFC in the near future. Miami is ahead of schedule, as wins over the Rams and Cardinals have shown. That makes 2020 a craps table heater with house money, and a few more points from Tagovailoa could push the Dolphins to their first postseason win of the millennium.
But if they fall short? Well, Miami still has an estimated $35 million in spending room to burn next offseason, even amidst a shrinking salary cap. It also has its own first- and second-round picks in 2021 as well as the Texans’ first two selections after last year’s Laremy Tunsil trade. The Dolphins are only going to get better from here, and that’s a problem for the rest of the AFC East. — CD
Week 9 results, in five words or fewer
Texans 27, Jaguars 25
Falcons 34, Broncos 27
Bills 44, Seahawks 34
Josh Allen outshines Russell Wilson
Titans 24, Bears 17
Nothing’s going right for Chicago
Ravens 24, Colts 10
Chiefs 33, Panthers 31
Vikings 34, Lions 20
Giants 23, Washington 20
Raiders 31, Chargers 26
Dolphins 34, Cardinals 31
Steelers 24, Cowboys 19
Saints 38, Buccaneers 3
RIP, Alex Trebek
For me, and many others, this weekend started as a joyous time, equally full of elation, pride, and relief. Yet heartache is always lurking, ready to pounce when we’re not ready for it — and because 2020 won’t even let us have a whole 24 hours of good things, we were hit with the awful news that Alex Trebek died Sunday morning after his battle with cancer.
Trebek was the perfect host for a cordially competitive, brainy game show like Jeopardy. He was affable, calm, sharp, occasionally stern but never smug. And relatably, he would get frustrated when the contestants didn’t know the most basic football trivia:
But above all, Trebek had great respect for Jeopardy, its players, and its fans, and he approached his job with the exact amount of seriousness and playfulness that it deserved. Trebek was the heart of Jeopardy for almost 40 years, and a steady, trusted presence in our lives that will never truly be replaced. You’ll be missed, Mr. Trebek. — SH
Daniel Jones, Pro Bowl QB*
*if and only if he’s playing against the Washington Football Team, and then probably only as an alternate after the bigger names bowed out
Kyle Allen was knocked out of Washington’s game against the Giants with a dislocated ankle. Alex Smith, almost two years after his devastating leg injury, replaced Allen and nearly led Washington to a comeback win. The only problem for Smith — well, besides the three picks he threw?
He was facing off against Daniel Jones, who is WFT’s Kryptonite, somehow:
He’s still Daniel Jones, so it’s not like he’s been god-like against his DC rivals. He has been pretty solid, however, with a 68 completion percentage, eight touchdowns (and three picks), 100 passer rating, and zero fumbles lost (though three fumbles because again, he’s still Daniel Jones).
I’m honestly not sure if his dominance over one team, and one team only, is sadder for the Giants or for Washington. — SH
The Week 9 Pain Index
We were tempted to put Philip Rivers in this week’s pain index for this moment alone:
Luckily for Rivers, his “trip over a ghost, flail around uselessly like a cockroach” embarrassment wasn’t as painful as the Sunday a few teams had. Besides, Rivers has nine kids, three of them teenagers, and he’s about to live in the same state as Mike Pence. He’s got enough misery on his plate.
3. Cardinals
I’m not a religious person, but I take it as an article of faith that if you play not to lose, you should lose. The Cardinals had third-and-1 at Miami’s 31-yard line just after the two-minute warning. Instead of leaving the ball in Kyler Murray’s hands, they opted to throw it. Incomplete. Then on the resulting fourth-and-1 they made an ill-fated 49-yard field goal attempt to tie the game.
We know what happens when you get conservative in those situations. So an incredible performance from Murray (283 passing yards, three touchdowns, 106 rushing yards, and another touchdown) was all for nothing. Whether you have vested rooting interest in the Cardinals or not, you should know, dear people, that we are better than this as a society now. — RVB
2. Buccaneers
There were eight one-score games in the NFL on Sunday and only one true blowout. Unexpectedly, that was the matchup we were waiting all day for: Saints vs. Bucs, part 2. And just like when these two teams met in Week 1, the Saints (at nearly full strength again) harassed Tom Brady and got an all-important NFC South win.
This time, however, Taysom Hill actually lived up to his hype, Jameis Winston made an appearance, and Brady, in the midst of a three-interception night, did this:
After that, the Bucs kicked a field goal, just so they wouldn’t get shut out!
Amazingly, it was the first time in his 20 years in the NFL that Brady has ever been swept by a division opponent. HIs 40.4 passer rating in the game was the third-lowest of his career, too. For comparison’s sake, here’s how the Saints’ three QBs did:
Even though Tampa is still a playoff team that likely just laid an egg this week, it’s impossible to ignore the stakes of this game. They not only totally bungled their chance to take the lead in their division, but the Bucs were humiliated at their own place — just like, say, someone coming home and encountering throngs of people celebrating his recent unemployment. — SH
1. Chargers
At least they didn’t blow a huge lead! A failed comeback attempt is the tiniest bit more palatable than watching a win slip away over the final 15 minutes of the game … unless you’re the Chargers.
After some painful clock management by Anthony Lynn, who let almost 30 second evaporate before calling his first time out, the Chargers attack the middle of the field, for some reason. Finally, it looks like they’ll stop the clock after Mike Williams makes a grab and falls out of bounds, but the refs keep the clock running. They have six second left. Time for two plays, and Williams gets hurt on the first one, an incomplete pass. It’s a universally reviled fade route, of course. Then, they run the same play, throwing to tight end Donald Parnham. And holy shit, he caught it! Chargers win … no. It’s overturned by a replay review that happened WHILE the Chargers were celebrating. Any other team, that would have been a touchdown, the universe would have seen to it, but not the Chargers.
I said before that this team was cursed. They had to be; what other rational explanation is there? Upon further review, a 3-15 record over the last two years in one-score games suggests the real problem might be Lynn, who looks to be way over his head. — RVB