NFL Analysis
12/12/23
6 min read
The Miami Dolphins' Offense Isn't the Elite Unit It's Made Out to Be
The Miami Dolphins blew a 14-point lead in three minutes and let Tennessee Titans rookie QB Will Levis put together a legacy drive on primetime television. That's not even the story of the night for the boys in aqua and orange.
No, the story for the Dolphins is their offense continuing to flounder against serious defenses. Nobody beats up on the bottom of the barrel like the Dolphins, but any time a defense with an edge shows up to play, the Dolphins look average.
That might sound ludicrous after the Dolphins scored 27 points against the Titans, but the offense did none of the heavy lifting. The first touchdown was a pick-six by DL Zach Sieler.
Miami only scored its other two touchdowns because it was gifted the ball inside the Titans’ 15-yard line, first on a muffed punt and then a fumbled backward pass on the following drive.
On normal offensive drives, all the Dolphins could muster up was a few field goal attempts.
Miami's Offense Isn't Living Up to the Hype
The reality is the Dolphins haven't been a powerhouse offense for some time now. Their reputation is coasting off last season and the first three weeks of this year.
We all think they should be a powerhouse because they nearly broke the scoring record against the Broncos in Week 3 and have a wide receiver in the running to break the single-season receiving record, but they're just not that team right now.
It's hard to forget a 70-burger in the NFL. Still, we are nearly three months removed from that Week 3 blowout against the Broncos. No team in the league is who they were in Week 3, especially these Dolphins. The current iteration of the Dolphins is more liable to put up a stinker than they are to threaten the scoring record again.
Since Week 4, the Dolphins are 10th in EPA per play on offense. That's pretty solid in a vacuum. However, it's underwhelming relative to the Dolphins' peaks and expectations.
Sitting at 10th place puts them below the Chiefs, another usual powerhouse offense everyone is worried about, and only slightly above the Packers, a plucky group of rookies and sophomores who have never once been considered an elite offense.
That's a scary place to be for a Dolphins team whose entire deal is moving the ball and putting up points.
Given that the core of the Dolphins' offense is the same as last season, it should be a tough ask to find the throughline. The coach, quarterback and key weapons are the same as they were a year ago.
If anything, the running back room is better with the addition of rookie De’Von Achane.
So what gives?
Dolphins Can't Handle Pressure
The frustrating truth is it's the offensive line and, in turn, pressure on Tua Tagovailoa. It's not frustrating in the way poor offensive line play always is, but in the sense that this is the exact issue the Dolphins ran into last season.
The offensive line would collapse, often due to injury, and the integrity of the offense would slowly wither away. That's a dynamic Tagovailoa can't overcome. We saw it in spurts last year, but it's been much more prevalent in 2023.
But before digging into all the pressure numbers, it's essential to understand why pressure affects this offense so much. It's a structural issue as much as a quarterback issue. That's kind of a circular deal, considering the quarterback dictates the structure of the offense.
To boil the Dolphins’ offense down, they're a quick-hitting play-action team that targets the middle of the field in the passing game and attacks the perimeter in the run game.
The run game and the threat of the run stretch defenses thin, letting Tagovailoa blind fire to open receivers breaking to the middle of the field. There's a lot that goes into how Mike McDaniel ties it all together, but that's the gist of it.
The Dolphins are on the extreme ends of the spectrum for those traits in the passing game. According to TruMedia, 29.4 percent of Tagovailoa's pass attempts this year have come on play-action, the second-highest rate in the league.
Tagovailoa's 2.29 time to throw is also the lowest in the league. While quick throws would generally invoke a short passing game, Tagovailoa's 7.50 average depth of target is only a hair short of the 7.73 league average. It's a point-and-shoot offense but a relatively aggressive one.
That's all good and well when it's working, but you throw a spec of dirt in the cogs, and it all comes unraveled.
Design Problems
A portion of that is because the offense isn't designed to offer the quarterback secondary options. That's not to say the Dolphins don't have progressions or checkdowns in the offense. It's just that so many of their passing concepts are streamlined to go to one guy, or they cut the field in half.
They don't do as many full-field concepts or true dropbacks as, say, the Cowboys, Jaguars or Rams. It's just not how the offense is built.
Tagovailoa also doesn't operate well beyond his first read, anyway. He is an exceptional point-and-shoot passer. But the anticipation he is lauded for doesn't show up when asked to move to second and third options.
It's also not like Tagovailoa has the size or arm strength to hang in muddied pockets to make difficult throws consistently, either. Even dating back to Alabama, that's just never been his game.
When pressure does get to Tagovailoa in the pocket, it's catastrophic. The entire fabric of the offense tears. We see Tagovailoa start to sputter, which is the impetus for most of the Dolphins' losses this season.
If Tagovailoa were a creator outside the pocket, this wouldn't be as much of an issue. The offense would have a built-in answer, thanks to the quarterback. Tagovailoa just isn't that guy. He's a point guard, not a playmaker.
If the offensive line remains a problem, this will be the Dolphins’ reality. They can still tear into poor defenses who can't push the pocket on Tagovailoa. However, any serious defense with some teeth up front will make the Dolphins uncomfortable.
There are some "no duh" groans with saying a team is worse when the offensive line is bad, but compare the Dolphins to other contenders.
When the Cowboys, 49ers or Ravens aren't operating at 100 percent on the offensive line, they are better equipped to handle it. Their quarterbacks have more tools, and the offenses are built to give them options. The Dolphins aren't there.
In all likelihood, that will leave the Dolphins in a tricky spot come January when most of the defenses they play can punch them in the mouth repeatedly.
