Overview

I thought all along that this game would be close, I didn’t think Brian Hoyer could be worse than Marcus Mariota. I was wrong. If Jacoby Brissett had played, I don’t think this game is even close, but we’ll never know.

Before you buy into the hype that this shows that the Colts are a bad football team, just know that had you read my scouting reports you would have known that the Dolphins were well-coached and they play hard. You would have known that they’ve played well enough to win in each of their three games leading up to this one.

Don’t get me wrong, the Colts still shouldn’t have lost this game, but between Hoyer and Adam Vinatieri’s missed extra point attempt, the Colts didn’t really have a chance in this one and that’s what’s disappointing to me. It isn’t that they lost to the Dolphins, it’s that they gave this one away.

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First Quarter

Darius Leonard had a good day, so that’s nice

I’m going to look for the positives here. Stay with me.

Zach Pascal never really had a chance

Not a great day to play offense for the Colts.

I believe this will be a call that the league admits they got wrong

A knee down in the end zone is a touchdown, right?

Nyheim Hines had 4 catches for 30 yards on the day

I wish Hines would have been the guy in Reich’s office asking for the ball.

Did I mention Leonard’s day?

He played well.

This is how you beat man coverage

This was a great call on fourth down for the Dolphins. The Colts have to find a pass rush outside of Justin Houston and if they don’t it will be very limiting going forward.

Speak of the devil

This Dolphins line is bad. On this play they looked like the 90’s Cowboys.

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Second Quarter

Brian Flores has guts

And I think he made the right call going for it. The Colts were able to get this stop. In the end it didn’t matter, but you know it was still a stop.

Marlon Mack didn’t have a lot of room

The Dolphins decided to make Brian Hoyer beat them and take away the Colts ground game. Turns out, they made a great decision.

This play made me smile. I miss being able to smile.

Jack Doyle should stay on the ground.

Yikes

Either Marlon Mack really screwed this one up or he was as upset with Hoyer as the rest of us.

This would have been a great chance to get the ball with good field position

Instead, we give up the first down.

They shouldn’t have needed to blitz, but they did

It worked so I’ll stop complaining.

Brian Hoyer stinks.

Has anyone checked on Curtis Painter’s availability?

Seriously

I’m not on the Chad Kelly bandwagon because we don’t know anything about him and I don’t know he gives us a better chance to win than Hoyer. The only hope is that Brissett is back next week.

Officiating wasn’t great but it seemed to go both ways this week

Ryan Fitzpatrick had to leave the game in the fourth quarter to be checked for a concussion that he showed no signs of, so it was bad across the board.

The Colts secondary played well, all things considered

Marvell Tell looks like a steal of a day three pick.

I don’t want to talk about it

I actually could have made this throw. No joke. I could have done it.

This is that “Fitzmagic” thing that everyone talks about

If the Colts had Fitzpatrick, they win this game easily.

Again, bad no call

Still felt the flags or lack thereof were pretty even.

Leonard with the sack

He filled up the stat sheet in a loss.

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Third Quarter

Justin Houston has six sacks on the year

And this is one of the six. He nearly had another before Lamar Jackson Ryan Fitzpatrick escaped and nearly made a big play.

I meant what I said

I’m kind of glad they made the stop.

Maybe not the best caption. I couldn’t think of anything else.

And it was a nice hole. Deal with it.

Once every couple games Jordan Wilkins does something like this

The nice play and the limping. He does both things every couple weeks.

Eric Ebron was a mixed bag in this game.

Had Brissett played it wouldn’t have been an issue. Since we had Hoyer, a couple drops hurt the team, but again, this game isn’t on a tight end with questionable hands.

Doyel would have come open

Hoyer knew where he was going with this ball before it was snapped. Jack Doyle would have come open had Hoyer been able to extend this play. Before any of you ever criticize Brissett for his inability to “read a defense” this is what it looks like to have a quarterback who actually can’t read a defense.

There was some room on the edges

It was just tough for the Colts to get there this week.

Just awful

But if you had Hines on your fantasy team (why?!) this helped.

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Fourth Quarter

Can you win DPOW when you lose to the Dolphins?

A sack, a forced fumble, an interception and 13 tackles and Darius Leonard should be in play for defensive player of the week, we’ve got that going for us. Which is nice.

This sets up the only Colts touchdown on the day

Hoyer did three maybe four things well and this was one of them.

Jackie D

Doyle with the grab for six. I was happy for a very short amount of time.

Jason Sanders was automatic

Our kicker? Was not.

Nik Needham was

One of the worst cover corners I’ve watched this year. He’s solid against the run and he can blitz off the edge but he’s bad in coverage, unless you throw the ball directly at his face and then he’s Deion Sanders.

This sets up the worst set of 4 downs inside the redzone the Colts have seen in years

No, I can’t point to a specific time where the Colts had a worse set of downs inside the 20. But I can count to hundreds that were better as it’s every single trip for the past 8 season, including the Pep Hamilton years. Brian Hoyer stinks.

Pray for Brissett

It is our only hope.

There would be no last second miracle

That’s how this one ended. It ended as poorly as it started.

But hey, Darius Leonard had a game!

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Final Thoughts

I present to you my Final Thoughts from my offensive scouting report of this Dolphins team:

So close

The 2019 Dolphins started the season as poorly as any team in NFL history. Seriously, they were historically bad. As the season has progressed, however, this team has improved greatly. I know it probably doesn’t seem like a great improvement would lead to a 1-7 record, but really, it’s a massive turnaround.

Brian Flores and his staff deserve a ton of credit. It’s the general managers job to give a coach players and it’s the coaches job to figure out how to win with the players he’s given. It took Flores’ staff nine weeks to make it happen, but they did it when a lot of coaches would have thrown in the towel.

The past three weeks, the Dolphins played well enough to win each of their games, but they only played well enough to win for about 55 minutes of the first two. In each of those games there were a few plays or series that ultimately ended up deciding the outcome for their opponent. Flores and his staff haven’t figured out how to coach their team to not lose, yet, but when they do, this team is probably going to need all of those picks they traded for to move up in the draft to have a chance to draft the quarterback the general manager so desperately wants.

The play above shows that. Down by three with a chance to drive down the field and take the lead late against a team whose only loss at the time had come at the hands of the mighty Patriots. The Dolphins shouldn’t have been in that game. They shouldn’t have had a chance to drive down the field and get a win and when they found themselves in that situation they fumbled away their opportunity. Eventually they’ll stop fumbling.

This isn’t a good football team. In fact it’s a bad team, but it’s a bad team that, from what I can tell watching the games, is well-coached. The Colts should absolutely win this game, but these Dolphins will put up one heck of a fight.

Never in my life did I think that Brian Hoyer would throw three interceptions and just generally be horrific all day long but he was. So, while the media is going to talk about this loss and how bad the Dolphins are, just know that the Colts aren’t the last team they’re going to beat.

Hopefully this is the last game we see Brian Hoyer this year.