Blame Game: What the Media Will Say Versus What Actually Happened

When football fans wake up Monday morning, one of the first things they do is hit that power button and get to their network whether it’s ESPN, NFL Network, or FS1, and see what the media heads are saying about their team.

Most of the time it’s the same old talk. That’s just big-time media people not wanting to be wrong. They’ll concede small things and give credit to stats or storylines that are obvious, but they’ll always get back to their original take on a team or player.

For the Dolphins, you’re going to hear from a guy like Skip Bayless say that “little Tua can’t get it done with his arm,” or Colin Cowherd talking about the Dolphins being “a convertible that’s only good to drive in the summertime.” Both takes are bad, but you’ll hear similar sentiments across the media this week.

Some other takes you’ll see flying are the offense line got dominated, and can’t compete. The Dolphins can’t travel to cold-weather places, or they’re just not against good teams and only beat up bad teams. Each reason may have little specs of truth in it but they don’t hold up in the context of what happened in the game. Here’s what I mean.

Penalties

The most obvious reason behind the Miami Dolphins’ loss is the discrepancy in penalties. At the end of the game, the Miami Dolphins had ten penalties enforced against them, and the Philadelphia Eagles had zero.

Zero. Let that sink in. Zero. You’re telling me that the Eagles had no penalties at all? First of all, that never happens in an NFL game. There are penalties on both teams all sixty minutes. The only question is, how many times will the referees see and enforce them. The Dolphins aren’t a disciplined team either, so I won’t go out on a limb and say the penalties against the Dolphins were bad calls because most of them were offensive pre-snap penalties, and the Dolphins have a track record of not being disciplined on offense, especially on the road with loud crowds.

There’s a lot of communication, and movement to the offense, so it’s bound to happen if you have backups in there, and the Dolphins had three of them.

Now that we aren’t absolving the Dolphins from their penalties, let’s bring the focus to the blind eye that was turned to all the penalties that the Eagles were committing. They were obvious fouls, and the refs looked to be in good position to make those calls.

I’m not going to argue every penalty I saw because there’s a penalty committed every play, whether it’s holding, hands to the face, pass interference/holding on defensive backs or push-offs from receivers, but there were a few critical noncalls on impact plays that costed the Dolphins and became a factor in the loss.

You can take your pick. There was a facemask by on the defensive back right in front of the referee on fourth and three on the twenty one yard line, completely stifling the drive. On the interception, the covering defender on Raheem Mostert was running with his back turned to the ball and ran into Mostert as Darius Slay made the interception.

Instead of an interception, it could’ve been the ball at the one-yard line with a huge chance to score a touchdown. I will say that the football gods looked out for us because after the missed call on the 4th down facemask, Jalen Hurts threw a pick-six like a self-correction.

When the Eagles had the ball there were so many holds by the offensive line I’d need more hands than I have to tally them up. Joking aside, it happened too much. That’s the crux here. There were zero enforceable penalty against the Eagles, and the penalties were everywhere.

Bad calls on big plays happen, but not making any calls doesn’t, at least not in my experience.

If you think I’m overreacting, check this out. Like I said, it smells weird.

Injuries

With all the missed penalties and my complaining about them out of the way, the Miami Dolphins were not close to a hundred percent. Big-time players in key positions were not playing, and the Dolphins felt it. Here’s who was out or got hurt in the game and could’ve made a difference:

• T - Terron Armstead
• C - Connor Williams
• G - Isiah Wynn (hurt on the first drive, and never came back in)
• WR - Jaylen Waddle (played almost half the game)
• CB - Xavien Howard
• CB - Jalen Ramsey
• CB - Nik Needham

Every team plays injured, but when you go to Philadelphia for a prime-time Sunday night game, and you’re down your two-star cornerbacks, two of your best offensive linemen, losing another one on the first drive, and losing one of your best receivers around half time, the odds are going to be stacked against you.

I know that most of the media will have to cater to their held narratives about Tua Tagovailoa or the Miami Dolphins as a team, but if you want to listen to a good segment that reiterates what I’ve been saying you should check out this clip from First Take yesterday.

To wrap it up here, I can’t blame the Eagles for what the refs didn’t call or the Dolphins injuries. It’s a good win for them. They are one of the best teams, and they did what they needed to do to win the game. The Dolphins competed with Philly with the injuries and all the crazy penalty discrepancy. They need to get healthy, and they’ll be able to compete against the class of the league.

It’s a loss, so turn the page and get ready for the New England Patriots because they’re coming in on a high off of beating the Buffalo Bills. Either way, the loss hurts, but it’s in the rearview mirror, and the Patriots are in the windshield.

Let us know in the comments or tweet me @saba12_ who or what led to the Miami Dolphins' loss to the Philadelphia Eagles.