From player use to public comments, 10 gnawing questions after another Dolphins collapse

Ten Dolphins decisions/developments that are gnawing at me as the 23-year playoff win drought drags on:

▪ Why was communication an issue late in the season after practicing for six months together?

After Saturday’s 26-7 loss in Kansas City, it was disconcerting to hear Tua Tagovailoa repeatedly cite communication shortcomings and leaving the impression that some of these problems could have been avoided if addressed more thoroughly by players in practice.

“It really started with practices,” Tagovailoa said late Saturday night. “That’s how we should’ve got things going, was in practice, with the communication, knowing where we should be going in this loud environment. Those miscues lead to delay of games. We can’t change the protection because we don’t have enough time, things like that. It was communication errors.”

Asked about the late-season problems on third downs, Tagovailoa again cited communication issues. Miami was 1 for 12 on third down in the playoff game.

Then he cited communication problems again when asked why the Chiefs blitzes were effective against them.

“I would attest that to the communication errors that we’ve had,” he said. “Am I hearing the right formation? OK, we’re getting out but we have two motions that we have to use. Then there’s maybe nine seconds left on the clock, and we’re motioning.

“Now it’s about five seconds and we don’t have time to change so now we’ve got to play and we’ve got to through where our hots would be but they pressured. Spags [Chiefs defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo] had a good plan. They executed well against us.”

So does Mike McDaniel need to simplify the offense in these loud road environments?

Liam Eichenberg, who was responsible for identifying the middle linebacker and defensive wrinkles as the team’s fill-in center for eight games this season, is a conscientious guy and assured Friday that his lungs were strong enough to be heard over loud Chiefs fans.

Whatever the reason, Tagovailoa thought communication was a problem in general on Saturday. And that’s a problem.

It’s one thing to lose entirely because the other team is better. It’s another to underperform partly because of mental mistakes and communication issues that apparently should have been addressed more frequently during the week.

▪ In harsh sub-zero weather, where the elements suggested that running the ball might be a good idea, why did Alec Ingold play only 12 of the Dolphins’ 61 offensive snaps?

After making him the league’s highest-paid fullback, wasn’t this the quintessential Ingold game, to help facilitate a power running game against a stout Chiefs run defense? Instead, he played a season-low snap count.

▪ In those elements, why didn’t Jeff Wilson Jr. — who exudes toughness and physicality — not get a single carry, especially after it became clear that Tagovailoa wouldn’t be consistently effective in these conditions?

If the Dolphins wanted to give Raheem Mostert a breather after four consecutive runs gained 21 yards late in the first half, couldn’t Miami have run the ball (with Wilson) on third-and-1 and/or fourth-and-1 instead of (unsuccessfully) passing twice and losing the ball on downs on the Chiefs 44, with 4:35 left before halftime?

▪ Why didn’t McDaniel lessen the volume of horizontal, line-of-scrimmage passes late in the season?

Those attempts — requiring Tagovailoa to throw a few yards to his right or left — worked well enough to remain a part of the offense but became too predictable to fool good defenses with any consistency.

And the blocking required to make those plays work regressed against better teams.

▪ Why didn’t McDaniel — among the most creative minds in the sport — try more gimmick plays or add more wrinkles late in the season when it became clear that the offensive approach that worked against bad teams couldn’t generate enough points against good ones?

I understand not wanting to turn the ball over quickly when the defense was on the field way too much late in the season, but I wonder if injecting a series or two of high-octane hurry-up (with draws against nickel defenses) would have snapped Miami out of its offensive malaise against good teams.

▪ Why did the Dolphins stick with cornerback Kader Kohou — and not give Nik Needham a chance — during a season when Kohou had the NFL’s second-worst passer rating in his coverage area (133.4), and then allowed seven completions in seven targets for 70 yards in the playoff game?

Needham had an 81.4 passer rating in his coverage area in his last fully healthy season (2021).

▪ Safety Brandon Jones played 463 defensive snaps during the regular season. Why did he blitz on just three of them (per Pro Football Focus)?

Jones has proven he’s one of the best blitzing safeties in the sport, and coordinator Vic Fangio essentially removed that unique skill from the team’s arsenal. Isn’t the goal to maximize your players’ strengths?

▪ Why was David Long Jr. used in pass coverage 454 times (34th most among linebackers) when he was graded out among the league’s worst linebackers in that area?

Some of that naturally was unavoidable. But some of it was.

Long — who graded out as the NFL’s best inside linebacker against the run, per PFF — allowed 12.1 yards per catch, among the highest in football.

He was victimized in coverage Saturday, allowing four completions in four targets for 70 yards. Not having Jerome Baker and Jevon Holland obviously hurt.

▪ Why didn’t the Dolphins hold at least one full night practice in Kansas City to acclimate themselves to the arctic weather?

Tagovailoa clearly was impacted playing in those frigid conditions for the first time in his life.

“Yeah, it was a little difficult in the beginning,” he acknowledged. “We sort of figured out a plan with how we went about that later on in the game. It was different.”

▪ Why didn’t Dolphins leadership acknowledge during Monday’s news conference that while progress has been made, that frittering away a three-game AFC East lead in December and having no playoff wins in 23 years isn’t acceptable?

Asked if the rebuild has been a success, general manager Chris Grier said: “Whether success, failure, I leave that for you guys to judge. But I think we’re building something good.”

With Stephen Ross giving him what felt like an open checkbook, Grier crafted a roster talented enough to win 11 games. And McDaniel has accomplished two priorities: 1). getting his team to the playoffs each of his first two seasons and 2). maximizing Tagovailoa’s skill set, for the most part.

It’s not like the rebuild has been a debacle.

But are the expectations so low internally that another December collapse — and another year without a playoff win — is something that should be glossed over so nonchalantly in the season-ending news conference?

Can no one say in authority say something akin to “These late-season collapses can’t continue, and we need to win a playoff game and do a better job building a team that can beat the best teams in our conference?”

Can’t Grier acknowledge publicly that they need to construct a roster better equipped to compete against physical, elite teams in cold-weather cities — a problem here for a quarter century?

Or is simply becoming nationally relevant again enough for some people in the organization?

There are probably another dozen or more questions that all of us could ask after Miami extended the NFL’s longest drought without a playoff win.

But that’s a start.