The only way the San Francisco 49ers and Miami Dolphins will face each other again after San Francisco’s 33-17 Week 13 win over Miami is if the two teams play in Super Bowl LVII. Which is not outside the realm of possibility.
If that happens, the 49ers’ defense, and defensive coordinator DeMeco Ryans, will have some work to do. Sounds nuts to say after a game in which Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa completed 18 of 33 passes for 295 yards, two touchdowns, two interceptions, and a passer rating of 79.7 (his second-worst game of the season by passer rating behind his 52.7 game against the Cincinnati Bengals in Week 4), but the stuff Tagovailoa left on the bone with hurried and errant throws should be serious cause for concern should these teams meet again.
This is not a slight to Ryans or his defense; they rank second in DVOA behind the Dallas Cowboys, and justifiably so. But a tape review of the game shows that had Tagovailoa played at the same level he has most of the season, the Dolphins might well have lit that defense up. They did so on the first play of the game, a 75-yard touchdown pass to receiver Trent Sherfield. Dolphins head coach and longtime Kyle Shanahan assistant Mike McDaniel was in his bag here. He had running back Raheem Mostert and fullback Alec Ingold run scissors out of the backfield, which forced linebackers Fred Warner and Azeez Al-Shaair to cheat up, and Tagovailoa hit the easy button to Sherfield behind Warner.
But if you take that play out, Tagovailoa’s day looks a lot worse — 17 of 32 for 220 yards, one touchdown, two interceptions, and a passer rating of 60.0. And again, with all due respect to San Francisco’s defense, this was more about what Tagovailoa didn’t do with open shots than the 49ers closing him off.
“I would say my spot in the pocket,” Tagovailoa said Wednesday, when asked what went wrong. There were many points in the game that I wasn’t in the spot that I told the guys up front I would be in and so therefore, I kind of put myself in bad situations. So doing that and then there were also some plays that were missed that I wish I could get back.
“I can’t be playing wishful football.”
This was not the Tagovailoa game anybody wished for, outside of the 49ers, who benefited greatly from missteps we really haven’t seen from Miami’s quarterback this season. As long as Tagovailoa is able to recover against the Los Angeles Chargers this Sunday and beyond, we can call it a “Burn the Tape” game and move along.
More importantly, this game showed how the Dolphins are capable of turning any defense out with their passing game — even a truly great defense — and it augurs well for the Dolphins’ chances down the stretch.