Mike McDaniel makes change fans were begging for in season-saving win at Pats
That was a long and ugly win
The Miami Dolphins finally got back into the win column, but it took nearly the entire game to do so – against the Patriots. Nothing went right for the Dolphins for 80 percent of the game before Mike McDaniel finally realized what he needed to do to win.
The Dolphins head coach finally figured out what the fans have been screaming for all year. He ran the football and they scored a touchdown. It was the only touchdown for the Dolphins on Sunday, but it was enough to improve to 2-3. The man who scored the TD? Yup, fullback Alec Ingold – just what everyone was expecting!
The Dolphins running game powered Miami to a Week 5 win
The Dolphins survived some of the worst possible play by their special teams, including a blocked punt, a missed field goal, and a botched snap on another field goal. Danny Crossman should not have a job after this weekend.
As for the running game, it indeed looked sharp. Jaylen Wright led the team with 86 yards on 13 carries, while veteran Raheem Mostert added 80 more hashes. McDaniel decided to take the ball out of Tyler Huntley’s hands with the game on the line, allowing for the ground game to take over, which is exactly what happened. Wright and Mostert stepped their game up in a big way, especially with De’Von Achane leaving the game early with a concussion.
As a whole, Miami managed to do enough to keep the Patriots out of the endzone and out of field-goal range for most of the day, but they did enough of their own to get into space and give Jason Sanders enough yardage to get points on the board. Miami rode Sanders for three field goals until McDaniel finally got his act together.
What would become the Dolphins game-winning drive would come on the legs of Wright and Mostert. The win puts the Dolphins into a second-place tie with the Jets in the AFC East and one game back of the leading Bills, who lost to the Texans on the final play of their game.
The Dolphins got quite lucky late in the action too. It looked like NE scored a go-ahead touchdown, but their WR got his toe down, but didn’t lift it for a tap and instead put his heel down – which came out of bounds. Rules are rules and the Dolphins came out with a Week 5 win. A season-saving victory? You bet it was.