No Catch of the Day: Miami Dolphins Could Have Handed Indianapolis Colts a Loss

It's surprising that I'm not used to this by now. The anticipation and excitement grows inside me every Sunday or Monday night when the Miami Dolphins play, and each week I go out and expect that the Dolphins are going to somehow come away with a win.

But week in and out, the Dolphins seem to find a way to lose each game. This recent Monday night affair against the powerhouse Indianapolis Colts proved no different, except that the Dolphins should have won this game with no potential threat from the Colts in the waning minutes of the fourth quarter.

They can accredit this to a number of reasons on both sides of the ball, as well as the coaches on the sideline and in the booth.

Let's take a look at the positives first: You can give the credit where credit is due to the Miami Dolphins, especially for their running game and offensive line. The wildcat worked tremendously for the team as Ronnie Brown had a field day with the Colts constantly forcing the opposition to make adjustments and tiring the team out.

The anticipated match-up between Dwight Freeney and Jake Long appeared to be easily leaning in Freeney's corner early on, but as time passed, Long was able to keep up and did a good job of protecting Chad Pennington for most of the game, besides a few instances early in the game.

Pennington was very efficient, especially on third downs, where the Dolphins managed to convert on 15 of 21 conversions. He was able to find his receivers open in the flat on short yardage third downs and was able to complete it most of the time giving the offense another threat for the Colts to worry about.

All in all, the Dolphins offense did a pretty good job against the Colts defense revitalizing the wildcat and being able to react well to pressure situations on third downs. Possibly if this was a weaker team and the Colts didn't have the MVP as a quarterback, the Dolphins would've come away with a win, but that brings us to what caused the downfall of this sure win for Miami.

What went wrong?

Miami Dolphins secondary

For the second week in a row, the Dolphins allowed an opposing tight end to run up and down the field. This was Tony Gonzalez multiplied by one thousand for Miami. Dallas Clark had 183 yards on seven catches and constantly had big time plays, with many of them coming on the Colts touchdown drives. It is inexcusable for a defense to allow a tight end, even one like Dallas Clark, to tally that many yards. You cannot blame an entire loss on one individual in the secondary, but there is a name I would pull out: Gibril Wilson.

Wilson was believed to be a decent safety, but in this game, he was constantly embarrassed. On the opening drive, Wilson had the chance to make Clark's 80 yard touchdown pass into a 30 yard reception, but was shook off with such ease that no one on the Dolphins secondary had time to recover and chase down the tight end. Late in the second quarter, he had the chance to recover a tipped ball for an interception to ensure the Colts don't get a chance at a field goal.

Wilson dropped the ball and on the ensuing play, Peyton Manning completed a 20 yard pass to Clark at the Dolphins 30 yard line. Adam Vinatieri kicked a field goal as time expired and tied the game at 13 going into the half.

There were many lapses guarding Clark by everyone in the secondary, but it was the game winning touchdown that put the icing on the cake. The Dolphins went on an all-out blitz, which backfired when a number of key blocks by the Colts receivers allowed Pierre Garcon to complete a 48 yard touchdown to win the game. It only took about three blocks to allow Garcon to score and only showed another reason why the Dolphins secondary needs some desperate help.

Time Management

When it came to bad time management, the Dolphins made sure to do it at the worst possible moment. The Dolphins had to move 82 yards in a span of three minutes and thirteen seconds. They wasted one minute and thirteen seconds of that precious time on three plays. The first three plays of the drive managed seventeen yards and only got the team to their own 35 yard line.

A timeout was completely wasted as well, when a Colts player went down with an injury that could have ended up as an official timeout. Instead, the lone timeout was wasted when time could have been stopped by the referees if the coaching would have waited another second.

Back to the subject of the first few plays on the last drive though, the Dolphins wasted nearly a minute between their first and second plays of their drive and ended up wasting their second timeout.

You cannot give a team much more opportunity than what the Dolphins were offered. Two time outs on the last drive were wasted when they could have been used when the Dolphins were running a hurry-up and wasting a snap spiking the ball instead of wasting them in a delay of game desperation and before an official time out was called.

4th-and-1

Late in the second quarter, the Dolphins faced a fourth-and-one at the Colts 30 yard line with a little under 50 seconds remaining. The team's fullback Lousaka Polite is one of the most automatic short yardage backs in this league and has yet to fail the team when it comes down to plays like this. You would think the team would send him out there and get the first so that Miami could waste a little more time and possibly get another chance at the end zone to take a 17-10 lead going into the half.

Instead the Dolphins decided to take a field goal, a field goal that was taken from 44 yards out from the infield dirt. Kicking a field goal from there is equivalent to risking a fullback push on fourth and one, but one thing is certain, Polite would've made that first and the Dolphins could have gone into the half leading by a touchdown.

Butterfingers

It was the drop heard around the world for the Dolphins. On a perfect pass from Pennington thirty yards out from the end zone, he launched a pass right into the hands of Ted Ginn, Jr.

If you're not too keen on what the Miami Dolphins faithful think of Ginn, there are mostly negative views of the receiver and this game did nothing more than to give his critics fuel to an already out of control fire. In fact, he dropped a potential touchdown early in the game when he came up short on a pass that eventually resulted in a field goal for Miami.

But to the last drive now, Pennington fired a laser right into the hands of Ginn to win the game. It would have left about ten seconds on the clock that would have given the Colts a chance at one hail mary. Ginn was covered well, but the ball still hit both of his hands and any receiver that is in the NFL should be able to make that catch, overrated or not.

It's a disappointment to see Ginn drop it after having an actual productive day with 108 yards on 11 catches, but he will be only remembered for that catch that should have won the game.

I'll say that Peyton Manning is an absolute beast when it comes to leading a team, and deserved this win, but he can attribute the team's success to a number of miscues on the Dolphins part. Miami goes to San Diego to play an erratic 1-1 Chargers team, but with a quarterback like Phillip Rivers leading the way, the Dolphins could see 0-3 very easily.