Miami Dolphins Making Same Mistakes, Expecting Different Results

The Miami Dolphins know what kind of game they play when they lose. 

They ignore the run. They don't stop the run. They give the opposing quarterback all day to throw.

Those are exactly the things that happened when the Dolphins lost, 24-14, to the Dallas Cowboys at home in Week 11.

On offense, the Dolphins ran the ball 14 times for 70 yards, but running backs were responsible for 11 carries and 57 yards. 

On defense, they yielded 129 yards on 29 carries to Cowboys running back Darren McFadden and a total of 166 yards on 38 carries. Their defensive front generated just two sacks on the day.

Look back on any of their losses this season and you'll see a similar story.

2015	Wins	Losses
Total	4	6
Off. rush att.	111	97
Off. rush yds.	601	394
YPA	5.4	4.1
Off. rush TD	3	3
Def. rush att.	116	210
Def. rush yds.	378	1008
YPA	3.3	4.8
Def. rush TD	2	6
Sacks	15	5

What's that saying about the definition of insanity? That it's the act of doing the same things and expecting different results?

Someone might want to send a memo to Dolphins interim head coach Dan Campbell. He could probably use a reminder of what's been costing his team games all season long—although surely he knows what's been costing his team games, given the fact that he's had a front-row seat to all of them.

Even with all of those shortcomings, the Dolphins still had a chance to overcome the adversity to win the game. The Dolphins fell behind 14-0 in the first half, but a last-second touchdown gave the Dolphins new hope. The NFL highlighted Landry's 47-yard catch:

They followed that up with a long touchdown pass from Ryan Tannehill to wide receiver Kenny Stills to bring it to an even 14-14.

In the process of fighting back from that deficit, the Dolphins yielded just 17 carries for 60 yards in the first half. Then, the Dolphins' run defense suddenly lost its juice and gave up 106 yards on 17 carries in the second half as the Cowboys dictated the game's tempo.

"I thought we did a pretty good job early," Campbell said, via MiamiDolphins.com, "For the most part, our defense did some good things. Certainly, we gave up too much in the running game, and I felt like we had a beat on them early. They changed some stuff up in the second half to get to us, but I still felt like we were in a pretty good position, and certainly, you don't want to give up that much yardage.

"We wanted to put them in known passing situations and try to get after Romo a little bit."

They didn't do either of those things very well, particularly in the second half. The efficient running game set up a passing attack where Romo had all day to throw; the Dolphins generated just two sacks in the entire game—one in each half. Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald noted the Dolphins' dismal stats:

If there's one more thing that cost the Dolphins the game, it was their own mistakes in the form of missed opportunities and penalties. 

"It was drops and penalties that really killed us," Campbell said. "Kudos to those guys over there; they played good football, and they capitalized on our mistakes. But we really hurt ourselves. They took full advantage of those penalties. The holding penalties and the drops early in the game, our two third-down drops, hurt us."

It's funny Campbell would point to penalties and drops, though. The Dolphins had nine accepted penalties for 74 yards, which is a lot, but the Cowboys had 10 penalties for 79 yards, so the flags balanced out pretty well. The timing of the drops could have been better, and it's particularly troublesome when three of those drops are attributed to one player—and one of the best players on the team in Jarvis Landry.

On one hand, Landry has been one of the most sure-handed receivers in the game this season. On the other hand, it just goes to show how small the Dolphins' margin for error is.

That being said, their margin for error would be much bigger if they could simply avoid the same problems that have resulted in nearly all of their losses this season.