Miami Dolphins: Red Zone Struggles Reappear in Dallas

The Miami Dolphins went into Cowboys Stadium on Thanksgiving looking to upset Jerry Jones' Cowboys at his own house. They were riding a three-game winning streak and hadn't allowed a touchdown in their last three games. They had played efficient, mistake-free football and it showed on the stat sheet and on the scoreboard.

The Dolphins recorded more passing yards, rushing yards and total net yards than the Cowboys. They won the turnover battle and had possession of the football for 3 more minutes.

So, what went wrong?

The defense looked like it hadn't missed a beat when Vontae Davis intercepted Tony Romo's pass—intended for Martellus Bennett—at Miami's 17-yard line and returned it to the Miami 42.

The Dolphins defense followed that effort by backing the Cowboys up to their own four-yard line on their next drive to give the offense good field position.

When the defense took the field again, Sean Smith intercepted Romo's pass at the Dallas 26 to give the Dolphins offense excellent field position.

Miami then drove the ball to Dallas' eight-yard line before a monster that had not reared its ugly head in any of the previous three games was once again unleashed.

The Dolphins made four trips to the red zone, with three of those reaching inside the 10-yard line. In the first of those trips, Matt Moore had third-and-three and inexplicably threw the ball out of the end zone. He clearly had time to wait for a receiver to get open or run for three yards. Instead, Miami settled for a 26-yard field goal when they should have scored a touchdown.

The second trip to the red zone was a drive that had seven plays and lasted 55 seconds before the end of the half. The Dolphins drove the ball to Dallas' 13-yard line and had to settle for yet another field goal. As a result, Miami went into the half and were trailing 10-6 when they could have easily been ahead by 14-6.

Talk about missed opportunities.

Miami's next red-zone trip was a methodical drive to start the third quarter in which they drove the ball 71 yards to the Dallas nine-yard line. However, once again, they had to settle for three points. Had they gone into halftime ahead by a score of 14-6 and then scored another touchdown in this opening drive, the game would have been different and Miami's defense could have sealed it.

However, they kept Dallas in the game and it came back to haunt them at the end.

In Miami's second-to-last drive, the offense had a chance to finally seal the deal and walk out of Dallas with a victory. The score was 17-16 with Dallas on top. They drove the ball 76 yards on 14 plays and had a first-and-goal at Dallas' three-yard line.

Think about that for a minute.

They had three yards to advance and three plays to do it. Had they scored a touchdown, they would have forced Dallas to drive the ball downfield and score a touchdown to win the game.

Guess what happened next.

If you guessed that Miami decided to run the ball straight up the middle with Reggie Bush and lose two yards and follow that up with two incomplete passes, kudos to you.

Miami had a chance to ice the game with first and goal at the three-yard line and they managed to lose two yards.

This field goal put the Dolphins up 19-17 with seven minutes to go. Was it enough?

I'd rather not get into that.

To put everything in perspective, Miami was in the red zone on four occasions and they kicked four field goals. Yes, that is a 100 percent scoring average, but it's only 12 points when it should have been 28 or at the least 21.

Against Buffalo, Miami reached the red zone four times as well. In that game, they scored four touchdowns and came out with a 35-8 victory. Dan Carpenter had an easy day at the office in this one. He was supposedly seen eating a hot dog with fries and a Dr. Pepper on the bench (Mark Sanchez didn't order the whole combo, apparently).

When they faced the Redskins, they reached the red zone on four occasions once again. They scored two touchdowns and two field goals.

Against the Chiefs, they only reached the red zone twice, but scored a touchdown on both trips.

If Miami expects to be competitive throughout the rest of the season and in the future, they need to be more effective in the red zone. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that teams that score touchdowns in the red zone usually win games.

It's simply a matter of being more productive when dealing with a shorter field and calling the right plays. Brian Daboll does a good job of calling plays to get the team into the red zone, but I can't fathom what goes through his head when he has 20 or fewer yards to work with.

Johan Wolfgang von Goethe once said, "Everything is both simpler than we can imagine, and more complicated than we can conceive."

Scoring in the red zone is simpler than the Dolphins are making it.