The Miami Dolphins lost the football game but won the long game afterward.
Because within minutes of Sunday’s 33-27 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs, the Dolphins were having nothing to do with talk of playing the defending champions relatively close. They were quickly moving on from the idea their rally from 18 points down was good because it wasn’t good enough.
The Dolphins, a team that wants to be the Kansas City Chiefs, emerged from this loss to the Chiefs with fully aware they’re not there yet.
“I think we have a resilient team, they don’t quit,” coach Brian Flores said after his team scored 17 fourth-quarter points to turn what threatened to be a blowout into a game with some intrigue.
“But I think that we didn’t make enough plays to win the game. We’ve got to play better. They know that. We prepared the right way, and we just didn’t make enough plays. It’s a good team. They made a lot of plays. They made more plays than we did. We fought until the end, but came up a little short.”
This is the perfect tone from the head coach after a game like this.
Absolutely perfect.
Because, unless I miss my guess, that is what Flores also told his players after the game. And now everyone in the locker room knows better than to feel the least bit good about this loss.
And now everyone in the organization knows the standard for the Miami Dolphins is higher than merely coming close to beating the defending Super Bowl champions.
This is the long game the Dolphins are playing. Yes, they’re trying to succeed today, but it’s really about tomorrow for this team. So accepting that moral victories are lame is winning the long game.
“It’s just never a good feeling when you lose no matter who’s in there,” quarterback Tua Tagovailoa said.
“There are no moral victories,” defensive tackle Christian Wilkins said.
This is where we pause this column to add context:
The Chiefs are a fully-formed team with a Super Bowl title in their rear-view mirror and another Super Bowl in their visions ahead. Patrick Mahomes is a bona fide superstar quarterback, according to Jake from State Farm.
And Andy Reid has had more double-digit win seasons (15) than Flores has seasons coaching in the NFL (Miami’s coach moved from personnel to coaching in New England in 2008).
So, of course, the Chiefs have arrived. They’re in that sweet spot in their franchise development where they’re the standard everyone tries to match. The Dolphins, meanwhile, are striving to climb to that standard.
And that means Sunday’s result made sense. Everyone might have expected it.
So that’s the context for this game.
But let’s be clear, no one throws a party after a loss, regardless of context. And no one should be satisfied or feel uplifted or somehow satisfied about adding to the loss column.
Because the Dolphins lost on offense.
They lost on defense.
They lost on special teams.
“They made more plays than we did,” Flores accurately noted.
And so these Dolphins — irrepressible and even tough as they are — showed us why they need much more work. Much more.
The clues were everywhere on Sunday. And, yes, the clues were often somewhat concealed by good news and impressive moments.
Tagovailoa had a good game. He threw for 316 yards, his first NFL game over three bills. He never gave up, running the Miami hurry-up offense with the efficiency and effectiveness of a veteran, even after Miami lost two starting receivers and later a starting tight end.
But the room to grow is still obvious.
He took a sack in which he should have gotten rid of the football. He missed Jakeem Grant wide open in the middle of the field for a touchdown on a throw he instead made to DeVante Parker in the end zone, which fell incomplete.
And the room for the offense to grow is obvious because Miami’s talent at running back and receiver clearly must improve.
Amid all that Tagovailoa left this game in which he battled Mahomes almost throw for throw, dissatisfied.
“It hurts a lot to come up short,” he said. “Like I said, what we want to do is we want to win the ball game at the end of the game. We want to score one more point than the opposing team, which we obviously didn’t … Not taking what the defense is giving me, just pretty much plain rookie mistakes and you can’t do that against a Super Bowl-caliber team like the Chiefs.”
The Dolphins defense had a day. Seriously, they came away with three interceptions and a recovered fumble against a team that typically makes few mistakes.
The Miami defense actually had two interceptions in the first quarter, matching the number of interceptions Mahomes had thrown the previous 12 games.
It was good. But that same unit gave up some big plays, such as the 32-yard score by Tyreek Hill on an end around and a 44-yard touchdown from Mahomes to Hill.
The Chiefs were electric in those moments and equally shocking when Mecole Hardman returned a punt 67 yards for a score.
Those three plays carried the day for Kansas City. And they overshadowed the interceptions by Byron Jones and Xavien Howard and Eric Rowe.
“We wanted to make them earn everything,” Jones said. “But we gave up some easy stuff and that’s frustrating.”
The frustration probably won’t last. The Dolphins have been good putting losses to the side this year, especially earlier when they lost their first two games and recovered by winning six of the next seven games.
So this team understands a season is not defined by one regular-season game. There were no grand statements made or bumbled on Sunday.
All that happened is the Dolphins lost the day’s game — and were wise enough to win the long game afterward.
