On Sunday, the Dolphins lost to the Ravens at home 27-9 as Chad Pennington threw four interceptions. Should we have seen this coming?I’ve been saying all along before this game that the Dolphins have been overrated this season.
The 11 games they won were a direct result of catching teams off guard early in the season with their Wildcat offense, gaining momentum, and having one of the easiest schedules down the stretch.
In the nine games they won out of the last ten games they played, they faced eight teams that had a .500 record or below, including the Chiefs, Raiders, Seahawks, and Rams which combined for 13 wins.
Two of their three biggest wins of the season, which came against the Patriots in week three and the Chargers in week four, were a direct result of the Wildcat offense.
If these two match-ups had come later in the season when the Wildcat offense had already been figured out and was not effective, which was proven by the Patriots victory over the Dolphins in week twelve, I’m doubting the Dolphins would have won these two games.
There only other true big win came in Week 17 against a downward Jets team that had lost three of its last four. The truth is that the Dolphins were only tested against an elite defense once (the Ravens) all season and this was not mentioned enough coming into this game.
It shouldn’t have come as a surprise that the Dolphins couldn’t do anything against the Ravens defense, as they lost to the Ravens in the regular season 27-13.
The Dolphins started off the season as a cute story of a team using a unique formation that nobody expected to go anywhere, but ended the season as a team that had streaked through their easy schedule causing people to overrate them.
The Chad Pennington MVP lovefest that has been going on has been a little ridiculous. While Pennington is no doubt a good quarterback, he is more of a system quarterback and game manager than anything else.
It wasn’t just a coincidence that the Jets had an extremely poor record 4-12 last year with Pennington at the helm.
While he can be a great game manager in the right situation, which is evident by his 97.4 quarterback rating this year, he isn’t a quarterback who is going to put up big numbers.
There is a reason he was 12th in the NFL in touchdowns thrown and ninth in passing yards.
However, Pennington has gotten more accolades than he deserves because of his team's surprising record.
The Dolphins remind me of that typical geek in the movies, who surprisingly starts becoming popular, but in reality as we find out in all these movies, he's still that same geek at the end.
Now I know that writing this article after the Dolphins loss seems to be easy, but my point is that we should have seen this coming.
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