The Miami Dolphins finally beat the Bills with a really gutsy performance by both the defense and the Tua led offense. Unbelievably, the Phins defense was on the field for 2/3rds of the game and still kept the Bills out of the end zone for the entire 2nd half. After the first two scores, the Miami D allowed 350 yards with only 3pts scored. The defense’s bend but not break attitude was the deciding factor in the game and pulling of this insane victory.
Tua was knocked down, but not out
In one cray turn after the other, Tua got knocked out of the game right before the 1st half ended. He came back in the second half and with limited opportunities made a key 3rd and 22 deep 45 yard perfectly placed pass to Waddle to set up the go ahead touchdown! Contrary to appearance and early reports, Tua suffered a back and ankle injury on that play he got knocked out of the game and not a head injury. McDaniel hasn’t committed to saying whether Tua would play or not on the shortened week.
Miami is now 3-0 for the first time since 2018, and more importantly, 3-0 against AFC teams and 2-0 against the AFC East! This could go a long way at the end of the year for tiebreakers to make the playoffs or even win the Division. However, now Miami plays on a short week on Thursday Night against the Bengals who, even though are 1-2, are a very dangerous team with Joe Burrow that represented the AFC in the Super Bowl last year.
The biggest key to any chance of winning is whether or not Tua will play.
I think it’s clear by now that Tua is the best QB on our roster and him missing time would be a major loss to our Offense. The pay per head services had the Dolphins at +1.5 before the start of the Sunday games yesterday. However, even though Miami won yesterday the line on Monday morning was +3 and has now inched up to +3.5 for the undefeated Dolphins. Seems like this might have a lot to do with the availability of Tua. It will be very interesting to see where this line closes at game time, and whether or not Tua ends up playing.
Skylar over Bridgewater
Honestly, if Tua can’t play, I would rather see Skylar Thompson in action. Sure Bridgewater is a seasoned vet, but his three throws when he came in for Tua against the Bills weren’t pretty. Hopefully that was just from being thrown into an intense game and not properly warmed up. If Tua is really questionable, then Bridgewater will be getting extra practice reps this week. But, is that the best move? Whoever plays at QB for us this week will need to score points because Joe Burrow and his high powered offense can score.
On defense, we have to put together a similar effort like we did against the Bills with a bend but not break mind set. It sure won’t be easy. This defense has to be gassed and 3 days before the next game isn’t enough to recover. The Bengals have a lot of offensive weapons and can be very tough to contain. This will be a game where the offense must set the tone to take pressure of the defense. The one good thing is the Bengals offensive line does give up a decent amount of sacks, so Miami needs to be aggressive and get after Burrow all game. Could we actually go 4-0 to wrap up the first quarter of the season?
Can Miami push this to 4-0 and 4-0 against the AFC this Thursday night?
