MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Despite playing Thursday night’s game against the Baltimore Ravens from the confines of their home stadium, the Miami Dolphins encountered some difficulties because of the visiting team’s fans.
Ravens’ fans packed Hard Rock Stadium to witness a 28-6 victory over the Dolphins and impacted the game early on. Dolphins right tackle Larry Borom was flagged for a false start on fourth-and-1 on the team’s third drive of the game after appearing to react to Ravens linebacker Kyle Van Noy‘s pre-snap movement.
After the game, Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa said the crowd noise played a role in the early miscue.
“With the Ravens fans, it maybe got a little muffled with my cadence and the crowd noise,” he said. “We talked about it on the sideline after and got that corrected.”
Kicker Riley Patterson missed the ensuing 35-yard field goal after the penalty.
Broadcast cameras caught an irate Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel’s reaction to the flag. After the game, he clarified where his outburst was aimed.
“That was at self-inflicted wounds that we’ve been putting such an emphasis on all things related to our operation,” he said. “In critical fourth-and-1 where we are pretty fired up about the defensive look, it was what we were calling the play for and that’s flat out a controllable that our team knows that keeps you from winning.
“So [I was] irate at nothing but ourself.”
Fans of both teams headed toward the exit en masse late in the third quarter when Baltimore took a 22-point lead; some Dolphins fans who stayed wore paper bags or even popcorn buckets over their heads.
Miami turned the ball over three times Thursday, went 2-for-12 on third downs and failed to score on any of its three red zone trips, including a third-quarter fumble and an incomplete pass on fourth down from the Ravens’ 13-yard line. McDaniel said he understood and even shared fans’ frustrations.
“Personally, you want to dictate the terms. You want to fix stuff, and, yeah, it sucks,” he said. “That sucks. All of that does, but I think it’s a pretty consistent formula of fans enjoy winning. Our expectation is that we have to do the work and do the right things for fans to enjoy the experience. And unfortunately, we didn’t do that tonight, so we’ve got to get back to work to give them something to cheer about.”
Four days after a 34-10 road win over the Atlanta Falcons, the Dolphins appeared ready to keep their momentum going against Baltimore. In the first half, Miami outgained the Ravens 226-109 and possessed the ball for 18:29 to the Ravens’ 11:01 but still trailed 14-6 at halftime.
McDaniel said it’s “generally a bad omen” to trail in a game you should be winning. Tagovailoa said Miami’s offense “couldn’t find our flow.”
The game got out of hand in the third quarter, when Baltimore (3-5) outgained the Dolphins 166-39 and opened a three-score lead.
With the Dolphins’ record dropping to 2-7, their worst start since McDaniel took over in 2022, linebacker Jordyn Brooks offered a blunt assessment of how the team played Thursday.
“We’ve got to capitalize when we get down to the red zone,” Brooks said. “We just had too many turnovers today, and I feel like that really hurt us. … I felt like we played well defensively in the first half, but turnovers — that kills you. Not capitalizing, not scoring when we could, giving them the ball back, giving them an extra set of downs. Players like [the Ravens’ offense], they’re going to find a way to get into the end zone.
“We’ve got to capitalize when we’ve got the chance to and play complementary football. … Until we learn how to not beat ourselves, we won’t win a football game.”
Miami has a 10-day break before hosting the Buffalo Bills in Week 10.
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