OVERALL SUMMARY:

The Dolphins were completely dominated in the trenches this afternoon as they lost to the Raiders in Oakland by the score of 17-7. The final score didn't begin to cover the way in which the Dolphins were pushed around at the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball. That domination, combined with uncharacteristic mistakes by Marino and what's unfortunately becoming characteristic mistakes by the rest of the team, allowed the Raiders the victory.

The game started with the Raiders taking the opening kickoff in the endzone for a touchback. After a short pass and a run by Kaufman moved the Raiders from their 20 to their 34, Dwight Hollier sacked Hostetler on 1st down, leaving them with a 2nd and 16 at their 28. Two good runs covered 13 yards, but still left the Raiders with a 4th and 3 at their 41 and they punted.

After McDuffie returned the punt to the Dolphin 25, two runs by Abdul-Jabbar netted minus 1 yard and facing 3rd and 11 at their 24, Marino couldn't find Barnett. The Dolphins punted back to the Raiders, who returned the ball to their 46. A first down pass to Dudley moved the ball to the Dolphin 41, but after Wisniewski was penalized for holding on the next play, the Raiders faced a 1st and 20 from their 49. A run by Williams and an incomplete pass left the Raiders with a 3rd and 13 at the Dolphin 44, but a blitzing Calvin Jackson sacked Hostetler and the Raiders were forced to punt.

With a 1st and 10 from their 22 after the punt, Abdul-Jabbar made a nice outside sweep to the left for 10 yards. However, after Barnett was penalized for a false start, the Dolphins could only recover 11 of the 15 yards they needed on a run by Abdul-Jabbar and a catch by Barnett. On 3rd and 4, Marino tried to go deep to Barnett down the right sideline, but the sun apparently blinded Barnett as the ball went in and out of his arms and the Dolphins were forced to punt.

The Raiders took the ball at their 20 after a 5 yard return by Brown and they moved up the field on runs by Fenner and Kaufman and passes to Dudley and Fenner, until they had a 2nd and 6 at the Dolphin 38. However, Buckley defense a pass intended for Jett on 2nd down and on third down, Hostetlers pass to Jett was poorly thrown and fell incomplete and the Raiders punted again.

The Dolphins started at their 6 yard line after the punt was downed there on a great special teams play by the Raiders. A 10 yard pass to Pritchett, followed by a 4 yard run by Abdul-Jabbar left the Dolphins with a 2nd and 6, but Abdul-Jabbar was stuffed on 2nd down and Parmalee was nailed in the backfield as the Dolphins tried a horribly executed sweep from the shotgun on 3rd and 6. Facing a 4th and 13, the Dolphins punted from their 13.

The 1st quarter ended scoreless with the Raiders having a 1st and 10 from their 28. A reverse to Tim Brown for 12 yards and 2 nice runs by Fenner and Kaufman for 8 and 9 yards moved the ball to the Dolphin 43. From there, on a first down, the Raiders tried a rather bizarre reverse-pass, with the wide receiver getting the ball from Kaufman, who had gotten it from Hostetler on a handoff. The receiver ran right and tried to pass. The Dolphins actually played it fairly well, being in good position, but after Hollier and Stubbs both missed tackles on the receiver, he lofted a pass down to Glover at the Dolphin 37.

After that play, the Raiders continued the march, moving down to the Dolphin 7 on passes to Dudley and Brown and a couple of runs by Fenner. With a 1st and goal at the 7, Fenner ran left and the Dolphins over-pursued, getting caught outside and allowing Fenner to cut back inside and score, giving the Raiders a 7-0 lead.

After a touchback on the kickoff, the Dolphins started at their 20 and after a great cutback run in which Abdul-Jabbar was trapped well behind the line and ran around the left side for 7 yards, Everett McIver was caught for holding and the Dolphins faced a 3rd and 13 from their own 17. However, Marino hit Lamar Thomas for 17 yards and a first down to keep the drive alive.

All the effort was for naught, however, as a one yard run by Abdul-Jabbar followed by two incompletions and a delay-of-game penalty left Miami with a 4th and 14 from their 30. The Dolphins punted to the Raiders, who started at their own 31. After a sack by Armstrong was negated by a penalty on the Dolphins, Shane Burton came back on the next play and sacked Hostetler for a 5 yard loss. The Raiders tried running Kaufman twice in a row, but couldn't gain back the lost yardage and were forced to punt on 4th and 7.

Miami started at their 22 after the punt and Marino hit Fred Barnett twice in a row for 10 and then 24 yards to give the Dolphins a 1st and 10 at the Raider 43, with less than 2 minutes remaining in the first half. After his first down pass was batted down at the line of scrimmage, Marino attempted to hit OJ McDuffie on a deep slant on the left side. However, he threw into double coverage and the ball was picked off by Terry McDaniel and returned to the Dolphin 42.

This turned out to be a doubly bad choice when replay showed that Randall Hill was wide open on the left sideline. The man covering Hill had run with McDuffie instead of staying with Hill, but Marino missed the fact that Hill was open and tried to force the ball to McDuffie.

With 1:34 left, the Raiders moved from their 42 to the Miami 29 on a pass to Jett, followed by 2 long runs by Harvey Williams. However, Bowens batted a pass on 1st down and a short pass to Dudley on 2nd down left the Raiders with a 3rd and 8 at the Dolphin 27. Unfortunately, an encroachment penalty on Zach Thomas on 3rd and 8 moved the ball to the 22 and gave the Raiders a 3rd and 3.

On the next play, Miami called an all-out blitz, but they didn't get to Hostetler and Hos found Tim Brown on the left side at about the 16. Buckley, who had slipped and fallen down trying to cover Brown, missed the tackle as he tried to recover and Brown ran untouched into the endzone for a touchdown and a 14-0 Raider lead.

After Irving Spikes returned the Raider kickoff to the Dolphin 33, Marino had 42 seconds remaining in the first half. He hit McDuffie for 2 consecutive 8 yard passes and then found Randal Hill for 14 yards. Two incompletions and a 13 yard pass to Fred Barnett on the sideline moved the Dolphins to the Raider 19 with 1 second remaining. Nedney then hit a 37 yard field goal to cut the score to 14-3. However, Cal Dixon was called for a false start and the score didn't count. The Dolphins were moved back to the 24 and Nedney missed his second chance, leaving the score 14-0 at the half.

In the first half, the Dolphins didn't move the ball at all well and even though Marino wasn't officially sacked at all in the first half, he was pressured on almost every play and made a bad decision on the interception. And even though the Dolphins got to Hostetler a number of times, the pressure was inconsistent and broke down at the worst moments.

Also, the Raiders had accumulated 115 yards rushing in the first half as their offensive line opened huge gaps in the Dolphin defensive line.

The second half opened with the Dolphins receiving the kickoff and Spikes returning it to the 20. From there, Abdul-Jabbar ran the ball 4 times in a row, getting 19 yards on the first 3 carries, but getting stuffed for a 3 yard loss on 2nd and 4 from the 39. Marino hit McDuffie for 6 yards on 3rd and 7 and the Dolphins elected to punt on 4th and 1. However, the Raiders' Ken Shedd was penalized 5 yards for running into John Kidd on the punt and the Dolphins got a fresh start from their 46.

After Abdul-Jabbar got 2 yards on 1st down, Richmond Webb was penalized 5 yards for a false start and the Dolphins faced a 2nd and 13 from their 43. Marino then attempted to hit Pritchett on a crossing route, but the ball slipped out of his hand as he passed and landed in the hands of the Raider's Mike Morton, who was well behind Pritchett. Morton returned it to the Dolphin 37.

From there, the Raiders ran the ball once for 5 yards and added two passes for 2 yards, but on 4th and 3 from the Dolphin 30 a field goal attempt sailed wide right and short. This gave the Dolphins a 1st and 10 at their 38, but after a short pass to Abdul-Jabbar and a 3 yard run, also by Abdul-Jabbar, the Dolphins faced a 3rd and inched at their 48. However, the rushing attempt on 3rd down was stopped short and the Dolphins elected to punt, which sailed into the endzone for a touchback.

The Raiders started at their 20, but an incompletion off a fake reverse and a 1 yard run by Harvey Williams left them facing a 3rd and 9 and a false start moved them back to their 16, with a 3rd and 14. A deep pass to James Jett down the left sideline was underthrown and the Raiders punted.

Following the punt, the Dolphins started at their 30 and a quick slant pass to McDuffie netted 13 yards. However, on the next play, a holding penalty negated a 7 yard run by Spikes and moved the ball back to the 33 and gave the Dolphins a 1st and 20. A 17 yard pass to Barnett and a batted pass left the Dolphins with a 3rd and 3 at the 50 and a pass to McDuffie was defensed well, forcing the Dolphins to punt once more.

The Raiders made a fair catch at their 9 and two runs by Fenner moved them out to their 20. After a false start by the Raiders moved them back to their 15, 2 short runs and a short pass could only get them to their 22, where they were forced to punt. However, on the punt Larry Izzo was penalized 15 yards for "roughing the kicker". This was a ridiculous penalty, since Izzo was flying through the air and landed on the ground in front of the kicker and slid into his leg and "roughing the kicker" is supposed to be a deliberate attempt to hit the kicker. The penalty should have been "running into the kicker", which would have been 5 yards and made the Raiders kick again.

However, the "roughing the kicker" penalty gave the Raiders a first down at the Raider 37. From there, Hostetler hit Brown for 11 yards and Kaufman ran for two more as the 3rd quarter ended with the Dolphins down 14-0 and the Raiders facing a 2nd and 8 at the 50.

The fourth quarter started with Hostetler hitting Dudley for 7 yards, but as Buckley made the tackle, he stripped Dudley of the ball and Wooden recovered at the Dolphin 42. The joy was short-lived, however. On the next play, Marino attempted to hit Barnett on a streak down the left sideline. Albert Lewis had good coverage on Barnett and Marino underthrew the ball so that it landed right in Lewis's arms for an interception. This was the third bad throw by Marino that resulted in an interception.

The Raiders started at their 23, but after a short pass to Brown and a short run by Fenner, the Raiders faced a 3rd and 3 at their 30 and Zach Thomas leveled Fenner as he tried to catch the ball, forcing the incompletion and getting the Raiders to punt. On this punt, Terrell Buckley was put in as the punt returner and returned the ball from the 23 to the Dolphin 35 before being forced out of bounds.

From there, Marino completed his first pass of the game to Troy Drayton on a crossing pattern and Drayton ran over several people on his way to a 33 yard gain to the Raider 32. However, the Dolphins could only gain 2 yards on 2 carries by Abdul-Jabbar to leave the Dolphins with a 3rd and 8 at the Raider 30. On third down, Marino's pass was batted at the line of scrimmage, but a defensive holding penalty gave the Dolphins a first down at the Raider 25.

On the next play, however, Marino fumbled the snap from Ruddy and the Raiders recovered. From their 25, the Raiders moved up the field with a series of short passes to Kaufman, Jett, Hobbs, and Brown that gave them a 1st and 10 at the Dolphin 21. However, two runs by Fenner were stuffed and Hostetler was forced to throw the ball away on third down. This forced the Raiders to settle for a field goal and a 17-0 lead with less than 5 minutes remaining in the game.

The kickoff was taken by Spikes at the 10 and he returned it to the Dolphin 34. From there, Marino began by hitting Parmalee twice for 16 yards to the 50. Webb was then penalized for a false start, pushing the Dolphins back to the 45. After two incompletions from the 45, Marino hit Lamar Thomas on 3rd down, who made a nice tightrope walk along the sideline to make the first down at the Raider 39.

From there, Barnett made a great diving catch on 1st down for 22 yards and after a quick pass to Parmalee for 7 yards moved the ball down to the Raider 10. At this point, with 3:08 left to play, Marino tried to hit McDuffie, but the pass was well defensed by the Raiders. This left the Dolphins with a 3rd and 3 at the Raider 10. The next pass to Barnett appeared incomplete, but the Raiders were penalized for illegal use of hands on the play and the Dolphins had a 1st and goal at the 5.

The next pass was to Barnett in the endzone, but the Raider defensive back was all over Barnett and was penalized for pass interference this time, which gave the Dolphins a first and goal at the one. Abdul-Jabbar lost 3 yards on the next play, but on 2nd and goal from the 4, Marino hit Randal Hill in the back of the endzone for a touchdown that cut the Raider lead to 17-7.

With 2:34 remaining in the game, the Dolphins attempted an onsides kick. Nedney made a good kick and got a good bounce on the ball, but Tim Brown managed to slap the ball out of bounds and the Raiders took over at the Dolphin 46. The Raiders then ran Harvey Williams 3 times in a row for 8 yards down to the Dolphin 38. However, they faced a 4th and 2 and were forced to punt.

On this series, the Dolphins didn't manage their timeouts well at all. They allowed much too much time to run off the clock between plays, so even though they got the ball back at their 20 after the punt, there was just 1:01 remaining and they only had 1 timeout left. From their 20, Marino passed twice to Parmalee for 16 and 15 yards and then to McDuffie for 9 yards to the Raider 40, but all these passes were in the middle of the field and the Dolphins let the clock run and didn't try to get out of bounds.

With 9 seconds left in the game, Marino launched a Hail Mary pass towards the endzone, but it fell incomplete. Then, on the last play of the game, Marino tried another Hail Mary but was sacked.

Overall, this was as bad as I've seen the Dolphins play on offense this year. They had only 34 total rushing yards and even though they had 281 yards passing, they only converted 20% of their third downs and had 4 turnovers. I'm not sure if it was the short week or just that they were outclassed, but the Dolphins certainly didn't play well today.

GOOD STUFF:

There were a few good things in this game, believe it or not. First of all, special teams coverage continues to be good, limiting a dangerous return man like Tim Brown on punt returns and getting good distance downfield.

It seemed to me that the pass coverage was good in this game. Against dangerous receivers like Tim Brown and James Jett, the defensive backs seemed to be able to keep them well covered. The longest pass completion was 22 yards and the one passing touchdown was when Buckley slipped and fell. The pass rush wasn't as good, but they did sack Hostetler 4 times and flushed him out of the pocket a number of other times.

The run defense wasn't very good, but they did make adjustments at the half which seemed to help. The Raiders had 115 rushing yards in the first half, but only 41 in the second half.

THINGS TO WORK ON:

Mistakes are still killing this team in the form of silly penalties that are killing drives and today, even costing the team points. There were at least 3 false starts on offense out of a total of 11 penalties today.

Both the offensive and defensive lines were pushed around a lot today. Even though Marino was only officially sacked once, he was under a lot of pressure today and only his quick feet and football savy kept him from being sacked about 10 times.

The defensive line got blown out on running plays, particularly in the 1st half and has got to work on holding their positions.

INDIVIDUAL PERFORMANCES:

Dan Marino had one of the worst performances that I've ever seen him have. He was 22 of 39 for 290 yards with 1 touchdown and 3 interceptions, plus he fumbled one snap. And all of the interceptions were on passes that were either badly thrown or into heavy coverage.

Karim Abdul-Jabbar didn't drop any passes today, but only had 39 yards on 18 carries and caught 1 pass for 7 yards. However, his blocking failed him for most of the day.

Fred Barnett caught 6 passes for 95 yards, including a great diving catch late in the game.

OJ McDuffie caught 5 passes for 44 yards, but also dropped a couple of easy ones.

Lamar Thomas caught 2 passes for 34 yards.

Bernie Parmalee ran once for -5 yards and caught 4 passes for 50 yards, but most of those were late in the game.

Randal Hill caught 2 passes for 17 yards and 1 touchdown.

Troy Drayton caught only 1 pass, but it went for 33 yards. Why don't they throw more to him?

On defense, Shawn Wooden unseated Zach Thomas as the leading tackler, getting 11 combined tackles in this game, with 8 of those being solo tackles. He also recovered the one Raider fumble.

Zach Thomas has 10 total tackles, with 9 solo tackles and 1 pass defensed.

Dwight Hollier had 8 total tackles and a sack.

Terrell Buckley had 5 tackles, one pass defensed and one forced fumble.

Sean Hill played fairly well, getting 5 total tackles.

Calvin Jackson also had 5 total tackles and a sack.

Shane Burton had 4 total tackles, including 2 sacks.

Anthony Harris, who got lots of playing time in replacement of Chris Singleton, recorded 4 total tackles.

Singleton, although technically still the starter, only had 2 tackles at weakside linebacker.

John Kidd continues to punt well, averaging 45.3 yards per punt.

Joe Nedney missed the only field goal attempt that counted, but made the first one, even though it was nullified on a penalty. His one deep kickoff was a touchback and his onsides kick was perfectly placed.

INJURIES:

Singleton and Barnett had minor injuries during the game, but they both returned to the game following their injuries.

Keith Sims did play the game, but instead of Jeff Buckey moving over to right guard, Everrett McIver continued to play in place of Chris Gray.

My Comments:

The biggest disappointment about this game was the play of Dan Marino, who threw three interceptions and fumbled a snap. It's scary to say it, but he certainly looked rusty or confused or just plain worn out. He wasn't reading the defenses well and he made some bad throws into coverage when he shouldn't have.

The thing that really made me angry about the team was the continuing cheap penalties. Today Richmond Webb had 2 false start penalties on him. This is inexcusable for a veteran of Webb's stature and must be fixed. And there was Cal Dixon's false start penalty which cost the Dolphins 3 points.

This game certainly has put a dent in the Dolphins' playoff chances and just emphasized which positions the Dolphins need to upgrade in the off-season.

I have to say that the replacement of Louis Oliver didn't seem to hurt the pass defense in the least, although it's hard to know for sure without more detailed information on each play. Still, Sean Hill didn't appear to make any bonehead plays and Shawn Wooden, who filled in for Oliver at strong safety, lead the team in total tackles. It will be interesting to see if Wooden and Hill keep their new positions.

Related Info:

• NFL.COM: Miami vs Oakland Recap
• NFL.COM: Miami vs Oakland GameBook
• Miami Herald: Dolphins Section
• USAToday: Miami vs Oakland
• Dolphins Endzone: Game Summary
• ESPNet Sportszone: Dolphins vs Raiders Recap