Most of this failure was the offense's fault. Fiedler took too long to throw, threw bad passes and missed open receivers. On one pass in the first quarter, Fiedler missed Tony Martin wide open in the endzone and instead tried to hit OJ McDuffie on a crossing route but threw that ball too high. And, of course, Fiedler's first interception was returned for a touchdown.

Fiedler wasn't alone, however. Lamar Smith was stripped of the ball on his only decent carry of the game and that fumble eventually turned into a Raider touchdown. Autry Denson dropped at least 3 passes that were right in his hands. OJ dropped a couple of passes, as did Tony Martin.

And the running game went nowhere. The offensive line couldn't push their way out of a paper bag early in the game and then Miami had to abandon the run. Smith had nowhere to run for most of his carries and ended the day with 10 carries for 6 yards.

The defense didn't play that badly, despite the score. They gave up 2 touchdowns and 2 field goals, but 1 of those touchdowns was after Lamar's fumble gave the Raiders the ball deep in Miami territory.

Also, don't be fooled by the Raiders' 144 rushing yards. The only reason the Raiders had that much yardage was that Miami kept giving them the ball, so they ran it 45 times. They averaged 3.2 yards per carry and Tyrone Wheatley was held to 57 yards rushing on 19 carries (3.0 ypc avg).

The defense's biggest problem was penalties at the wrong time. On the Raiders' first offensive scoring drive, the Dolphin defense gave them 2 first downs on penalties.

The other problem was the failure by Jim Bates to design a scheme to contain Rich Gannon. Gannon kept several drives alive by scrambling for first downs. Bates should have had a spy on Gannon to contain him.

All in all, it was a disappointing way to end the season, but that doesn't change from the fact that the Dolphins had a terrific year and convincingly won the AFC Eastern Division. That is an accomplishment they can be proud of.