OVERALL SUMMARY:

The Dolphins went into Texas stadium on Thursday to play a game that was important mostly because Dan Marino was coming back to the lineup. Dan had been out for 6 weeks and was returning to start his first game since the Patriots game on October 17th, which he barely played in.

Unfortunately for the Dolphins, Dan was very rusty and made a number of poor decisions that led ultimately to 5 interceptions and a 20-0 shutout of the Dolphins by the Cowboys. The Dolphins had a number of opportunities to score points in this game, but one mistake after another until the game was over. Most of the mistakes were on offense, but the defense had a couple of major blunders also and ultimately, the Dolphins played pretty poorly.

Fortunately, the game means very little in terms of the AFC East race and the Dolphins will still be able to take control of their division next Sunday against the Colts.

The game was played at 4:15 Eastern time on Thursday at Texas Stadium in fairly good weather conditions. It was cool and dry in Dallas and there were no excuses for such a performance by the team.

The game was essentially a defensive struggle and no points were scored in this game until halfway through the third quarter, when Dallas linebacker Dexter Coakley picked off a Dan Marino pass and returned it for a touchdown. The rest of the game belonged to Dallas after that touchdown with Dan throwing 3 more interceptions in various attempts at a comeback.

The Dolphins had a couple of opportunities in the first half to score, but Olindo Mare' missed one field goal attempt and had another blocked, while Dan Marino threw an ill-advised pass that was intercepted in the endzone by Deion after it bounced off the fingertips of Nate Jacquet.

Mostly, though, it was a defensive struggle with neither team moving the ball well on offense. Dallas did complete one 65 yard pass for a touchdown to Rocket Ismail down the middle, but otherwise was limited to 2 field goals on offense, one of which was after an interception close to the Miami goal line. Dallas didn't have any drives longer than 9 plays or 49 yards except for the one deep pass.

Overall, the game was a bad outing for the Dolphins, but not a disaster. Most of the problems of the day were caused by turnovers and those will hopefully be fixed.

GOOD STUFF:

There was some good stuff in this game, mostly on defense. The Dolphins did hold Emmitt Smith to 103 yards rushing on 31 carries for a 3.3 yard per carry average on his home turf. That doesn't sound all that good, but Emmitt had been averaging 4.1 ypc and over 120 yards per game. More importantly, he didn't score a touchdown, even though he got three chances to run it in from the Dolphins' 2 yard line.

In comparison to Emmitt, JJ Johnson also averaged 3.3 yards per carry. But he was about the only person on the Dolphins' offense who did anything that was worthy of note.

And the Cowboys' offense had been averaging 31 points per game at home, while the Dolphins held them to 13 offensive points. They gave up a single easy touchdown, but otherwise did a good job containing Aikman and Smith.

THINGS TO WORK ON:

Turnovers killed the Dolphins in this game. There was miscommunication between Dan Marino and his receivers throughout the game that caused a couple of the interceptions, but mostly it was Dan Marino who made the bad decisions that caused the interceptions.

Also, this is the second game in a row where the Dolphins have been beaten deep for a big touchdown. JJ claims that T-Buck is having ankle problems and I hope that it's true, because those big plays can't continue to be successful if the Dolphins want to succeed. The team must either give T-Buck more help or replace him.

INDIVIDUAL PERFORMANCES:

I won't go into every performance, but there are a few I want to discuss.

First of all, there is the performance of Dan Marino. Clearly, Dan was terribly rusty and made a number of bad decisions. It's not usually fair to blame a quarterback for every interception that he throws, but Dan must take responsibility for most of them.

To me, it didn't look as if there was anything wrong with the strength in his arm as much as it looked like he was making poor decisions and/or not seeing the field very well. Both of the interceptions by Dexter Coakley were very poor decisions by Dan, who just didn't see Coakley. If Dan is to continue as the starter, he must not have another day like last Thursday.

There's no way to know yet whether or not it's just that he's rusty or whether he's genuinely starting to lose his control. It will take a couple more games to determine how serious this really is.

Rob Konrad gets a mention because he dropped at least 2 easy passes that I saw. There is no excuse for that kind of behavior, not even by a rookie.

Yatil Green got his first playing time since the Arizona game and caught 3 balls for 47 yards. This is easily his best performance so far and hopefully he'll get more chances to work into the offense.

Olindo Mare' missed two long field goals of 52 and 47 yards and had a third blocked. That is unlike him and I don't think we have to worry about him doing that in the future, but it was disappointing.

Robert Jones led the team in tackles and stopped Emmitt Smith three times in a row at the Miami 2 yard line. He had one of his better games this year.

Also, Rich Owens had 7 tackles, one sack and recovered a fumble. He also nailed Emmitt Smith twice in the backfield for losses. He has been quite an acquisition on defense for the Dolphins.

INJURIES:

Kantroy Barber has a disc problem in his neck and will be placed on injured reserve in the near future.

James Brown and OJ McDuffie did not play because of sprained ankles.

Damon Huard and JJ Johnson both suffered slightly sprained ankles, but should be fully ready for the Colts' game this weekend.

My Comments:

First of all, let's get the obvious question out of the way - I do not believe that this game means that Dan Marino is finished. I think he had some miscommunication problems with his receivers and was nervous about his shoulder and made poor decisions because of those factors.

Nevertheless, this game was very hard for me to watch - not so much because the Dolphins were losing - but because Dan was playing so poorly. For a man who has played as long as Dan has to have a game like that in a comeback situation must have been horrible for him to have to live through. You could see his frustration and pain with each interception and I just wanted it to end.

The real test of Dan's recovery and arm will be this weekend against the Colts. This is the biggest game of the year so far for the Dolphins and unless the Dolphins win this game, they have no real chance of winning the AFC East.

Because of the importance of this game, JJ will not let Dan finish the game if they are behind in the 4th quarter and Dan is playing poorly. There will be no repeat of the last game against the Cowboys, because JJ won't leave Dan in to throw 5 picks.

That, of course, will put even more pressure on Dan to perform well. It's hard to imagine more pressure on one man than Dan Marino will be facing this Sunday.

As for the effect of this game on the rest of the team, about the only thing I can say about it is this - at least the team won't be overconfident when they face the Colts.

Related Info:

• NFL.com: Gamebook
• Sun-Sentinel: Game 11 wrapup
• Sun-Sentinel: Q&A with JJ
• CNN/SI: Dallas blanks Miami 20-0
• Readers' final grades: Cowboys vs. Dolphins
• Sun-Sentinle: J.J. pinpoints troubles
• Palm Beach Post: Marino's symptoms persist
• Miami Herald: J.J. tells Marino - Don't `be so hard' on yourself