By Darragh Holland

The Miami Dolphins season came to a crashing end on Sunday with a 56-26 beat down from their divisional rivals, the Buffalo Bills.

After a season that showed so much promise, they are left with a long off-season to wonder how things got so out of hand, so quickly in a game, they went into full of confidence.

Even when Buffalo started benching some of their star players and inserted backup QB Matt Barkley in place of Josh Allen, the Dolphins seemed to continue their free fall. 

A win on Sunday would have secured the Dolphins a playoff spot for just the second time in eleven years. You have to go all the way back to December 2000 for the Dolphins’ last playoff victory against the Indianapolis Colts.

Rookie Quarterback Tua Tagovailoa went 35-58 for 361 yards and one touchdown, with three interceptions, including a pick-six to Bills CB Josh Norman.

Although he was unlucky with some of those interceptions as his receivers slipped and another was a tipped ball, Tua still lacked accuracy throughout this game. 

Overall, it was a very poor finish to the season for Tagovailoa, as Ryan Fitzpatrick came in to replace Tua to save the day last week in the Dolphins’ victory over the Las Vegas Raiders. 

With Fitzpatrick on the COVID-19 list this week, he wasn’t available to come in and save the day once again. 

Of course, the question may be asked if the Dolphins would have been better off sticking with Ryan Fitzpatrick at QB and seeing how far they can go.

Head Coach Brian Flores is obviously looking towards the long term project and was hoping Tua would show enough to give the Dolphins hope that they have found their franchise QB.

If they want to see Tagovailoa continue to develop, then he has to get some games under his belt at some stage to get used to life as an NFL quarterback. 

Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like Tagovailoa has impressed many in his nine starts this season and has a long way to go to continue his development next season. He has now finished his rookie season going 186-290 for a 64.1% completion rate, and throwing for 1,814 passing yards. He has thrown for 11 TDs and five interceptions (three of them on Sunday) as well as rushing for 109 yards.

Head Coach Brian Flores was very Belichickian in his interview after the game, by putting all the blame on himself, stating that they simply didn’t play well enough and that the team needs to be coached better.

Other than Sunday's defeat to the Bills, the Dolphins’ other five defeats were by an average of 6.8 points and came against the Kansas City Chiefs, Buffalo Bills again, Seattle Seahawks, New England Patriots and the Denver Broncos.

So other than the Patriots and Broncos all those other teams are heading for the postseason, which shows how competitive the Dolphins have been all season.

A few good off-season moves could be the difference they need to get into the playoffs next season.

The main bright spark of their season was cornerback Xavien Howard, who is in the running for Defensive Player of The Year following his 10th interception of the season on Sunday. He has been a big reason why the Dolphins have gone from 32nd in scoring defense in 2019, to 2nd in 2020.

They will hope to be able to rely on a strong defense for the 2021 season.

With Brian Flores heading into his third season, Dolphins fans should still be optimistic that they will have a consistently competitive football team to watch for the next 5-10 years.

Their 10-6 record is only their second winning season in the past twelve years, so next season is vital to show they are going to be legit. Let's not forget that Adam Gase also got to the playoffs before having two losing seasons.

A lot of their future success will rest on the progress of Tagovailoa, as they hope he can turn into the top-tier NFL QB they expected when drafting him with the 5th overall pick. 

Darragh is a sports writer for La Tonique.