The AFC East took a hit in Week 2, and each team is dealing with it in its own way.
In Miami, the final score against San Francisco looked ugly - a 35-13 loss - but Dolphins HC Jeff Hafley pointed to a much tighter game at halftime and said the damage came after the break. Miami was within one score heading into halftime, and Hafley said the issue wasn’t effort so much as a pair of early second-half breakdowns that turned into quick points for the 49ers.
“In the second half, I don’t think it was a lack of effort or how hard we played,” Hafley said, via the team’s website. “We did something extremely uncharacteristic on the first play of the half that went for an explosive, and we had another huge mistake on the second that went for a touchdown so quickly.”
Hafley said the bigger picture still shows a team competing the right way, but one that can’t afford the kind of lapse that opened the door after halftime.
“When guys do their job on every single play, and you heard a lot of the players talk about their 1/11th, when guys do that every single play and they play as hard as they did in the first half, we can play with really good teams, really good, experienced teams. So, you take that, but when you don’t and you take one step of mentally or physically, or you’re just not locked in, things can get away from you.
The margin of error is not very big. So, we have got to be able to sustain that for all four quarters.”
For Hafley, the tape has shown a team that brings the right edge and physicality. The missing piece, he said, is keeping that standard from snap one through the final whistle.
“When you turn on the tape there’s an element of toughness and how hard we’re playing that jumps off the tape,” Hafley said. “We have to establish that, and we have to build off of that, and when you turn on the last couple of plays of the game on both sides of the ball, they’re playing just as hard as they did on the first.”
In New York, Aaron Glenn is dealing with a very different kind of frustration after the Jets’ collapse against the Packers. The late-game unraveling - and the clock management questions that came with it - left the first-year head coach openly angry after one of the largest leads in franchise history slipped away.
“To be honest, I’m highly upset,” Glenn said, via Rich Cimini of ESPN. “[It’s a] tough way to lose a game.
There are a number of things that go through my head that, man, we have to fix. And it’s always tough when you feel like you were right there in the thick of it and then you didn’t overcome, and you let the other team overcome and win.
That’s tough, but I will say this: This loss is not going to define who we are and what we’re about. I will say that.
And it’s not OK. And our guys are going to take it like that.
It’s not OK.”
The Jets also took another hit on the roster front. Per ESPN’s Rich Cimini, WR Arian Smith will miss time with a knee injury, and that leaves New York with only three healthy receivers on the 53-man roster.
In Other News...
Dolphins Blowout Loss Put One Rookie At The Center Of A Bigger Question
Jacob Rodriguez has quickly become one of the more interesting early-season notes for the Dolphins, even in a game the team would rather forget. In a 35-13 loss to the 49ers, the rookie linebacker kept popping up around the ball again, finishing with 8 combined tackles after a 14-tackle debut in Week 1. For a Miami defense looking for answers, the early production from a first-year player is at least a reason to keep watching.
Rodriguezs steady workload also points to a larger issue for Miami as the season unfolds. The Dolphins need young contributors to grow into real pieces of the roster, especially when games start to tilt the wrong way and veterans are unable to stem the tide. His early snaps and tackling numbers do not solve anything on their own, but they do put a spotlight on how much Miami may need its rookies to speed up the development curve. [Read more 🡒]
Dolphins Could Turn Useful Depth Into Something Bigger At The Deadline
With the NFL trade deadline approaching, the Dolphins suddenly find themselves in a familiar spot for a team trying to juggle present needs and future flexibility. Miamis roster has enough useful depth that a few names are now drawing attention around the league, and that kind of interest can turn a quietly sturdy depth chart into real deadline leverage if the front office decides it wants to chase draft picks instead of just holding serve.
Austin Jackson, Chop Robinson, Kenneth Grant and Jaylen Wright all fit into that broader conversation in different ways, whether because of contract status, recent production or simple market appeal. The bigger question for Miami is not just who other teams might call about, but how willing the Dolphins are to listen if a reasonable offer turns one of those pieces into more draft capital for a team that has to keep balancing the now against what comes next. [Read more 🡒]
Dolphins Have One Bigger Problem Than Their 0-2 Start
The AFC East picture through two games has already started to separate, and Miami is the one team feeling the pressure. The Dolphins sit at the bottom of the division after an 0-2 start, with the offense still searching for the kind of rhythm that would make them look like a contender instead of a team trying to steady itself in September.
At the top, Buffalo has done the opposite, opening 2-0 behind strong play from Josh Allen and a defense that has helped set the pace in the division. The Jets and Patriots are hanging in the middle at 1-1, which only sharpens the contrast for Miami, where the early struggles are about more than the record and leave a lot of questions still hanging over the season. [Read more 🡒]