Dolphins Notebook: Ingold Fighting Fine From NFL

“I think when you have a clicker and you’re not on the field, you can see a lot and you can kind of chase ghosts,” Ingold continued. “I can’t imagine that play not happening hundreds of times every single Sunday.

“I’m pretty upset about that, but (it is the) cost of doing business. It’s that edge of setting the tone but doing your job and protecting the team. That’s a tough one to swallow.”

Some of Ingold’s teammates are quite sympathetic to his plight.

“Come on, man. We’re playing football out here,” said Robert Hunt, the Dolphins’ starting right guard. “He’s going against bigger guys. How the hell did he get a fine? It’s crazy.”

Sieler inspires defenders

The Dolphins defense had plenty to prove in the win against the Patriots considering it followed the previous week’s dismal showing against the Chargers.

Even though Christian Wilkins is a team captain, and is viewed as the leader of that unit, it was his fellow linemate Zach Sieler who gave a motivating speech minutes before kickoff against the Patriots.

“Zach kind of hit us, the D-line, with some real (expletive) before the game. I’m not going to say what he said but the message was received,” Wilkins said. “We just kind of had that on our minds and we knew we had to play better.”

The Dolphins held the Patriots to 88 rushing yards on on 25 attempts, and 288 total yards, which was a drastic improvement from the 433 total yards Miami allowed against the Chargers, and a league-high 233 rushing yards and three rushing touchdowns.

Solution for snapping issues?

The Dolphins have been having snapping issues with center Connor Williams since the preseason, and it’s been disappointing to see the center-to-quarterback exchange remain an issue in the first two regular season games.

Both games have featured snapping issues, and last Sunday's snapping issue forced a 55-yard field goal Miami missed in the fourth quarter. 

How does head coach Mike McDaniel plan to address it? By reverse engineering it, focusing on the fundamentals and technique.

“We’re seeking out and finding every piece of our game that we can improve upon and that is the non-negotiable prerequisite," McDaniel said. "So anything that happens, whether it’s a weird distribution, a missed tackle, a blocked kick – all of these things you can either say – I think our mode of our whole team is to find those, look them straight in the eye and correct them because the only way to get better, to continually improve.”

This and that

-- Safety Verone McKinley III cleared waivers, which the Dolphins now can re-sign him to their practice squad if they wish (though he also can sign with any NFL team. McKinley was waived Saturday when the Dolphins signed veteran Da'Shawn Hand to the 53-man roster from the practice squad.

-- Linebackers Cameron Goode and Chase Winovich reverted to the practice squad after playing against the Patriots on Sunday night. Goode now has used up two of his three available elevations for the regular season. After one more appearance, the Dolphins would have to sign him to the 53-man roster for him to be able to play in a regular season game.