Where Do the Dolphins Go From Here?

The Miami Dolphins weren't able to pull off an upset at Buffalo and get their first victory of the season Thursday night, but they also showed they could hang with one of the best teams in the NFL after putting themselves in a position to win the game.

And while Mike McDaniel says he doesn't want to hear about moral victories, he still should have been pleased with the Dolphins' effort against the Bills.

For one thing, the loss most assuredly bought him some time with owner Stephen Ross, which might not be a good thing for some of the team's most critical fans — though that depends on whether we buy the idea that a coaching change might have been happening had the Dolphins been embarrassed on national television.

The Dolphins were not embarrassed at all. On the contrary, they gave the Bills at they could handle, but came up short at the end because of two major mistakes — Zach Sieler's roughing-the-punter penalty that kept alive the game-winning touchdown drive, and Tua Tagovailoa's late interception on the Dolphins' potential game-tying drive.

Buffalo, meanwhile, didn't turn the ball over and didn't commit that kind of crushing penalty, and there you have the difference between a team that's 3-0 and maybe headed to the Super Bowl and one that's 0-3 and not headed to the Super Bowl.

But where are the Dolphins headed?

WHERE THE DOLPHINS GO FROM HERE

In the immediate aftermath, the game at Buffalo served as a reminder of what the Dolphins can be as a team when they're not killing themselves.

The offense still has all kinds of possibilities because of the speed of De'Von Achane, Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle and now even the added dimension of Ollie Gordon II bringing some physicality to the running game.

But this clearly isn't the explosive machine it was at times in 2022 and 2023, for several reasons. Among them is Tagovailoa simply not looking quite as sharp as he once did and also looking more skittish than ever in the pocket, which perhaps is understandable to some degree because the pass protection too often is less than ideal.

A perfect example of that was that interception when guard Daniel Brunskill was beaten cleanly off the snap by rookie Deonte Walker to immediately get in Tua's face and perhaps affect the throw a bit — though it also looked like Terrel Bernard just sniffed out the play from the start. Regardless, it would have been nice for Brunskill to slow down Walker for, say, one second perhaps.

And making matters worse there was the fact that Brunskill was in the game in the first place because the starter at right guard, Kion Smith, was pulled because he wasn't playing well enough.

Ugh.

The defense wasn't great by any stretch against Buffalo, but it did look better than against Indianapolis and New England, and that's against a much better offense.

After giving up three touchdowns through the first half and the first drive of the second half, the defense had three consecutive stops and on the verge of giving the offense the ball back in a 21-21 game.

The Sieler penalty erased that, and that's where the defense again caved.

The biggest issue on that defense remains the inability to create turnovers. As in any turnovers.

The Dolphins have now played three games and have yet to get a takeaway.

This is unprecedented stuff we're talking about here. Doing research all the way back to the 1981 season, this is a first for the Dolphins to not have a single takeaway on defense through three games.

That's gotta change at some point, right?

THE BIG PICTURE

At 0-3, history says the Dolphins basically are done when it comes to making the playoffs, though there always are exceptions to the rule, right?

Since the start of the 1990 season and heading into 2025, 165 teams had started 0-3 and of those only four went on to make the playoffs. That equals 0.24 percent (insert Jim Carrey's "Dumb And Dumber" quote about saying there's a chance.

Those four teams, for the record, are the 1992 San Diego Chargers, the 1995 Detroit Lions, the 1998 Buffalo Bills and the 2018 Houston Texans.

The Cincinnati Bengals also made it five last season when they rebounded to finish the season 9-8 and still were alive heading into the final Sunday of the regular season.

The bigger question right now then can the Dolphins beat those odds is whether they actually can make a run to become playoff-relevant in December?

Well, they've actually done just that two of the past four seasons.

Sandwiched around their playoff appearances of 2022 and 2023 were two near-misses in 2021 and 2024 after they rebounded from starting 1-7 and 2-6, respectively.

Compared to that, 0-3 doesn't sound so bad anymore.

But do these Dolphins have it in them to make that kind of run again?

The best stretches against New England and Buffalo would suggest the answer is yes. The self-destructive moments would suggest otherwise.

For McDaniel and his job security beyond 2025, it would behoove him to get the team on some kind of run.

And it better start with a victory against the New York Jets in the Week 4 Monday night.

For that game, there absolutely, positively will be no such thing as a moral victory and the outlook for him and the team will become crystal clear.

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