Despite having an 11 point lead in the fourth quarter and a lead up until 5 minutes left in the game, the Dolphins lost another heart breaker last night. CJ Anderson's 10-yard run up the middle with 5:01 left put Denver ahead 32-28, and Denver wouldn't lose the lead again.
Denver did a great job of balancing the game with 35 rushing attempts, and 35 pass attempts, while the Dolphins just couldn't find a way to stop Anderson who had 27 carries for 167 yards. I didn't anticipate Miami giving up 201 yards on the ground and allowing the Broncos to covert 8 of 12 third downs. The defense has been the strong point for the Dolphins all year; when the Dolphins score 36 points you expect to win. So what went wrong?
I thought for
Peyton Manning to lead the Broncos down the field in less than two minutes to end the first half and cut the score to 21-17 was huge. The Dolphins defense has been great all year but they need to find ways to come up with big stops, at big times, in big games. Despite that, they had the lead back up to 28-17 heading into the fourth quarter.
The Dolphins allowed over 200 rushing yards for the first time this year, and yeah Denver's offensive line played well, but there were far too many missed tackles for Miami.
