Football Fan Site

The Miami Dolphins stayed in the playoff race Thursday night with a gritty performance to beat the Carolina Panthers 24-17 in Bank of America Stadium.



The season sure looked bleak for the Dolphins two months ago. They started 0-3. Quarterback and team MVP Chad Pennington was gone to a season-ending shoulder injury.



Yet here the Dolphins are at .500 and with a great shot at a winning record for the first time this year. So what that Pennington’s injury threw second-year quarterback Chad Henne into the maw and Ronnie Browns’ season-ending foot fracture left the workload to 32-year-old Ricky Williams?



After banking two victories in a four-day span, the Dolphins will enjoy a weekend off and some extra time to prepare for the reeling Buffalo Bills in Week 12.



The Dolphins have won three of their past four games and still are smarting from narrow losses to elite opposition. They failed to close out games against Indianapolis Colts (late fourth-quarter lead) and New Orleans Saints (up by 21 points late in first half).



In there, the Dolphins can extract plenty of reasons to be confident for the homestretch.



The problem, though, is that there are so many competitive AFC clubs this year. The way it looks at the moment, the only team that will advance from the AFC East will be the team that wins it. The wild-card race appears stacked.



Still, the Dolphins are legitimate wild-card contenders if they can somehow cope with injuries.



As mentioned in the Rapid Reaction post, the already tattered Dolphins have gotten even more frayed. Center Jake Grove and nose tackle Jason Ferguson were the biggest injuries. Their offensive line depth was tested.



“The injuries were tremendous,” Dolphins coach Tony Sparano said. “It affected special teams. We had three centers out there. We had guys playing positions they didn’t practice.



“They just kept grinding out there.”



Ferguson’s loss could be mammoth. The Panthers dominated the Dolphins’ run defense all night, rolling up 182 yards. Down the stretch, the Dolphins will face the likes of Chris Johnson, Maurice Jones-Drew, Marshawn Lynch and Rashard Mendenhall.



It won’t be easy, but the Dolphins are pretty good at doing things the hard way.

Ricky Williams rushed for two touchdowns and caught a pass for another as the Miami Dolphins held off the Carolina Panthers for a 24-17 on Thursday night and improved to .500 for the first time this season.

You can’t blame Jake Delhomme for this one. Yes, he did throw on interception to end his streak of three games without an interception, but that one didn’t crush the Panthers. Overall, Delhomme was fairly efficient and Carolina also had a good night from the running game in Thursday’s 24-19 loss.



Also, who thought it would be a good idea to have Delhomme throwing the ball 42 times? Hasn’t it been well established that Delhomme is a game manager and not the kind of guy you want slinging it 42 times? When you’re a team that’s supposedly built on the running game, you should stick with the running game.



You can put the blame for this loss on a couple of other things. Let’s start with the offensive line. With left tackle Jordan Gross out for the season with a broken ankle, the offensive line struggled to protect Delhomme. He was sacked four times and several of those killed drives.



You can also blame the defense and I say that was the biggest culprit of all. A John Fox defense is supposed to be dominant and the Panthers weren’t even close. Veteran running back Ricky Williams looked like a young Ricky Williams as he ran for 119 yards and two touchdowns. The Dolphins got a very efficient performance from quarterback Chad Henne.



Speaking of Henne and the Carolina defense, the Panthers didn’t have a single sack. Julius Peppers, playing with a broken bone in his hand was pretty much a non-factor.

You can’t quite say the Carolina Panthers are done, but that’s mostly because six weeks remain in the season.



But the Panthers are very close to being done. Let’s do the math. They’re 4-6 and would pretty much have to run the table to have a real chance at a wild-card berth. If they go 5-1 in their final six, they’d be 9-7 and that’s not always good enough to get you into the playoffs.



So there’s almost no margin for error for the Panthers, but there are plenty of opportunities for errors. Just look at the remaining schedule, which includes the Jets, the Buccaneers, the Patriots, the Vikings, the Giants and the Saints.



Look at that list again and tell me you honestly think the Panthers can win five or six of those games?



The playoffs aren’t looking like a good chance to get to the playoffs. You know what that means? Probably the end of the John Fox era. Yeah, I think Fox is a good coach and he’s done some great things for the organization.



But the one thing Fox hasn’t done is have back-to-back winning seasons and ownership is well aware of that and losing patience. Fox led the Panthers to a 12-4 record in the regular season last year, but was upset in a home playoff game to Arizona.



He could have gotten back into good graces with another winning season and another playoff berth. It doesn’t look like that’s going to happen.

In previewing Thursday night’s game against the Carolina Panthers, I noted the Miami Dolphins would have to dig deep to win without star running back Ronnie Brown.



Little did we know they would have to dredge the depths of their roster to pull it off.



The raggedy Dolphins found a way to defeat the Panthers 24-17 in Bank of America Stadium. The Dolphins have fought back to .500 after a 0-3 start and remain in the playoff picture.



Aside from getting shredded by the Panthers’ ground game and a harrowing finish, the Dolphins were convincing in light of significant personnel problems.



The Dolphins had only three days to concoct a game plan sans Brown, their leading rusher and Wildcat triggerman. Ricky Williams responded with a three-score game. He ran for 119 yards and two touchdowns and caught two passes for 19 yards and a touchdown.



Chad Henne completed 17 of 29 pass attempts for 172 yards and no interceptions. Joey Porter recorded his first multi-sack game of the year.



Even more remarkable than winning without Brown, however, was the Dolphins’ ability to survive a series of injuries throughout the game.



Center Jake Grove was hurt 70 seconds into the third quarter. Grove’s replacement, Joe Berger, got hurt with about 10 minutes left in the game. Nate Garner, who started the game at left guard for Justin Smiley, became the third center. He went down with a leg injury with about five minutes left.



Got all that?



The biggest injury, however, was on defense. Nose tackle Jason Ferguson suffered a knee injury on the final play of the third quarter. He was carted to the locker room and didn’t return.



Williams mysteriously didn’t finish the game. Lex Hilliard took the critical carries when Miami tried to kill the clock in the waning moments. Williams appeared fine on the sideline, but was spotted having a serious talk with the team’s training staff after his third touchdown. We’ll update if there’s an issue.



Those injuries could resonate for the rest of the season, but for now — playing on Thursday gives the Dolphins a weekend off — they can feel good about staying in the playoff hunt.

I said earlier I thought Vontae Davis had made a mistake by jawing with Steve Smith early in the game. The proof of that just came through as Smith beat Davis for a touchdown catch.



Did you see Smith’s initial reaction as he got up after the catch? He quickly looked for Davis and appeared ready to do something to add insult to Davis’ injury. But Smith didn’t get the chance.



Tight end Dante Rosario quickly put his arms around Smith and that kept the little guy from doing any further damage. Smith’s touchdown and a two-point conversion by DeAngelo Williams has cut Miami’s lead to 17-4 with 5:13 left in the game.

Miami Dolphins nose tackle Jason Ferguson was carted to the locker room with an apparent knee injury suffered on the final play of the third quarter Thursday night against the Carolina Panthers.



Carolina has been abusing Miami on the run, rolling up 162 yards already. Ferguson’s injury will sting. The way he left the field and the expression on his face suggested the injury could be significant.



He’s not as good as a Vince Wilfork or a Kris Jenkins, but he’s in that 3-4 mold, a run stopper who can absorb multiple blockers.



The Dolphins went into Thursday’s game without backup defensive tackle Paul Soliai because of an ankle injury.

The Miami Dolphins‘ offense woke up in the second quarter and looked pretty impressive without Ronnie Brown, taking a 14-3 halftime lead over the Carolina Panthers in Bank of America Stadium.



The display is surprising given Brown’s absence and the fact the Dolphins had only three days to devise a strategy that didn’t include their most dynamic player.



Although center Jake Grove nearly short-circuited the drive with a pair of penalties, the Dolphins went 81 yards on nine plays for a touchdown with 3:57 left in the half.



The series was dotted by big plays. Chad Henne found Brian Hartline for 36 yards. On the next play, Ricky Williams ripped off a 17-yard run and closed it out with a 14-yard catch and run on third down.



The drive also marked the first NFL touches for Lex Hilliard, and he was remarkable. His first NFL carry went for 13 yards, but a Grove holding penalty erased it. But Hilliard contributed maybe the biggest play of the drive when he burst up the middle for 18 yards to convert a third-and-16.



Williams scored his second touchdown out of a Wildcat play. The Dolphins removed Henne from the game and inserted an extra blocker to help Williams make a 1-yard leap to the pylon just before the intermission.



Miami entered the game ranked fourth in run offense, but has leaned on the pass more than usual. Henne has attempted 18 passes, but running backs Williams, Lex Hilliard and Lousaka Polite have rushed a combined 11 times.

Miami outside linebacker Joey Porter didn’t waste any time making his presence felt. A week after head coach Tony Sparano deactivated him, Porter already has five tackles and two sacks at halftime of Thursday night’s game against the Carolina Panthers.



For the first time in nearly three weeks, he made a tackle. And for the first time since Week 3 he registered a full sack. Both plays came on the game’s opening drive. He tackled DeAngelo Williams on the first play from scrimmage and dropped Jake Delhomme for a 4-yard loss to force a field goal after 11 plays.



Porter, who led the AFC in sacks a season ago, got to Delhomme again in the second quarter. It’s Porter’s first two-sack game since Week 14 of last season.



Porter was shut out against the New England Patriots in Week 8 (even though he faced rookie tackle Sebastian Vollmer most of the day) and was benched for Sunday’s game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Pompei: As the game became more complex and the stakes became higher, the 100-hour work week became the norm for today’s NFL coaches. And they can blame Jon Gruden for setting the standard.