08:30 Sun 10-25-09
In a game that just about everything imaginable happen, it was the unimaginable that will stick with the Miami Dolphins after they saw a 21-point lead slip away to the undefeated New Orleans Saints in a devastating 46-34 loss at Land Shark Stadium.
Drew Brees was picked off three times and sacked five times but still managed to complete 22-of-38 passes for 298 yards and three touchdowns and keep New Orleans' record perfect. Up until the two-minute warning of the first half, nobody would have predicted another win for the Saints as the Dolphins were rolling with a 24-3 lead.
It was Miami's offense striking fast as Ricky Williams capitalized on a an interception by Tyrone Culver to score on a 5-yard run the very next play and then he broke loose for a 68-yard touchdown later in the first quarter to make it 14-3. He finished with a career-high three touchdowns in the game, but it wasn't enough as the Saints got two interceptions returned for touchdowns, one for 42 yards by Darren Sharper and one for 56 yards by Tracy Porter to salt the game away.
The tide started to turn in the closing two minutes of the first half after a Davone Bess fumble was reviewed by instant replay and upheld, giving the Saints the ball at midfield with 1:38 remaining. Brees converted one key first down and then on 3rd-and-6 from the 21 with 12 seconds remaining Brees found Marques Colston, who made a leaping catch and dove across the line for what looked to be a touchdown.
But after a booth review it was ruled he was short. The Saints were going to have to settle for the field goal because the clock was going to start right away but the Dolphins called a timeout with five seconds left in the half, giving New Orleans a chance to change its mind and go for it. Brees kept it and stretched the ball over the line for the score so the Saints when into the locker room trailing 24-10.
On the third play of the second half, disaster struck for Miami as Saints safety Darren Sharper got a friendly bounce on a deep sideline pass to Ted Ginn, Jr. The ball hit Ginn in the hands and bounced off of Porter into Sharper's hands for an interception. He took it 42 yards the other way for a touchdown that was challenged by Miami because it looked like Ginn came back and stripped Sharper of the ball before he crossed, which would have resulted in a touchback. The play was upheld and just like that it was 24-17.
"It was a tale of two halves really," said Dolphins veteran outside linebacker Jason Taylor, who finished with two sacks and two forced fumbles. "We played pretty well in the first half except for the last drive and we kind of gave some momentum away there, allowed them to get a touchdown when they should have only had a chance for a field goal there at the end. Then we came out in the second half and turned the ball over, created penalties, gave up big plays, didn't tackle and we did dumb things."
Dolphins cornerback Nate Jones helped steal some momentum from New Orleans when he picked off Brees in his own end zone for a touchback to kill another scoring drive, and after an exchange of punts, back-to-back sacks of Brees by Joey Porter and Phillip Merling on one play and Taylor on another gave Miami chance to retake control of the game.
On 3rd-and-17 Taylor hit Brees from behind and knocked the ball loose again and this time Randy Starks recovered at the New Orleans 15. Williams on first down swept left for 4 yards to the 11 and on 2nd-and-6 Ronnie Brown was in trouble and suffered a 4-yard loss back to the 15. On 3rd-and-10 Henne was hit as he threw for Williams so the Dolphins had to settle for Dan Carpenter's 33-yard field goal to stretch the lead to 27-17 - and they would be outscored 29-7 the rest of the way.
Second-year quarterback Chad Henne, who was coming off of a stellar performance in the win over the New York Jets two weeks ago, struggled to an 18-for-36 performance for 211 yards and the two interceptions. He saw the Saints switch up some things in the second half in a desire to slow down Miami's running game, which had piled up 120 yards and three rushing touchdowns on just 22 carries in the first 30 minutes, and managed to hit one big pass play of 67 yards to rookie receiver Brian Hartline that set up Williams' third score of the game, but he found a lot tougher sledding in that second half.
"We had good field position [in the second half] but they had some adjustments at halftime," Henne said. "They brought more pressure and made me get rid of the ball a lot sooner than what we wanted. We handled it sometimes. We hit a slant with Hartline there and we had some plays in there where we made some plays, but it just boiled down to that we didn't make enough plays."
That play to Hartline followed by Williams' 4-yard run into the left corner of the end zone gave Miami a 34-24 lead headed into the final 15 minutes, but the Saints just kept on coming and Brees and tight end Jeremy Shockey found something in the secondary they could exploit the rest of the way. Shockey caught a 66-yard pass from Brees on the first play of the fourth quarter and finished the night with four catches for 105 yards.
In the end, the Saints did what undefeated teams tend to do during a winning streak, which is take advantage of their opportunities. For the Dolphins, it felt similar to the game they let get away against the Indianapolis Colts in Week 2, and Head Coach Tony Sparano reminded them in the locker room after the game about how important it is to keep a team down when you have them down.
"I told them that they had to give that team credit. They finished the game and we didn't," Sparano said. "That's been kind of our deal. We finish games. One of the things we really wanted to do in this game was get this team into the fourth quarter and kind of get them into a place where they hadn't been, ad I thought that we did that. We just didn't finish the game.
"We had untimely penalties, we had dropped balls, we had interceptions and we had penalties. We just didn't do a good job of executing fourth-quarter football. That's my fault. We didn't look like a very good football team in the fourth quarter."
The Dolphins fell to 2-4 on the season with two division road games up next - the Jets next Sunday and at the Patriots on November 8th.
INJURY UPDATE: Dolphins veteran cornerback Will Allen left the game in the second half with a knee injury and did not return.
PLENTY OF HIGHLIGHTS DESPITE LOSS: Williams gained 80 yards on the ground on just nine carries and also caught two passes for 12 yards. The last time he scored three touchdowns in a game was when he was with the Saints back on October 22, 2000 at the Atlanta Falcons, but he was more concerned about the end result than his personal performance.
"It feels worst because something that we're trying to do, we talked about them being front-runners and we got up in front and we didn't handle it well," Williams said. "That's something that hopefully over time we'll get better at. We usually don't go three-and-out. That's not us so when the game's on the line, at home especially, we have to do a better job of executing in that situation."
Miami's defense forced Brees into a third-and-out on his opening series, marking the first time this season the Saints have not scored on their opening drive. Brees had an ugly 29.4 passer rating through two quarters and was 12-of-22 for 104 yards and two interceptions while New Orleans' vaunted running game managed just 23 yards on eight carries.
But Brees righted himself in the second half, which is not an easy thing to do for any quarterback, and that's what frustrated Taylor and the rest of the players on defense the most.
"We did what we needed to do and what we talked about doing in the first half," Taylor said. "We were pressuring him, trying to force turnovers and create negative plays for them and we did a good job of it in the first half. We just didn't do it in the second half and you've got to finish games in this league. No matter what the score is or what the situation is at halftime, you have to come out of the locker room and continue doing what you were doing well in the first half or correct what it was you weren't doing and we just didn't do that in the second half."
One other highlight was the hustle play of rookie cornerback Vontae Davis on Roby's 87-yard kickoff return as he never gave up on the play and made the touchdown saving tackle.
"I just had to open up and go get him," Davis said. "He was out of the gates. I just tried to run as hard as I could and pick a time to lay out and I did it at the right time."
DOLPHINS TIDBITS: Brees had only thrown two interceptions all season in five games prior to today. ... This was Taylor's 30th multiple sack game.
INDIVIDUAL STATISTICS
RUSHING
Miami: R. Williams 9-80, R. Brown 16-48, L. Polite 3-7, T. Ginn 1-5, P. White 1-(3).
New Orleans:: M. Bell 12-80, P. Thomas 8-30, D. Henderson 1-13, R. Bush 3-10, D. Brees 2-3, H. Evans 1-2.
PASSING
Miami: C. Henne 18-36-2-211, R. Brown 0-1-0-0.
New Orleans: D. Brees 22-38-3-298.
RECEIVING
Miami: G. Camarillo 5-55, B. Hartline 3-94, A. Fasano 3-21, D. Bess 3-13, T. Ginn 2-16, R. Williams 2-12, J. Haynos 1-17.
New Orleans: M. Colston 5-72, J. Shockey 4-105, D. Henderson 4-71, R. Bush 3-16, L. Moore 2-18, H. Evans 2-3, P. Thomas 1-14, D. Thomas 1-(1).
