MIAMI GARDENS — It was a Monday night nightmare for the Miami Dolphins.
It already wasn’t going well when, as two-touchdown favorites, the Dolphins played tight with the Tennessee Titans for three and a half quarters.
But then the Dolphins took a two-touchdown lead. It looked like it was all secured.
They blew it.
Titans rookie quarterback Will Levis drove his team down the field for back-to-back touchdowns and Tennessee stole a 28-27 decision from the Dolphins in the first “Monday Night Football” game at Hard Rocks Stadium in six years.
Miami (9-4) failed to keep pace with the Baltimore Ravens for the AFC’s top seed and are now No. 2 in the conference, a game behind Baltimore and a game ahead of the Kansas City Chiefs and Jacksonville Jaguars. The Dolphins face the Ravens in Baltimore on Dec. 31.
Miami, which had won 17 of its previous 19 home games, left Hard Rock Stadium with the sour taste of missing opportunities in the red zone early that could’ve created distance with Tennessee and then having miscommunications in the secondary late.
“It was a legitimate team loss,” coach Mike McDaniel said after the game. “I think everybody had their hand in it.”
It’s the type of defeat that sounds familiar to longtime Dolphins observers of December breakdowns of years past, but the Miami locker room put on a resolute face afterward.
“I don’t think this is the same Dolphins team that everyone thinks about,” said quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, who finished 23 of 33 for 240 yards. “It’s not like the world ends because we lost this game. We’re human. We’ll continue to get better from this. This is the NFL; no one is perfect. That’s that.”
Titans running back Derrick Henry punched in a 3-yard touchdown to give Tennessee the lead with 1:49 remaining. It capped the comeback from a 14-point deficit, with the ensuing extra point giving the Titans the lead. The key was that coach Mike Vrabel went for a successful 2-point conversion after the first touchdown to make it so Tennessee was playing for the win.
The Dolphins, down 1, had one final chance, but on fourth-and-2 with the clock running, Tagovailoa was taken down by Tennessee’s Harold Landry for a sack.
“As I tried to maneuver through the pocket, I was trying to get a clear lane to find someone, but that’s how that went,” Tagovailoa said.
The momentum appeared to swing the Dolphins’ way in the middle of the fourth quarter when Titans punt returner Eric Garror inexplicably touched a bouncing punt. The muff was recovered by Miami special teams ace Elijah Campbell.
The Dolphins took advantage in short order. Two plays later, Raheem Mostert ran for a 3-yard touchdown.
Then, it snowballed for Tennessee. Levis made an errant pitch to Henry, and Miami outside linebacker Bradley Chubb recovered the fumble.
Mostert, who finished with 96 rushing yards, again scored two plays later.
But it wasn’t over. The Titans, needing two scores, had one two-minute drive capped by a Levis touchdown to DeAndre Hopkins, with a 2-point conversion to follow.
After a quick three-and-out, Tennessee again drove quickly and Henry punched it in to cap a four-play, 64-yard drive that took just 26 seconds, with a 36-yard pass to Hopkins, who had 124 receiving yards, sparking the series.
“It’s the NFL. Anything can happen,” Tagovailoa said of the shocking turn of events.
McDaniel noted miscommunications in the secondary leading to the quick Tennessee strikes.
“We just weren’t crisp on our execution on a few things,” cornerback Jalen Ramsey said, “but football, man, that’s going to happen sometimes. We try to limit it as much as we can.”
Levis finished 23 of 38 for 327 yards, a touchdown and an interception.
Tyreek Hill, exiting in the middle of the first quarter and returning in the middle of the third finished with four receptions for 61 yards. He was on and off the field late. Jaylen Waddle led the team with six catches for 79 yards.
The Miami defense held Henry to 34 yards on 17 carries, the last 3 yards being the decisive ones that were enough for the winning touchdown.
The Titans broke a 10-10 tie late in the third quarter on a short Nick Folk field goal after what was nearly a touchdown on third down. But what was ruled a catch in the middle of the end zone by Westbrook-Ikhine was overturned upon review.
The Dolphins also settled for a field goal to follow early in the fourth quarter that brought them back to even, 13-13. On a third-and-goal, Tagovailoa slipped in the pocket for a sack.
Trailing, 10-7, at halftime, a frustrating first half for the Dolphins featured injuries to Hill and center Connor Williams, a fumble lost while 2 yards away from the end zone, a blocked field goal and a Titans touchdown scored in a way that Miami made famous 15 years ago.
“You could point that as the No. 1 reason,” McDaniel said of missing out on red-zone opportunities with just two field goals to show for Miami’s first three trips inside the Tennessee 10-yard line. “There’s several people and several phases that will say they’re the No. 1 reason, but you can point to that as the No. 1 reason we didn’t win the game.”
The Dolphins scored first Monday when defensive tackle Zach Sieler intercepted a Levis pass at the Tennessee 5-yard line and rumbled into the end zone, pounding Levis at the goal line on his way in.
It gave the Dolphins an interception return for a touchdown in a third consecutive game, a franchise first, after pick-sixes from Andrew Van Ginkel and Jevon Holland in wins over the Washington Commanders and New York Jets, respectively.
The defensive score also followed a missed opportunity offensively where Miami drove to the Titans’ 2-yard line before Tagovailoa fumbled a quarterback-center exchange from Liam Eichenberg, picked it up and then fumbled again when brought down by defensive lineman Jaleel Johnson, who then recovered the football. Eichenberg was in the game because Williams injured a knee earlier in the series. Tagovailoa took the blame postgame and said he had a firm grip by the time the second fumble occurred.
The Titans tied the Dolphins at 7 in the second quarter when Henry punched in a 1-yard touchdown on a Wildcat play, which Miami famously ran well in 2008, the last year it won the AFC East.
Tennessee got down to the 1 on a Levis scramble. It was a drive that was extended by Chubb slamming his helmet in apparent frustration over missing a third-down sack on Levis before the quarterback ran for positive yardage but short of a first down.
“Just being frustrated with myself, and I let my problems be bigger than the team’s problems and hurt the team in a way that I don’t want to do that,” Chubb said. “Looking back on it now, just two more steps and I would’ve been perfectly fine.”
The Titans tacked on a field goal before halftime as Levis completed a deep pass to Hopkins when he appeared to pull cornerback Xavien Howard down but was not called for offensive pass interference.
The Dolphins got those 3 points back to start the second half, driving 77 yards in 11 plays as Cedrick Wilson Jr. had a 22-yard catch and drew a pass interference to set Miami up at the 10-yard line. The drive stalled, however, on third-and-goal from the 2 on an incomplete fade to Wilson, and Sanders made the 20-yard kick.
In the first half, the Dolphins had a 44-yard field goal blocked on an up-the-middle rush from defensive end Denico Autry, who got his hands up to deflect the kick.
In addition to Hill and Williams’ injuries, Miami had early injury scares with Waddle and Howard, but both re-entered.
The last time the Dolphins hosted a Monday night game was on Dec. 11, 2017, six years to the day of this game against the Titans. In that 2017 game, they edged the New England Patriots, 27-20, with Jay Cutler throwing three touchdowns and Howard, in his second NFL season, intercepting Tom Brady twice. Miami last played a Monday night game on the road in 2021, against the New Orleans Saints.
The Dolphins now stay at home on a short week, to host the New York Jets (5-8) on Sunday. It becomes a more vital game beyond the No. 1 seed in the AFC, as Miami also now has Buffalo just two games back in the division.
