Officials and Steelers Hand Miami Dolphins Thier 3rd Loss

Very Rarely will I blame the officiating for a loss, but this game came down to the officials and they blew it! In the fourth quarter the Steelers ran a play on 3rd and goal, where Rothlisberger kept it for a quarterback sneak and scored a touchdown, or so he thought.  Miami challenged the play because they felt that a hit from Chris Clemons forced Rothlisberger to fumble the ball before he scored the touchdown. Miami also felt that they had recovered the ball in the end zone, which would mean the Dolphins would get the ball at their own 20 yard line.  This is when things went wrong.  The Officials reversed the call saying that Rothlisberger did fumble the ball before he scored, but they said they could not tell who recovered the ball.  This meant that they gave the ball back to Pittsburgh on the 1/2 yard line, which led to the eventual game winning field goal.  What I don't understand is how they could not see who recovered the ball.  As soon as the ball was fumbled Ikaika Alama-Francis jumped on the loose ball and eventually came up with the ball.  I don't know how much more obvious it had to be.


The officiating was not the only problem in this game for the Dolphins, they repeatedly shot themselves in the foot by not converting great opportunities into touchdowns but rather settling for field goals.  To win in the NFL  you have to be able to score touchdowns, you cannot rely just on field goals.  Another very poor area for the Dolphins today was their third down conversion rate, which led to all of those field goals.  On the defensive side of the ball the Dolphins have to do a better job of stopping opposing teams on third downs.  Finally someone has to help Tony Sparano with his game management skills.  I have never seen a coach repeatedly throw his timeouts away.

Overall it was a very disappointing day to be a Miami Dolphin fan.  There were some positives in this game though, Chad Henne looked very good at times and lets face it the Dolphins lost by 1 point to a team that many consider to be the best team in the NFL.





The Dolphins will now travel to Cincinnati to face the Bengals next Sunday.  What we need now Dolfans is for the Patriots and Jets to finally start losing some games!