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00:00Monday Night Football, a finale to week number 10 of this 2024 NFL season.
00:08The second half, the first week of the final half of this year, now officially in the books
00:14and a crucial game on a Monday night inside SoFi Stadium out in Los Angeles between the
00:20Rams and the Dolphins.
00:21LA had won three straight games to get back to an even 500, resurrecting their season.
00:27Miami in a 2-6 hole, but where health has been the main concern for the Dolphins and
00:33mainly quarterback Tua Tungabailoa, they have looked so much better in the previous two
00:38weeks entering the Monday night finale.
00:40And it turns out that better offense was matched by an elite defense last night as the Dolphins
00:47go into the City of Angels and win outright as a 2.5 point underdog, 23-15.
00:53Lofty total for a primetime game of 48-and-a-half stays well under by double digits.
01:00The Dolphins defense, Joe, really the reason Miami was able to snap its three-game skid
01:05and keep just a little bit of hope left for the remainder of 2024.
01:09Yeah, it was a little bit shocking that that full compliment on the Rams offensively was
01:17available to Stafford, you know, having Nakua and Kopp and company available to them.
01:25And yet they not be able to do pretty much anything.
01:28I mean, they both racked up some yards, but none of, neither of those wide receivers felt
01:34like they played any sort of big role.
01:35I mean, if you don't score a touchdown and I know Miami's defense doesn't get a lot of
01:40credit because of all the L's that they've been racking up because offensively they've
01:45been a mess, but they were a top 10 ranked unit there, Ben, in terms of total yards allowed
01:50per game.
01:51They were only allowing about 300 yards a game.
01:55And I think they allowed what, 327 last night, but they didn't give up a touchdown and they
01:59forced two turnovers.
02:00So give credit to the Miami defense for showing up.
02:04I still wasn't particularly impressed with the Dolphins offense, but it was good enough
02:08when the Rams just kept kind of shooting themselves in the foot and did not look in sync at all.
02:14I'm a little shocked from the McVay coach team at this point, that that's what we would
02:19get in a very tight NFC West race that the Rams are very much a part of right now.
02:26An important game for the Rams because had they won to make it four consecutive victories
02:31along with San Francisco, they would have been five and four Arizona atop the NFC West
02:36at this moment at six and four, the Rams now desperately trying to keep pace and Joe entering
02:42the year.
02:43I thought the AFC would be the gauntlet of a conference in the national football league.
02:47In fact, it's the NFC where a very large winning record, multiple games above 500 is going
02:53to be necessary to even flirt with a wildcard birth to the postseason, which does then lead
02:59to a little bit of hope for the Dolphins because the back half of the AFC is not all that strong
03:05this year.
03:06And Joe, it's always really interesting when you stare at box scores and you look at the
03:09play-by-play chart, you don't really get the sense of a game flow, but you can follow
03:14how the contest mostly played out.
03:17And it's always fun to read into and just make a blanket statement does not tell the
03:21entire narrative of a game.
03:23But if I were to tell you the Rams scored on five of their final six possessions and
03:29on the only non-scoring possession, it was just a missed field goal.
03:33So they had an opportunity in Dolphins territory.
03:36You would have said, did they score 40 plus points and beat the Dolphins by 20 plus?
03:41No, because all five scores were a Joshua Cody field goal.
03:45The rookie kicker out of Stanford, regardless of what Matthew Stafford and Kyron Williams
03:50and Puka Nikua and Cooper cup were able to muster up in terms of yardage offensively.
03:55They could not find the end zone Miami bent at times, but the Dolphins, these certainly
04:01did not break to me.
04:03That was the story of Monday night.
04:06But I, again, when you fail to find the end zone in three red zone opportunities and,
04:12and really Ben, they didn't convert a third down until the second half.
04:17So, and this is all while Stafford and company there, I mean, Nikua and Cooper cup had been
04:24when all together healthy and playing eight and three averaging nearly 28 points a game,
04:30almost 400 yards of total offense.
04:32They scored 15, no touchdowns had 327 yards offense.
04:36And Nikua almost went for a hundred yards and cup had 80 and they still couldn't find
04:42the end zone.
04:43So I think that tells you just how good Miami was when it mattered the most in downs and
04:50situational football last night, give credit to the Dolphins defense who did more than
04:55enough to be able to give their offense a chance to win the game.
04:58And that's exactly what they did.