The Kansas City Chiefs reached the second round of the NFL playoffs with a 26-7 victory over the Miami Dolphins in the bitter cold on Super Wild Card Weekend. A rookie made NFL history.
Dolphins @ Chiefs: At a glance
- In one of the coldest games in NFL history, the Chiefs had little trouble with the conditions, but the Dolphins apparently did.
- Rookie receiver Rashee Rice made playoff history for the Chiefs.
- The Dolphins were let down primarily by their offense and their play-calling. They also had glaring weaknesses in defense, which the Chiefs only exploited to a limited extent.
Dolphins @ Chiefs: The Analysis
Despite the bitter cold, the Chiefs started relatively aggressively and threw three passes in a row to start. The third from Patrick Mahomes to Travis Kelce also brought the first 1st down. Afterwards, you decided to run against mostly easy boxes, after you had previously shown your willingness to throw. In the end, Mahomes found Rashee Rice for an eleven-yard touchdown pass on a drag route against off-coverage. Rice had plenty of space and no trouble.
The Dolphins then began the way they had been operating for long periods of the game: with runs on early downs that repeatedly brought them into long third attempts from which they rarely escaped. At the end of the first quarter, Tua Tagovailoa threw deep over Jaylen Waddle under pressure and the ball fell to safety Mike Edwards for an interception. In return, KC made it into the red zone, but settled for a 28-yard field goal.
Shortly afterwards, the visitors had their only bright spot of the first half: Tagovailoa fired a deep pass to Tyreek Hill, who went on a go route after Jet Motion, caught the ball under pressure from Trent McDuffie, broke free and scored a 53-yard Completed touchdown catch. But this was by no means an initial spark for the Dolphins. As a result, they made little progress and were even stopped once on a fourth attempt. The Chiefs, in turn, scored two more field goals before halftime through Harrison Butker, who added one a little later.
It was over when Isiah Pacheco capped a long drive early in the fourth quarter with a three-yard touchdown run. This was aided by a very generous roughing-the-passer penalty against Christian Wilkins, who had slightly pushed Mahomes outside the pocket while the referees overlooked a clear holding by the Chiefs. In any case, the guests no longer had an answer.
Miami Dolphins (#6) @ Kansas City Chiefs (#3)
Result: 7:26 (0:7, 7:9, 0:3, 0:7) BOXSCORE
Dolphins @ Chiefs: Key stats
- This was Hill’s 28th playoff game with at least 50 receiving yards. That’s tied with Hall of Famer Terrell Owens for the fifth most in NFL history.
- With a temperature of -4 degrees Fahrenheit (-20 degrees Celsius) at kickoff, this was the fourth coldest game in NFL history.
- Rashee Rice had eight receptions for 130 yards. That’s the most receiving yards for a rookie in a playoff game ever.
The star of the game: Patrick Mahomes (quarterback, Chiefs)
Mahomes and the Chiefs only noticed the cold to a limited extent. Mahomes was very efficient through the air, avoided mistakes and always found the open receiver, especially under pressure. He also caused a lot of damage on the ground with two scrambles. The Dolphins just couldn’t find an answer for him.
The flop of the game: Offense (Dolphins)
It’s hard to single out just one “culprit” here. The overall offensive construct was the problem here. It started with Mike McDaniel’s play-calling, which was just bad. He kept running on early downs, which never worked and always got Tagovailoa in trouble. And he rarely broke free from 3rd & Long. Even when it was 3rd & short, he unnecessarily complicated everything with his play-calling instead of trying to keep it simple. And Tua was once again imprecise in the cold and made too many mistakes.
Analysis: Dolphins @ Chiefs – that stood out tactically
- The Chiefs played with 2-high looks and zone as usual and did not assign a specific defender to Hill, but instead handed him over depending on the formation. In addition, as is usual for Steve Spagnuolo, they only used blitzes in obvious passing situations.
- By playing close coverage as always, Tagovailoa had to hold the ball for longer than ever before (2.8 seconds on average before the break, then under 2.6 seconds in total, which is still very long by his standards), because they often took the first read from him. Similar to what happened in Frankfurt in Week 9, this repeatedly caused him to lose his rhythm and made his passes imprecise.
- The Dolphins defense played as expected for Vic Fangio and his current staff with all the injuries, especially at the edge positions: they blitzed a lot – on almost half of all dropbacks – because of the lack of individual class up front. Mahomes usually did this with quick passes, often over the middle. And in the secondary, Jalen Ramsey was left on his side, he didn’t specifically attack a receiver, so Mahomes mostly stayed out of his way. Rather, passes to his side were short, safe passes without much risk.
- It was striking and incomprehensible that the Dolphins were repeatedly beaten with crossers over the middle, because in the rarest of cases a cornerback who was close to the snap went with his receiver. Either you hand over into coverage or you stay stuck to the opponent. Neither often happened.