The Takeaways, Week 11: Miami Dolphins over Washington

November 17, 2025

by Steve Thomas

Welcome to another edition of The Takeaways, which are my instantaneous, off-the-cuff weekly postgame reactions.  Washington played much better this week than they have in more than a month, but still came out on the losing end in overtime against the Dolphins by a score of 16 – 13.  This game qualified as a heartbreaker for Washington fans.  With a record of 3 – 8, the competitive portion of the season is now unofficially over for Washington, and the team should now transition to figuring out what players will be of value going forward.  The good news about this game was that it was an entertaining affair, complete with multiple goal line stops by both teams.  The bad news, of course, is that Washington’s fall from grace continues.  I didn’t expect Washington to improve from last season, for a variety of reasons, but I did not anticipate such a disaster in 2025.  That’s where we are at the moment, though, and from a schedule perspective, it doesn’t get much better from here on out, so . . . enjoy the rest of the season, I suppose.  The Takeaways for week 11 are below.

The turnover battle proved to be decisive

I mentioned in the written game preview and on The Hog Sty Podcast that Washington needed to win the turnover battle in this game.  Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa led the league in interceptions heading into this week, and as a team, Miami had a -7 turnover ratio.  Unfortunately, that didn’t happen here, with the only turnover in the entire game coming at the most inopportune time imaginable in the form of an interception courtesy of a bad pass by Marcus Mariota on the first play of overtime.  Don’t get me wrong – Washington had plenty of chances to win this game prior to overtime, but in this case, the turnover battle proved to be decisive.

Red zone success and failure

The most obvious feature of this game was each team’s success and failure in the red zone.  Incredibly, including overtime, these two teams had a combine 9 trips into the red zone and collectively emerged with just 2 touchdowns, 4 field goals, and 3 goal line defensive stops.  Even one success by either team would have made the difference in the game and eliminated the need to go into overtime.  Washington’s defense certainly did well on the goal line in this contest, but their offense was equally as bad in this regard.  I certainly didn’t anticipate multiple goal line stands / failures being the other decisive element in Washington’s loss.  This will be yet another thing to judge and discuss throughout the week.

Improved defensive playcalling and performance

Yes, the defense did seem better than in previous weeks, if for no other reason than they didn’t allow the Dolphins to run the score up like they did over the last four months.  The good news is that Washington avoided the all-time NFL record number of blowout losses in a row, so that’s at least not another negative.  In all seriousness, the team’s defense looked to be more involved and engaged than in previous weeks.  We also saw a corner blitz, which is a refreshing change of pace.  On the other hand, the Dolphins certainly don’t have the same level of offense as do former opponents like the Seahawks and the Lions, so this performance probably needs to be appreciated un that context.  Regardless, despite the loss, this game was something of an improvement on defense, at least by some measures.  That having been said, they still allowed the Dolphins to repeatedly march down the field, so don’t applaud too much.

. . . but the run defense still failed

Unfortunately, run defense was not one of those measures.  Miami had a total of 31 carries for 169 yards, for an average of 5.5 yards per carry, and 1 touchdown.  De’Von Achane, who we mentioned in our preview was Miami’s most important offensive player, had 21 carries for 120 yards, for an average of 5.7 yards per carry.   Even if you remove his long run of 23 yards from the calculation, he still averaged 4.9 yards per attempt.  Therefore, despite the overall improved performance in terms of points allowed, the run defense still gets a bad grade.  The only saving grace was Javon Kinlaw’s big stop at the goal line in the Dolphins’ final possession in the 4th quarter.  Overall, this portion of the game was a definite fail.

Chris Rodriguez’s big day

On the good side, Chris Rodriguez had one of the better games of his career, with 15 carries for 79 yards, for an average of 5.3 yards per carry.  The team got away from him in the fourth quarter, but for awhile, he looked almost dominate in this game.  Here’s to hoping that this is the start of good things for Rodriguez going forward.  They having been  said, we’ve seen this sort of thing from other backs this season, but don’t bet the house on this one continuing.

Bonus Takeaway: Matt Gay’s misses

Yes, Matt Gay missed two more kicks.  All I’ll say to this is that both misses were on kicks of over 50 yards.  He’s actually been very good this season under 50.  This game was certainly not his proudest moment, but many more things went wrong here than just Matt Gay’s two long misses.

That’s it for The Takeaways for this week.  Enjoy Washington’s week 12 bye week, and I’ll be back when the team faces off against the Denver Broncos at home in Raljon on November 30 in a Sunday night game on NBC.