Rasul Douglas has never been here before.
Despite a nine-year career that has taken him from the Philadelphia Eagles to the Carolina Panthers to the Green Bay Packers to the Buffalo Bills, Douglas has never started a season 1-5. Throw in the multitude of close losses – the Miami Dolphins have lost four games when they were either ahead or tied in the fourth quarter – and the 2025 season has been rather unprecedented.
“It’s frustrating,” the cornerback said Monday. “I don’t know how many times this place has been 1-5 or like this, but I’ve never been 1-5. I’m not used to losing, but I feel like every week we find a new way to lose. Like you would think that there’s only a few ways, but there’s multiple.”
The oft-used adage “football is a game of inches” has taken on a new meaning for the 2025 Dolphins, a team that has wilted away in late game situations as of late. From missed tackles to poor blocking to penalties, the Dolphins, to borrow Douglas’ phrase, have continued to find new ways to lose. Still, the closeness with which they’ve lost many of these games can be considered a positive amid the muck.
“You can’t win till you stop from beating yourself,” defensive tackle Zach Sieler said. “We got to make sure we hone in on the little things, because guess what, other teams are paid too. They’ve got great teams – across the NFL, I don’t care what the team’s record is, they are capable of winning games. We see it every year. So we now have got to get good at the little things where if they make that play, we have enough of a leeway or enough of resolve to be able to still win the game and get through those ebbs and flows of the game is how I tell guys.”
The examples of late-game flubs are, unfortunately, endless.
While most would point to Dante Trader Jr.’s missed tackle of Ladd McConkey at the end of the Los Angeles Chargers game as the most egregious example, let’s not forget that the defensive line failed to sack Justin Herbert on not just that play but the one previous. Then there’s Jonah Savaiinaea missed block that led to a sack on the Dolphins’ final offensive series against the Carolina Panthers, or even cornerback Jack Jones’ pass interference call on third-and-five during the subsequent drive.
Against the Bills, the Dolphins had quite a few mistakes, including Sieler’s roughing the kicker penalty that gave the reigning MVP in Josh Allen a whole new set of downs and eventually a touchdown or Tua Tagovailoa’s interception on a potential game-tying drive. The same can also be said about the New England Patriots matchup: the go-ahead kick return in the fourth quarter, Tagovailoa’s late-game interception, or even the four penalties and three sacks on the final two drives should all be considered factors in why the Dolphins lost.
“If we’re doing everything we need to do and it’s just that one person off, it’s that close – you wouldn’t want to have that negative mindset thinking things are about to go left,” Aaron Brewer said. “It’s a lot of season left, and it’s still room for growth and to correct those little mistakes and be clicking how we need to click and do what needs to be done.”
To be clear: this isn’t the Dolphins’ attempt to relish in a moral victory. The team is far past that point of the season; at 1-5, the wins have to start to roll in expeditiously or everyone’s job at risk. Instead, it should be considered an emphasis on the minute details that have repeatedly killed them.
“That’s what we’re saying right now: what do we need to do to dial in the little things to make it so we can handle if someone breaks a tackle or whatever, that it’s going to be, all right, we can take it on the chin and keep playing and finish the game with a win,” Sieler added.
Whether that’s actually possible, however, remains to be seen.
“We’re close,” Douglas said. “So that gives us hope that we can do it, but at the end of the day, you’ve got to do it. Nobody is going to care about how close you are.”