The Titans comeback to win Monday night’s game in Miami was something that hasn’t happened in a long time.
Per the Elias Sports Bureai, no team had come back to win a game in regulation when it trailed by at least 14 points with under three minutes to go since the Raiders rallied for a win over the Steelers on September 12, 1976. The loss came on a night when the Dolphins failed to capitalize on red zone opportunities and the defense couldn’t make late stops, which is why head coach Mike McDaniel called it “a legitimate team loss” in his postgame press conference.
McDaniel also said “it’s a hard, hard lesson” that no lead is safe and said he thinks his team will “rise to the occasion” when he was asked if the loss could be the catalyst for something more positive down the road.
“I think you have to because it’s a humbling game, and you think that you’re a good football team, but then each and every week you have to prove that on the field and you can’t take anything for granted,” McDaniel said. “Right now it feels terrible, but that’s everything that we’ll be trying to do moving forward because these types of losses can be very galvanizing, but it takes literally every person in the locker room and coaching staff, and you have to — as long as guys aren’t pointing fingers, which I feel like there’s a lot of people looking internally, you have that chance, and that’s what we’ll be spending our time doing.”
The Dolphins will stay at home in Week 15 to face a Jets team they blew out on Black Friday. That looks like a good opportunity for them to put things right back on track, but it remains to be seen just how much of a hangover a loss like Monday’s will leave on the AFC East leaders.
