The Miami Dolphins came to Lambeau Field on Thursday night with the mission to “kill narratives” that the NFL team can’t win in cold weather. Instead, it snowed, and the Dolphins lost to the Green Bay Packers 30-17.
When Miami defeated the New England Patriots 34-15 on Sunday at Hard Rock Stadium in Florida, the temperature at kickoff was 77 degrees. When the Dolphins kicked off in Wisconsin on Thanksgiving, the thermometer read 50 degrees colder.
So even though the facet of play that might be expected to be most adversely affected by the weather – Miami’s passing attack – put up strong stats, the can’t-win-in-the-cold tag will accompany the Dolphins when they close their regular-season schedule with road games against the Cleveland Browns on Dec. 29 and New York Jets on Jan. 5.
“Man, them guys looked like they was cold out there,” Green Bay running back Josh Jacobs said, “so we was ready to get to it.”
Jacobs isn’t exactly a veteran of the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field either. He’s in his first season with Green Bay after coming from the Las Vegas Raiders in free agency in March.
“It actually wasn’t that bad,” Jacobs said about the weather. “It was kind of cold after halftime. I think that’s because you’re kind of wet and going back out there. But it wasn’t as bad as I thought.”
Miami coach Mike McDaniel said he didn’t think the cold had anything to do with the Dolphins’ defeat but also knew his team didn’t shake the warm-weather-winners label.
“You carry that until you do something about it,” McDaniel said, “and unfortunately, we didn’t tonight.”
Miami had 10 penalties marked off against it, and the NFL’s Next Gen Stats said the Dolphins missed 20 tackles in the game, which accounted for an additional 132 yards for the Packers.
“The weather and the cold, I didn’t really see that as much of a factor as it was playing football and technique and fundamentals of bringing our feet collectively and getting our hips into tackles and wrapping up,” McDaniel said. “I think the biggest thing is that on a Thursday night game in a short week, you have to be clean, and we weren’t. They were a lot cleaner in terms of penalties. In terms of just our style of play, how complementary we were specifically in the last game, we were not that tonight, and I thought they made us pay.
“For instance, the first drive, you’re three-and-out to get the ball back, and that special-teams turnover equaled seven points. A turnover on downs on the 1-yard line equaled seven points. That’s 14 points in a 13-point game. …
“We weren’t failing to snap the ball before delay of game or false-starting because of the cold. I think that the tape will show that when we watch it (Monday). But like anything else, you eventually have to overcome it if you are trying to do anything in this league, so that narrative -- like good teams and etc., etc., correlation, causation -- it will always exist until you defeat it, so I think our guys will look forward to executing in the cold weather at the next opportunity because I think that they know that they can, so they need to and they want to, so we will take advantage of that opportunity when it comes.”
On the punt that ended the Packers’ first possession, Miami wide receiver Malik Washington didn’t handle the football cleanly, and Green Bay recovered the muff at the Dolphins 9-yard line to set up the opening touchdown.
Miami quarterback Tua Tagovailoa threw two touchdown passes in the second half to get the Dolphins back in the game. But the scores sandwiched a possession that reached the Green Bay 1 without producing any points.
“I think it affected their whole team,” Packers safety Xavier McKinney said of the weather. “Obviously, they’re coming from Miami. It’s hot there, and then they come here and play in that cold weather, you get affected by it, so I think it affected everybody.”
Jacobs, McKinney and Tagovailoa were teammates at Alabama.
On Thursday night, Tagovailoa completed 37-of-46 passes for 365 yards with two touchdowns and no interceptions while enduring five sacks.
Tagovailoa set a career high for completions, turned in the seventh game in NFL history in which a player threw 46 or more passes and completed at least 80 percent of them and posted the second-most passing yards against the Packers in the past five seasons.
Despite those numbers, Miami’s record with Tagovailoa as the starting quarterback in games with kickoff temperatures of 47 degrees or colder dipped to 0-8.
Jacobs said he talked to Tagovailoa on the field after the game.
“We didn’t talk about (the cold),” Jacobs said. “We just kind of talked about his family. His family has always been very generous and kind to me. They’ve always treated me like family, so I just told him to tell his family I said, ‘Happy Thanksgiving’ and that I love them.”
