The Miami Dolphins defeated the Jets by a score of 20-3. The Dolphins move to 7-4 with the win, and the Jets remain winless at 0-11.

The New York Jets are as bad as they come. Every NFL team is made up of professional athletes, led by professional coaches, and that warrants some respect for even the worst of teams — but boy do the Jets make that hard. The Jets are so bad that they don’t even meet the criteria for a “trap game,” in my opinion. This is a team that should be beat every week, even if your team isn’t playing well.

And that is how this game played out.

Even though there were some positives in this game, there were also plenty of negatives that wouldn’t fly against any team that isn’t the Jets.

The Dolphins were led offensively by Ryan Fitzpatrick. Tua Tagovailoa missed this game with a thumb injury, allowing the veteran to take over for this matchup.

Fitzpatrick looked solid. It’s undeniable that Fitzpatrick is able to move the ball downfield more rapidly than Tagovailoa, as we saw last week when he had more passing yards in two drives than Tua had in eight. 

In today’s game, Fitzpatrick connected on 7-of-13 passes beyond 10 yards. Again, Tua did not complete a single pass beyond 10 yards last week.

Fitzpatrick finished the game: 24/39, 257yards , 2 touchdowns

After the game, coach Flores said that Tagovailoa would remain the team’s starter when he is healthy enough to play.

“Yeah, if he’s healthy, he’s the guy,” Flores said. “I don’t know how many different ways we have to continue to say that. You keep asking, I’ll keep answering the same way.”

Fitzpatrick connected with Mike Gesicki on a 13-yard touchdown pass, where Fitzpatrick floated it near the pylon and Gesicki made an impressive leaping catch.

The other touchdown came on a 7-yard touchdown pass to Adam Shaheen.

This was DeVante Parker’s best game of the season, as he finished with a season-high 119 yards receiving. He caught eight passes in this game — no other receiver for the Dolphins had more than two catches. He had a big 25-yard reception, which he reeled in after bobbling it. The officials ruled the play a catch, but it’s still a mystery to many how they came to that decision. It appeared to have been a rare instance where the Dolphins got a questionable call in their favor.

Parker has benefited off the switch to Fitzpatrick, as he has produced more with the veteran as the starter. In the seven games led by Fitzpatrick, Parker is averaging 69 yards per game. In the four led by Tagovailoa, he is averaging 39 yards.

Fitzpatrick explained how he is so productive when throwing to Parker.

“DeVante’s very special with the 50-50 ball and some of those tough catches,” Fitzpatrick said.  “So, for us, and really for me as a quarterback, if teams are going to give us the opportunity to do that, then I’m going to give DeVante the opportunity to make that play more often than not.”

Tight end Mike Gesicki had a solid outing in this game, finishing with two catches for 35 yards. Aside from his touchdown grab, he had a big 22-yard reception.

Running back DeAndre Washington led the Dolphins in carries this week, and looked like the best player in this backfield. He finished the game with 13 carries for 39 yards. He displayed terrific speed, allowing him to capitalize on a 16-yard run to the outside. He also caught a 6-yard reception, which in reality should have been a tackle for a loss, but he was able to extend the play.

Coach Flores was pleased with Washington’s performance in today’s game.

“I thought (Washington) ran the ball effectively,” Flores said. “We need that. Especially when we’re trying to close out a game. He had a run there in the fourth quarter that sprung the final drive that put us up 17.” 

Running back Matt Breida had the opportunity to seize the role, as he was receiving the bulk of the work. He had a productive 36 yards on eight carries — but a late game fumble forced the Dolphins to turn away from him.

Promptly after Breida’s fumble, Patrick Laird took over and had a fumble of his own.

Washington’s strong performance, and the potential returns of both Salvon Ahmed and Myles Gaskin could signal the end of Breida’s usage for the Dolphins — and likely the same could be said for Patrick Laird’s opportunities with the offense.

It was another rough outing for the Dolphins offensive line. Fitzpatrick was sacked four times, and was hit nine times. Though it could be argued that one, or two, of his sacks were a product of him trying to run — the pocket was far from clean.

Kicker Jason Sanders is playing as good as someone at his position could possibly play. He is an automatic machine, as he connected on field goals from 51 and 54 yards today. It’s only a matter of time until Sanders is paid like he’s the best kicker in football, as he should be.

It was another strong outing from the Miami Dolphins defense. They held the Jets to only three points in this game, and after the shutout in the previous matchup, they finished with a combined three points allowed versus the Jets this season.

Cornerback Xavien Howard’s case for best cornerback in the NFL was already strong, but now he is making a case for potential Defense Player of the Year candidate. Howard came down with his seventh interception this season, which makes him the lone leader of interceptions in the entire league. He has more games with an interception this season, than games without one.

His interception in this game came on a pass to Breshad Perriman, where Howard was able to lurk underneath and make a play on the ball. He also nearly had another interception earlier in the game, on a deep pass near the pylon, but it was dropped. He allowed a big 37-yard reception to Perriman in the first quarter.

Cornerback Nik Needham also had an interception in this game. Sam Darnold connected with Needham on a beautiful on-the-run pass, showcasing why the Jets are the best in the league at tanking for Trevor Lawrence. All jokes aside, the it was a terrible pass from Darnold and Needham took advantage of a gift that was put right in his lap. Needham was tasked with covering Jamison Crowder, who was held to only three catches for 31 yards.

It was a strong game from Elandon Roberts, who finished with five tackles and 0.5 sacks. Roberts had his weekly monster play, where he rips through the offensive line to make a huge stop. This week, it came on a fourth down play where he laid the hit stick on Frank Gore, stopping him dead in his tracks.

Safety Brandon Jones had a massive sack in the fourth quarter on third down, holding the Jets to a field goal. Jones was able to burst right through the center of the offensive line, flying in for his first sack of the season.

Linebacker Jerome Baker led the Dolphins in tackles with five, four of which were solo. He had a huge open-field stop on Ty Johnson and was also credited with half a sack.

Defensive tackle Raekwon Davis, who was credited with half a sack on a play with Kyle Van Noy, also had several big stops in the run game.

Aside from the terrible interception by Darnold, kicker Sergio Castillo also missed a 29- yard kick for the Jets. New York was insistent on winning this game, no matter how messy the Dolphins were playing.

Takeaways

Tua should still be the Dolphins starter. Fitzpatrick looked good in this game, but remember, this is the Jets. Every quarterback should look good against the Jets, and it wasn’t as if Fitzpatrick looked amazing. He looked solid, but there is a high likelihood that Tua could have looked pretty good in this game too. If Fitzpatrick lit up the scoreboard with 300+ yards, 4 touchdowns maybe it would be a different story, but this was just a solid game against a terrible team.

The Dolphins inability to stop the run is the only thing holding this defense back from being elite. Frank Gore’s 74 yards was the most by a running back this season for the Jets. The Jets are not known for being successful at running the ball, yet they had their best game against Miami. We saw what happened with the Chargers — and how it led to the collapse against Denver. Were Ballage’s numbers impressive? No, but if you put a capable running team in that situation they could take advantage of it. Were Gore’s numbers mind-blowing? No, but that won’t fly against most teams.

Chan Gailey needs to do a better job. It’s well known that the Dolphins need more weapons offensively. Then last week, Gailey said that Tua needs to take more chances throwing to contested receivers. At some point though, Gailey has to take some of the blame for the offensive struggles. The offense is still painfully conservative, and there are very few moments where there is a big play, or even a moment that catches the defense off guard. The Dolphins entered this game in the bottom three of passes of 20+ yards and passes of 40+ yards.