With less than two minutes remaining, Miami Dolphins head coach Mike McDaniel had a choice.
The conventional option was to kick a chip shot field goal to take a 16-13 lead and trust the defense to keep the Washington Commanders from driving down the field to tie it up with a field goal of their own or score a game-winning touchdown. McDaniel elected instead to try to plow straight ahead with Ollie Gordon, a plan that worked earlier in the game when the rookie bulldozed into the end zone for a 1-yard touchdown.
Gordon didn’t even come close the second time around.
The Commanders caved in the right side of Miami’s offensive line and several Washington defenders were waiting to bring down Gordon for a loss.
“You don’t make that decision unless — I thought the play was going to work, and it didn’t,” McDaniel told reporters after the game. “Looking at it from, it was about 1:47 or something with no timeouts, a field goal gives them the ball back. Their special teams is very adept at getting the ball between the 30 and 40, which would leave about 25 yards for a tying field goal, as opposed to going 60 yards when they’re backed up.”
Washington essentially got those 60 yards. A pair of Marcus Mariota passes to Deebo Samuel and Jacoby Jones picked up 28 and 25 yards, respectively. A couple Jeremy McNichols runs and a Zach Ertz reception picked up another 6 yards and the Commanders had a 56-yard field goal try from Matt Gay to win it.
Fortunately for McDaniel, the Dolphins defense didn’t allow Gay to get any closer and the Commanders kicker pushed the attempt just a bit wide to the right.
“Those are the type of situations that you try to do the best thing with the recourse of failure, and that was an example of defense stepping up,” McDaniel said. They held when it was most critical, and to get it three phases, a complementary football game where we got takeaways in two phases and didn’t turn the ball over, it was an important win for our team. I definitely wouldn’t have made that call if I thought it was going to fail, but you also make that decision based upon the recourse if it doesn’t work.”
According to Josh Dubow of the Associated Press, the Dolphins are only the second team in the 21st century to opt against a go-ahead field goal and go for it on a fourth-and-goal in the last two minutes of a tie game.