{"id":379739,"date":"2025-09-19T07:48:14","date_gmt":"2025-09-19T07:48:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/379739\/"},"modified":"2025-09-19T07:48:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T07:48:14","slug":"instant-reactions-to-the-dolphins-loss-to-the-bills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/379739\/","title":{"rendered":"Instant reactions to the Dolphins’ loss to the Bills"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"play\"<\/p>\n

49ers turn to Mac Jones, Caleb Williams remains under fire<\/p>\n

USA TODAY Sports’ Joe Rivera and Chris Bumbaca break down some of the most notable overreactions from Week 2 of the 2025 NFL season.<\/p>\n

Sports Seriously<\/p>\n

Is it almost sundown in the Sunshine State for Mike McDaniel?<\/p>\n

Recent rumors suggest that the Miami Dolphins head coach’s seat is warming<\/a>, but maybe not burning hot just yet. The 31-21 “Thursday Night Football” loss to the Buffalo Bills<\/a>, though, moved the hands of the Miami doomsday clock closer to midnight.<\/p>\n

The Dolphins<\/a> are now 0-3 on the 2025 season. With back-to-back losses in the AFC East, they’re slipping further from Super Bowl hopes that were pervasive earlier in McDaniel’s tenure.<\/p>\n

Thursday night may have been a small step forward for the Dolphins, with a relatively competitive game with the AFC East leaders. Still, there are no moral victories in the NFL.<\/p>\n

So, what’s the outlook for the Dolphins and Mike McDaniel after the “TNF” loss? Here’s how some of USA TODAY Sports’ NFL experts feel.<\/p>\n

Dolphins still have some fight left<\/p>\n

The Bills<\/a> are far and away the best team in the AFC East. They are 3-0 for the second straight year and have won two consecutive games within the division. Josh Allen<\/a>, James Cook<\/a> and Buffalo\u2019s offense is tough to stop. As long as the defense continues to be above average, the Bills will be a Super Bowl contender.<\/p>\n

The Dolphins are on the opposite end of the spectrum. At 0-3, the Dolphins find themselves in an early hole that\u2019s going to be tough to overcome. Tua Tagovailoa<\/a> was very conservative with the football and continues to make untimely mistakes. He had a bad interception late in the fourth quarter that was the game\u2019s pivotal play.<\/p>\n

The good news is Mike McDaniel\u2019s team fought hard in Buffalo despite questions about the head coach\u2019s job status. It\u2019s easy for a team to check out when a coach is on the hot seat, but the Dolphins showed Thursday night that they still have some fight left.\u00a0\u2013 Tyler Dragon, NFL insider<\/p>\n

Mike McDaniel’s seat cooling?<\/p>\n

The Bills didn’t look their best and it didn’t matter. They remain one of the teams to beat in the AFC, but the story is about the team in South Beach. With McDaniel’s seat seemingly on fire heading into Thursday night, the Dolphins showed plenty of fight and even had a chance to pull off the upset \u2013 despite a deeply flawed roster that’s also littered with injuries. If anything, this game likely cooled McDaniel’s seat for the time being as Miami’s real issues came to light. \u2013 Nick Brinkerhoff, NFL writer<\/p>\n

Dolphins still heading in the wrong direction<\/p>\n

The Dolphins displayed great effort for their head coach, demonstrating that he still has support in the locker room, especially with impressive touchdown drives at the start and end of the first half. However, Buffalo is simply too strong. Miami’s defense allowed 33 points to the Indianapolis Colts and New England Patriots in its first two games so tonight was a slight improvement. The Dolphins don’t stand a chance against teams with a competent offense right now. Miami played hard but these teams are headed in opposite directions.\u00a0\u2013 Tom Viera, NFL writer\/editor<\/p>\n

No moral victories for Miami<\/p>\n

Sure, Dolphins fans can look at the scoreboard and say, “Well, they didn’t get blown out!” The scoreboard has a more important figure, though: 0-3. The Dolphins entered the 2025 season with boom-or-bust expectations, and through three games, Miami’s season is firmly in the “bust” section. Yeah, there’s plenty of season left, but only six teams in NFL history have made the playoffs after an 0-3 start. Don’t count Miami as the next \u2013 it simply doesn’t have enough, especially with questions being asked about the job security of Mike McDaniel and Tua Tagovailoa’s standing as a franchise quarterback. \u2013 Joe Rivera, NFL editor<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"49ers turn to Mac Jones, Caleb Williams remains under fire USA TODAY Sports’ Joe Rivera and Chris Bumbaca…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":379740,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[857,247,265,90,215,214,53,217,7,20842,856,872,216,251,677,679,248,267,246,88,6,35196,245,264,529,9,266,678,7877,24,528,536,7876,3452],"class_list":{"0":"post-379739","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-allen","9":"tag-american","10":"tag-american-football","11":"tag-analysis","12":"tag-bills","13":"tag-buffalo","14":"tag-buffalo-bills","15":"tag-dolphins","16":"tag-football","17":"tag-hub","18":"tag-josh","19":"tag-josh-allen","20":"tag-miami","21":"tag-miami-dolphins","22":"tag-modular","23":"tag-modular-story","24":"tag-national","25":"tag-national-sports","26":"tag-neutral","27":"tag-news","28":"tag-nfl","29":"tag-nfl-hub","30":"tag-overall","31":"tag-overall-neutral","32":"tag-point","33":"tag-sports","34":"tag-sports-news","35":"tag-story","36":"tag-tagovailoa","37":"tag-the","38":"tag-to","39":"tag-to-the-point","40":"tag-tua","41":"tag-tua-tagovailoa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115229865120082027","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=379739"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379739\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/379740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=379739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=379739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=379739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}