3 Dolphins to blame (and 3 who can't) for poor performance against the Seahawks

The Miami Dolphins don't look like the high-powered offensive team everyone expected. Three weeks into the season, the Dolphins look like a team destined for a top-5 draft pick in 2025.

There was a lot of finger-pointing against the Bills, and the win against the Jaguars was not without concerns. In Week 3, the Dolphins looked completely lost. Now fans are not hiding their concerns, and it's about much more than just the loss of Tua Tagovailoa. The Dolphins are not good.

If the Dolphins want to improve and get better, they need to wake up quickly. The level of play wasn't good enough. In this article, we'll take a look at three guys who struggled against Seattle, while also pointing out three playmakers who don't deserve any blame at all:

Calais Campbell had a sack in Week 1 and another in Week 3. Campbell is showing his age. The Dolphins didn't make many good moves last offseason, but bringing in Campbell is more than paying off so far.

Campbell and Zach Sieler play well together and are only getting better as the season progresses. The more they play side by side, the better they are able to anticipate each other's moves on the field. Sieler has emerged as a leader of the Dolphins defense and the team as a whole.

There's no way to sugarcoat it. Skylar Thompson's play to close out the Bills game and his start against the Seahawks were both brutal. Whatever the Dolphins saw in training camp needs to be reevaluated. Thompson was marginally better than Mike White, but against Seattle, fans wondered how bad White would have been instead.

Thompson's injury was an insult to his day. He couldn't make consistent positive plays, couldn't move the ball forward consistently, and, worst of all, the Seahawks didn't have to do much to unsettle him. The Dolphins won't release Thompson, but there's no reason he should still be on the team in 2025. If they do, Stephen Ross needs to fire his general manager. It would be one thing to lose him due to a lack of experience, but this is his third season in this system and like McDaniel's plays, nothing has changed.

When De'Von Achane was drafted, McDaniel celebrated in the draft room. Achane had an injury early in his rookie season, but it looked like he could make it in the NFL – 2024 is supposed to be his coming out, the year he shows the NFL that he is one of the best. The problem so far? McDaniel's moves are not doing him any favors.

In Week 3, Achane was a bright spot in an otherwise terrible game. He ran 11 times for just 30 yards. Most of the time he was in bad position behind an offensive line that couldn't block. He caught three passes for 25 yards. Why isn't he being used more?

With Tagovailoa out, McDaniel should have drafted a run-heavy offense, but he didn't. Achane is a playmaker, and the more time he gets, the better he gets. Unfortunately, the Seattle game was another waste of his talent.

Which player on the offensive line should you point the finger at? You could probably name five, one for each player. The line was terrible, but the worst part wasn't the lack of pass protection, it was the lack of discipline. False starts are not uncommon in Seattle, but the Dolphins were penalized for holding, illegal formations, and yes, false starts. In total, 11 penalties were called against the Dolphins offense in this game. That is unacceptable.

McDaniel criticized that line in his postgame press conference, but maybe we shouldn't blame them. Most of them wouldn't be starting on other teams. They need to get better, and soon, if the Dolphins want to turn the season around. The lack of discipline is obvious, and that needs to change. Butch Barry needs to fix that before they play the Titans at home in Week 4.

No matter how much you devise a game plan, if the players don't execute it, it won't work. That's the saving grace for most head coaches, but not for McDaniel. The Dolphins' head coach, as we've pointed out before, is not part of the solution; he's part of the problem.

Fans believe McDaniel should be 100 percent calling his plays, and nothing he's done so far this year has convinced anyone that he's capable of calling the game. McDaniel's game plan against Seattle was mind-boggling, as it was as if he had spent 10 days whining about losing his starting quarterback.

Nothing McDaniel did against Seattle worked, and he can't blame it all on the players. His running game showed signs of life, but he insisted on letting his backup quarterbacks throw the ball despite their inability to do so accurately. When the game needed to be adjusted, McDaniel again failed to make decisions that worked.

By the end of the first half, fans on social media were all over McDaniel. Running a play-action fake when a Hail Mary was the only option looked like something a high school coach would do. Not sending a single player to the end zone for a Hail Mary didn't make sense either.