The Good

Tua Tagovailoa had a monster game, throwing for 382 yards and 3 TDs and posting a yards per attempt average of 10.6. He is the first QB in Dolphins history to complete 80% of his passes while throwing for over 350 yards and 3 TDs. This is the second monster game Tua has this season.

Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle are everything we imagined them to be. They combined for 294 yards and 2 TDs and were uncoverable all game long.

Overall, the offense gained 476 total yards, 27 first downs, 8 of 12 on third down and were relatively balanced with 26 rush attempts to 36 pass attempts. I would like to see more of Raheem Mostert as he is our most effective back and seems to rip at least 1-2 10+ yard runs per game.

The Bad

The defense conversely put the team in a 14-0 hole early. They had a tough time stopping the Lions. Admittedly, the Lions are pretty good on offense. They are 4th in total yards and 9th in scoring. But they did come off two straight games where they did not score a touchdown. On the bright side, the Lions have now not scored a point for two straight quarters, so the defense definitely fixed some things in the second half and played complimentary football. The unit that seemed to struggle the most against the Lions was the defensive line, who wasn't able to get much pressure until the second half. The Lions have a pretty good offensive line.

Special teams allowing that punt fake. We all know Dan Campbell and we all know that it exactly the situation where he would call something like that. Our special teams have gotten significantly worse this season.

The Ugly

It was a pretty close game against what is a pretty bad team on the road. But the Dolphins were able to come ahead in the second half. It could definitely have been a better performance, especially by the defense. But a win is a win.

Overall

The Dolphins are 5-3 and in a tight race in what is probably the best division in the AFC. Next week is a middling team in the Chicago Bears, who can't protect their QB (Justin Fields has been sacked 31 times). This would be a great opportunity for the front 7 to have a coming out party. Winning the next two games put the Dolphins in position to go 7-3 into the bye week to get healthy for the stretch run. Here's hoping they take care of business.

The Good

Honestly, we could have put every unit under "The Ugly" this week. All units had their good and bad moments. I think the main reason the Dolphins won this game was the defense. They held the Steelers to 10 points, including no points in the second half. They also forced 3 turnovers, all interceptions. The game was sealed on a Noah Igbinoghene interception, who has been forced into duty with all of the injuries to the secondary. Iggy epitomizes the "ugly" nature of this game. While he looked serviceable, there were times during the game that he still had lapses in coverage. But he made a great play to intercept the pass that basically ended the game.

Jaelan Phillips had 8 tackles and 1.5 sacks. He has been showing up more lately, but we do need to see more consistency from him.

It was good to see Tua back and he looked sharp early on. Jaylen Waddle had 4 catches for 88 yards and Raheem Mostert had 79 yards on 16 carries.

The Bad

I'm not sure what McDaniel was thinking going for it on 4th down after Edmonds got stuffed on third down. Even worse, why did he hand it right back to Edmonds on 4th down and expect a different result?

Also, overall the offense that started off red hot went into a shell once the Steelers started taking the middle of the field away. It doesn't seem like McDaniel ever adjusted for this. His counter was to run it, which worked at times, and continue attacking the middle, which didn't. I believe the primary reason the offense stalled was because there were not good adjustments made by McDaniel. He's a young coach that has instilled a bunch of hope and energy into his team, but obviously he has some improving to do on gameday and that is to be expected.

The Ugly

Speaking of said offense, and Tua in particular, it was a very Jekyll and Hyde performance. Tua came out on fire and stayed hot but cooled off as the Steelers began countering the Dolphins approach.

Overall

Tua is back, the Dolphins win. But it was an ugly win. There is still a lot of work to do on this team on both sides of the ball, but at least they stopped the losing streak.

Next up are the Detroit Lions, who are 1-5. This is definitely a game the Dolphins should win, especially if Tua is at QB.