MIAMI — When did the second day of the week turn into Second Guessers Day?

When Indianapolis’ Antoine Bethea grabbed the end-zone interception that ended the Dolphins’ 27-23 loss Monday? When Pierre Garcon motored over the goal line with the decisive touchdown with 3:13 remaining?
Or, when the Dolphins ran a trap play on third-and-6 from the Colts’ 30-yard line before kicking a field goal that left them ahead 23-20 with 3:50 remaining and Peyton Manning on the other sideline?
Whenever it started, there was no shortage of it among Dolphins followers Tuesday. That is, those followers who had the energy for it.
At the Touchdown Club at Miami Lakes’ Shula’s Steak 2, running back Patrick Cobbs was talking about himself, but could have been describing the subdued audience when he said after working so hard last week, “to see it go the other way, it’s draining.”
So, let’s start with the aforementioned third-and-6 and the score tied at 20. Or, let’s go back to 56 seconds left in the second quarter. On third-and-7 from the Colts’ 32 with the score tied at 10, the Dolphins saw the Colts with only three down linemen and ran a draw play to Ricky Williams that gained 5 yards. The Colts called a timeout. After Dan Carpenter nailed a 44-yard field goal to give the Dolphins a 13-10 lead, the Colts threw together a 43-second drive to a field goal that ended the first half with the score tied at 13.
The Dolphins had a run and pass called and, because of the coverage and defensive front, chose the run. They did the same thing on the fourth-quarter third-and-6.
“We did not, contrary to popular belief, just call a run play,” coach Tony Sparano said. “We called an either-or play, a ’check-with-me’ play to try to give us the best situation possible. And, really, the play we ran was the best situation. I don’t second-guess the call. Now, whether or not we executed the play well enough ...
“In the course of that game, we executed a lot of run plays pretty well. We didn’t quite execute that play well enough.”
Ronnie Brown picked up 3 yards. Carpenter kicked the field goal. The Colts had 3:50 remaining, all three timeouts and Manning, one of the best quarterbacks in NFL history at such moments. Manning drove the Colts 80 yards in 32 seconds to the deciding touchdown. Thus, the Dolphins treated a similar situation in a similar manner and got a similarly dissatisfactory result.
Sparano, however, thought the run was the better call because of the possible negatives that accompanied a pass.
“One is that it’s incomplete and you stop the clock for those people,” Sparano said. “You don’t gain a timeout from them one way or the other. The other thing on third-and-6 that can happen is you can get sacked; that can take you out of field-goal range, and you didn’t give your team a chance to win the game.”
Sparano also admitted the waste of time and a timeout at the start of the game’s final drive was caused by a play being radioed in to quarterback Chad Pennington that didn’t fit the players on the field. The Dolphins ran only two plays and used that timeout in the 1:13 that preceded the two-minute warning.
As far as defensive second-guessing, the Dolphins barely bothered Manning in the pocket on Indianapolis’ last two drives. It’s axiomatic that stopping Manning, New England’s Tom Brady or their possible successors starts with a pass rush. The Dolphins had some success earlier in the game by disrupting Manning’s timing with blitzes.
“We tried to run some interior games at them. We did try to pressure them a few times, and he got the ball out fast, went to maximum protection,” Sparano said.