MIAMI — OK, I admit it. I’m dizzy. Confused. Torn in two. On the one hand, you can understand what the Dolphins wanted to do Monday night.

On the other hand, they did it.
In fact, you want to know the scariest part of Monday night’s 27-23 loss to the Colts?
It wasn’t that the Colts had scoring drives of 12, 32 and 43 seconds, though that was scary for what it says of the Dolphins’ defense. It wasn’t that the Indianapolis tight end Dallas Clark might still be running free in the Dolphins secondary. That was scary, too.
It wasn’t even the strangest halftime show ever. After an offseason of celebrity headlines, after a nice pregame atmosphere of paparazzi and orange carpet walks, the halftime show consisted of Jimmy Buffett fans dancing on the field — but no Buffett. What, he blew out his vocal cords in pregame?
No, the scariest part was the Dolphins game plan worked just as they drew it up. They wanted to run the ball. They ran 61 times for a staggering 239 yards.
They also wanted to keep the ball out of Indianapolis quarterback Peyton Manning’s hands. He ran just three plays in the third quarter.
They wanted to control the clock. They had the ball more than three-quarters of the game. The 45 minutes, seven seconds they had possession was the most by an NFL team that lost since 1977. Thirty-two years. Read it and weep.
In short, the Dolphins wanted to play more conservatively than Dave Wannstedt. And they did. On third-and-6 late in the fourth quarter, they refused to throw the ball, just as they did much of the night.
Ronnie Brown ran into line for 3 yards. They played for a 45-yard field goal. Dan Carpenter made it. The Dolphins led, 23-20. And everything looked fine, except for one rather glaring and obvious problem.
Manning was coming back on the field with another simple lesson on how this thing called the forward pass works. Bing. Fifteen yards to Reggie Wayne. Bang. Seventeen yards to Clark.
And, bingo, a 48-yard touchdown pass to Pierre Garcon for the game-winner.
“When you have a team on the ropes, you have to finish them,” linebacker Joey Porter said. “All we needed was one more stop.” At some point, the Dolphins have to decide if quarterback Chad Pennington can be trusted to throw the ball downfield. Because if he can’t be asked to do more than the glorified Jay Fiedler role he played Monday night, then it’s time for a change.
And if Pennington can’t run a better late-game offense of clock management? Well, maybe it wasn’t his fault. This is typically his strength. But this offense wasted time and then had to use a timeout to prevent a delay-of-game penalty. Then didn’t get a play off before the two-minute warning.
What happened?
“You’d have to ask coach Sparano that question,” he said. “I’d be disrespecting my coaches and teammates if I answered it.” Without a big-play offense, the Dolphins have little margin for error. That’s obvious. What’s also obvious is they can’t go into a game simply trying to play keep away from the other team and settling for field goals.
This game was the fable of the tortoise and the hare put to football. And the hare won.
Manning passed 80 yards to Clark on the first play for a touchdown. Twelve seconds. The Dolphins took nine plays to cover 75 yards for its first touchdown. Six minutes and six seconds.
That’s how it went all game. The Dolphins’ longest pass was for 21 yards to Ted Ginn Jr. The Colts passed for 80, 48, 39, 24 and 20 yards.
The Dolphins ran 23 plays in the third quarter and didn’t score. The Colts ran three plays in the third quarter and didn’t score.
The Dolphins kept playing for field goals and getting them. The Colts kept throwing for touchdowns and getting enough.
When the Dolphins needed to throw the ball downfield to win the game, they couldn’t do it. Pennington’s final pass of the game ended with an interception in the end zone.
“It doesn’t matter what the statistics are, how lopsided they are,” Pennington said. “It wasn’t good enough.”
So the Dolphins game plan worked almost to perfection. And they didn’t win. That’s the scary part.