SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- Just before the final two-minute warning of the Miami Dolphins' 35-13 loss to the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday, quarterback Malik Willis found receiver Ryan Miller for a 77-yard touchdown -- his first touchdown pass of the season and the team's longest passing touchdown since Week 1 of the 2024 season.
Willis wasn't impressed.
"I felt good for Ryan, I didn't feel good for the Miami Dolphins," he said. "That didn't help us. I mean, obviously it helped on the stat sheet, but it didn't help us as a team."
The Dolphins spent the past week in northern California in preparation for what offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik called "a really good challenge" against the 49ers, and will return home from this two-game road trip, after losing to the Las Vegas Raiders in Week 1, with more lessons than victories.
San Francisco scored touchdowns on each of its first five possessions, including both of their two offensive drives in the first half. Dolphins coach Jeff Hafley called the game "a tale of two halves" after Miami watched a 14-6 halftime deficit balloon to a 29-point hole within minutes.
Hafley said his team began the game strongly, but 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy found a wide-open George Kittle for a 40-yard completion on the first play of the second half, ultimately setting up a Kittle touchdown three plays later.
The 49ers went on to score two more touchdowns in their next 10 plays to put the game out of reach.
"We did something extremely uncharacteristic on the first play of the half that went for an explosive," Hafley said. "And we had another huge mistake that went for a touchdown. So quickly, it hit us in the face really hard in the second half. And we didn't coach well enough in the second half, we didn't play well enough. So really disappointing.
"Thought we had a great week of preparation and I felt like we were ready to play better. And the first half we did -- the second half was just not good enough in any phase."
The discrepancy in overall experience between the Dolphins and 49ers was clear in a game between the youngest and second-oldest teams in the NFL respectively. Seven of Miami's top 10 leaders in defensive snaps Sunday have played in the league for fewer than two seasons.
The veteran Purdy had more total touchdowns (3) than incompletions (2), and San Francisco's offense averaged 7.8 yards per play as 49ers receivers consistently found open field. According to NextGen Stats, Purdy's targets created 4.8 yards of separation on average, the most in the NFL this week.
"You've got guys who's [in] the second game ever in the league and they're playing a championship team," linebacker Jordyn Brooks said. "So it's like you don't want those things to happen, but I always look at things from the positive side and I'd rather them happen now, where we can learn from them and build later. As the season progresses, we get better and better.
"We get these mistakes out the way and we try to close the gap and get better as the season goes on."
Hafley said he "didn't see that coming" when asked about the start to the second half, and said his players needed to learn from it -- although he admitted that any struggles "start with me."
Miami closed the game with a pair of forced punts on consecutive drives before scoring on the pass to Miller. Brooks said games like Sunday's teach players who their teammates are. It's easy to be upbeat after a win, he said, but losses are when players' true character comes out.
"When you get beat the way that we got beat today, you start to see who's who," Brooks said. "And so you can see the character of men. Are we going to still play hard even though there's no way to win this game? We down, we getting hit here, we getting hit there. Are we still going to play hard?
"So I think that was the cool part to see is that we didn't execute, we didn't win, we didn't play the way that we wanted to play ... but we still fought. So we could work with that. You know what I mean? That's something that we take and we keep building as the season goes on. So at least we got the 'want to,' and if we got the 'want to,' we've got a chance."
The Dolphins host Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs in Week 3, their first home game of the season and another matchup against a veteran-led team that can punish a young team for its mistakes.
Brooks said Miami has the "right guys" in the locker room and things will not "unravel" as the season progresses. Defensive tackle Zach Sieler said the team can use the positive moments from its 0-2 start as building blocks for the remainder of the season.
"The first thing I'm going to turn on is those last two minutes, see how we play and then we'll go back to the start," Sieler said. "That first half, I feel like we had them. We were doing good, we've just got to finish. There are some little things here and there that we let up and we gave them and I feel we gave them a lot of stuff. It's a good team. It's a good ball club. And that's how you win, is you make their guys make the mistakes. And we (made the mistakes). So we've got to make those corrections and just accelerate that growth."