Dave Hyde: Dolphins must make a stand Monday night and right season

If the Miami Dolphins plan to look like a real team, Monday night against Tennessee is the place to start.

If they don’t beat the 0-3 Titans, this won’t just be the season they don’t catch up to the Buffalo Bills in the AFC East, as was the grand plan a couple of games ago.

It means they’ve dug themselves a 1-3 hole that would have the feel of a grave. It means fans would have every right to wonder where another season is going in a September where, so far, they’ve produced one good quarter against Jacksonville.

It’s early, far too early, for a must-win game. But this one has all the smell of that Monday night.

Everyone knows what the Dolphins are up against. Their quarterback, the third to start in September, has been here two weeks. Their star left tackle is out again. Their leading tackler and second cornerback are hurt on defense, too.

So, enough boo-hoo excuses will huddle up with the Dolphins on Monday night at Hard Rock Stadium if they want to take them. But enough of all that.

Enough of the injury talk. Enough of looking lost on offense. Enough of playing with a lack of belief that’s been tangible at times.

Enough of this bad start.

It’s time for the Dolphins to look like the team they say they are, the one six years of tanking and spending have been invested to build.

They’re 1-2. They need to be at least 3-3 after a soft stretch of scheduling of Tennessee, at New England and then at Indianapolis after a bye week. That’s doable. That at least gets them back into their season.

They don’t even need to look like the fun machine on offense like they want to be every time That might be preferable considering the quarterback situation. Look how run-game-basic Green Bay went for two wins with back-up Malik Willis. Look where the Dolphins are thus far, too:

Last in the league in scoring

First in the league in pre-snap penalties.

Offensive coordinator Frank Smith is right when he says of such problems, “Let’s learn from it, let’s not run from it. Let’s know how we can get better as a group, because we’ve got a long year ahead of us.’”

This isn’t just a quarterback issue, either, considering the Dolphins averaged just 15 points in Tua Tagovailoa’s two games with his anchor on the line, left tackle Terron Armstead. Now both are out.

Tyler “Snoop” Huntley, fresh off the Baltimore Ravens practice squad, starts for Tua and the injured Skylar Thompson. Maybe it didn’t matter Thompson is injured. Probably enough was seen of him last Sunday in Seattle.

Huntley, 26, is the kind of hometown story from Hallandale High you root for. He played well in a few big games in Baltimore to have some hope in where this goes. He has a quick release like this offense wants. He runs when needed, something Tua didn’t do well.

“It’s football at the end of the day,’’ Huntley said. “I’ve been playing football since I was yay high.”

This can’t be all on Huntley. The defense can’t let Tennessee score on three of its first four possessions, as Seattle did, to put the Dolphins in an early hole.

Nor should it take 17 offensive plays for the Dolphins to throw the ball to Tyreek Hill. That happened in Seattle, too. The game’s best receiver didn’t see the ball until just before halftime. He ended up with as many targets as a backup tight end.

Mike McDaniel’s creative offense has to be more creative than that. What it really needs to add is some grit, not glitz, and old-fashioned discipline to mesh with its newfangled schematics.

For all the talk of the Dolphins injuries, Tennessee doesn’t have the one player who could wreck any offensive game plan. Defensive tackle Jeffery Simmons, one of the game’s best, is out.

Tennessee isn’t a good team. The Dolphins haven’t been one so far, either. Both teams will be trying get a toehold into their larger season Monday night.

If the Dolphins want to be a real team, the one they spent the offseason talking about, this is the night it starts.