MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. -- The Detroit Lions deserve credit for their win Sunday. They have a good defensive front and can play as well as anybody, Jeff Hafley said.
The Miami Dolphins coach also thinks his team deserves its share of the blame, too.
The Dolphins committed a season-high 11 penalties in Sunday's 19-9 loss, including one that wiped out a 51-yard completion in the second quarter. Hafley said the penalties put Miami into negative game scripts and essentially negated arguably the best performance of the season from the team's defense.
"We had some missed assignments yesterday. We had some technique errors," he said. "We had a chance to hit some (plays) where we just missed that we had been hitting. And then most importantly, the penalties put us in a lot of hard positions where we were in a lot of get-back-on-track situations where it's hard to stay balanced."
Eight of the team's 11 accepted penalties were against its offense, including five holding calls. Miami was also flagged for three false starts and an offensive pass interference.
The infractions penalized the Dolphins' offense 65 yards and nullified another 70. As a result, their average conversion distance Sunday was 10.9 yards, the highest single-game mark in the NFL this season.
Excluding first-and-10 plays, 32 of Miami's 50 offensive plays faced a distance of at least 10 yards to gain a first down -- 24 of which were behind the sticks.
"It's hard to call anything (when you're behind the sticks) and that's where we have to be better," Hafley said. "We have to stay on track. It's OK to have it be second-and-eight or it's OK to have it be second-and-seven or -six. It's not OK to have it second-and-20 or first-and-20. It's just we can't play the game like that.
"So again, give (the Lions) credit, but a lot of it was self-inflicted yesterday and we have to be better."
Hafley said when holding calls, in particular, are that frequent in a game, players have to be mindful of their hand placement, eyes and footwork -- although the quality of the players they're attempting to block is also a factor.
All-Pro center Aaron Brewer, who was flagged twice for holding Sunday, said players are typically aware of certain officiating crews' tendencies to call games tightly and have to make necessary adjustments in those situations.
"Once it's started, you know what type of game it is," he said. "So you're just trying to give each other a heads up and try to do as much as you can to limit the calls."
Quarterback Malik Willis was critical of the team's self-inflicted wounds, which he said have been a recurring issue.
A taunting call on cornerback JuJu Brents extended an eventual touchdown drive for the Las Vegas Raiders in Week 1, while an illegal shift penalty on rookie wide receiver Chris Bell wiped out a game-tying touchdown against the Kansas City Chiefs in Week 3. Bell also was flagged for illegal touching against the Minnesota Vikings in Week 4 -- a play in which he stepped out of bounds and was the first player to touch the ball on what would've been a 68-yard touchdown catch for him.
In Sunday's game, Willis found rookie wide receiver Kevin Coleman Jr. for a 51-yard completion to the Lions' 19-yard line, but the play was called back for holding on rookie tight end Will Kacmarek. Miami could've taken the lead with points on that drive but instead gained just 2 yards after the penalty and was forced to punt.
Detroit took the lead for good on the ensuing drive.
"It was one of those situations where the last few weeks I've been telling you we need to have all 11 out of 11 doing the job instead of 9 out of 11 or 8 out of 11," Willis said. "And it just showed up more today in the penalty factor. It's unfortunate. We can't keep saying the same things like, 'Oh, we got to get better, we got to get better.'
"We've got to continue to fight to actually do it and make sure that shows up on game day."
Despite their performance Sunday, the Dolphins' 61 accepted penalties this season rank 17th-most in the NFL; they committed only 11 combined penalties in Weeks 7 and 8.
Hafley said the hope is that Sunday's game was "a one-off" but insisted his team can't make excuses and must work to strengthen areas it can control.
"We can't have that many penalties. I mean, we're not going to be efficient to play the game that way and we're not going to win if we continue to have penalties like that," he said. "Since the bye week, it had been better, but it wasn't good enough yesterday. So again, let's look at what we did lately and let's correct it.
"And when you look at those penalties, it wasn't like it was the same penalty, the same guy holding, the same reason he was holding. It just accumulated over time and it kind of snowballed on us. But we need to get that corrected. I'm not going to make excuses and pretend that's OK. We need to be better than that."