Week 16 of the 2021 NFL season ends with two teams battling for playoff spots. The Miami Dolphins will take on the New Orleans Saints, and both teams need a win to have a shot to reach the postseason. This week’s edition of Monday Night Football will kick off tonight at 8:15 p.m. ET on ESPN. The game will also stream on ESPN.com, ESPN App, NFL App and Yahoo Sports App. Manningcast, which features Peyton and Eli Manning will not air on ESPN 2 this week but will be back for the Monday Night Football season finale next week.
The Dolphins (7-7) have turned things around in a huge way in the second half of the season. After starting the season 1-7, Miami has won six consecutive games and is now just half a game out of the final playoff spot in the AFC held by the Baltimore Ravens. One of the reasons for the Dolphins’ recent success is quarterback Tua Tagovailoa who is completing 70% of his passes this year. In his last four of five games, the Alabama alum has posted of passer rating of at least 104. He also completed at least 81% of his passes in Week 11 and Week 12.
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“I think one thing is for certain is that we’ve been working on it in practice – our communication with crowd noise,” Tagovailoa said on playing at the Saints’ Superdome, per the Dolphins’ team website. “We do understand that this is going to be very hostile. It’s going to be very loud. We do understand that we got to get in the huddle, I’ve got to get things communicated whether it’s the personnel and we’ve got to give ourselves as much time as possible so we have that much more room for error, so you’re not always playing with the 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 shot clock.”
The Saints (7-7) have won their last two games and coming off a huge 9-0 win over Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. A win tonight would give the Saints a strong chance to reach the postseason as they would be tied with the Philadelphia Eagles for the final playoff spot in the NFC. The challenge for the Saints is they will be without quarterbacks Taysom Hill and Trevor Siemian as they are on the reserve/COVD-19 list. This means that rookie QB Ian Book will get the start tonight.
“Every day I’m just taking it day by day. We’re obviously getting closer to Monday night, but I’m not going to play with my mind and say, maybe (Taysom Hill and Trevor Siemian) come back and start. At this point, I’m planning on playing,” Book said this week, per the Saints’ official website. “That’s what I have had to do this entire week to get ready.”
