MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. | Herm Edwards knew that with a young, rebuilding team, the Chiefs would have days like this.</p><p>That might be understandable against an established opponent like New England in the regular-season opener or San Diego later in the year.</p><p>But the Chiefs weren&#8217;t competitive Saturday night against another one of the NFL&#8217;s forlorn teams. The Miami Dolphins, 1-15 last season, dominated the Chiefs in every phase, winning 24-0.</p><p>Coach Herm Edwards made no attempt to mask what that meant.</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s a setback,&#8221; Edwards said. &#8220;We had been playing fairly decently in the first half of football games with our first teams. We did not do that (Saturday). We have a week to fix it.</p><p>&#8220;We&#8217;re going to have to play a whole lot better. I think these guys are embarrassed about how they played, and why it happened, I don&#8217;t know. It&#8217;s not like we didn&#8217;t prepare. It&#8217;s not like they didn&#8217;t want to play well.&#8221;</p><p>The Chiefs were hopeful all week they could bust out of the touchdown slump that began in last weekend&#8217;s loss to Arizona. The starters came close to scoring only once when they drove close to the Miami goal line early in the third quarter.</p><p>But Larry Johnson was stuffed on fourth and goal from the Miami 1. The offensive starters departed midway through the third period with the Chiefs behind 17-0.</p><p>The Dolphins sacked Brodie Croyle three times.</p><p>&#8220;They hit the quarterback, which is never a good sign, and they covered us,&#8221; Edwards said. &#8220;They played man-to-man. They took Tony (Gonzalez) away. They doubled him and we didn&#8217;t have time to get it to the next guy or we didn&#8217;t get open.&#8221;</p><p>Croyle committed two turnovers, his first of the exhibition season. He had the ball pried from his hand as he was setting to pass in the second quarter. Miami recovered at the Chiefs&#8217; 22 and scored a touchdown two plays later.</p><p>Croyle also threw an interception on the final play of the first half.</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s just stuff we can&#8217;t do,&#8221; Croyle said. &#8220;There are a lot of things we&#8217;ve got to improve on, not only next week but especially against the Patriots.</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s a setback, yes. But I was talking to all of the guys on the sideline after we went out. I kept telling them that we&#8217;re going to be a good football team and we&#8217;re going to be a good offense. We just can&#8217;t get down on ourselves.</p><p>&#8220;We&#8217;re pretty confident even though we didn&#8217;t have the showing we wanted to or scored the points we wanted to. We&#8217;re not sitting there like last year after the third game. We were just sitting here scratching our heads and wondering what we were going to do now.&#8221;</p><p>Edwards, though, indicated the resounding defeat puts a different light on Thursday night&#8217;s exhibition finale against St. Louis at Arrowhead Stadium. He said the starters might play more than just a token series or two in an effort to help them restore some confidence lost in this rout.</p><p>&#8220;We&#8217;ve got to go out there next week and get our confidence back,&#8221; cornerback Patrick Surtain said. &#8220;We can&#8217;t afford to wait until we go to New England. Last year, we didn&#8217;t play well in the preseason, didn&#8217;t win a game, and it carried over into the regular season.&#8221;</p><p>The Chiefs also melted down on defense and special teams. They allowed the Dolphins a 15-play, 10-minute drive to begin the game. The final seven snaps came from inside the Chiefs&#8217; 10, but the Chiefs prevented Miami from scoring a touchdown.