The Dolphins’ defense is bleeding points and short on takeaways — Jaelan Phillips reveals what’s wrong and how to turn it around
Where have all the splash plays gone for the Dolphins’ defense?
This wasn’t the type of season the Miami Dolphins envisioned for their defensive unit — even with the questions about the team’s secondary this summer. But here we are nonetheless. The Miami Dolphins have allowed more points than any other team through three weeks. Sure, they caught a juggernaut Colts team in Week 1 that turned out to be a sleeping giant. And the Week 2 point total was bolstered by a special teams miscue and an interception to set up a short field. Even in Week 3, the deciding score came after a punt in which defensive Zach Sieler roughed the punter.
There’s been some goofy stuff that has fueled Miami’s start in this regard. But make no mistake about it: this unit has been performing poorly and must step up. How have things gone so sideways? Where has the pass rush gone? Where are the turnovers?
Pass rusher Jaelan Phillips has a well-defined answer.
Dolphins pass rusher Jaelan Phillips diagnoses what’s been going awry for Miami defense through first three weeks
“I think that just in general when you’re playing behind the sticks, when you’re kind of playing catch up like we have been; it’s kind of hard to emphasize (attacking turnovers) during the game – the takeaways, the sacks, the negative plays and things like that so I think our first goal is to stop the run, is to get them into third-and-long, those type of situations where they have to take greater risks,” said Phillips.
“I think right now we’ve just been allowing offenses to take very calculated, low-risk, medium-yield type plays, but obviously those kind of compound and add up and ultimately they get a bunch of yards and scores, so I think for us the most important thing is to, like I said, stop the run, get them into those third-and-8 type situations or second-and-long type situations so that we can kind of attack the ball.”
We’ve already explored Miami’s third-down issues and it being a core reason for shortcomings in the early chapters of the season. Before the Bills game in Week 3, Miami was conceding 80% of third & fourth down conversion attempts in short yardage situations (three or less yards to go). Conversely, Miami forced stops on 80% of third and long (seven or more yards to go) in the first two weeks. Against Buffalo, it was more of the same.
Buffalo went a perfect 6/6 on third down and shorts (three or less yards to gain) and 0/5 on third down and seven or more yards needed.
The progress for the Dolphins’ defense lies in the progress in the second half against Buffalo. On designed running back runs in the second half of Week 3, Buffalo averaged 3.38 yards per carry on 13 designed rushes. That’s a far cry from the woeful 7.5 yards per carry Miami allowed in the first half of the same game on 12 designed rushes.
Is this all too little, too late for Miami at 0-3? Phillips doesn’t think so.
“I think that we are frustrated and disappointed but not discouraged and definitely haven’t lost any confidence in ourselves and even that frustration is just with us,” said Phillips. “It’s frustration knowing that we can play a better brand of football and we haven’t. So nobody’s panicking, nobody’s pointing fingers. This is far from a crisis within our team so really we’re just composed and attacking each day the way that we need to and we know that the wins and the production will come.”
Monday night against the New York Jets would be a great time for all of that to click into place. At least the Dolphins defense has taken the first step in acknowledging the problem. Now? It’s time to do something about it.
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