His defense might be worst in Dolphins history. Yet Burke defiantly stands by his scheme
.JPG "Miami Dolphins coach Matt Burke looks on during practice at Baptist Health South Florida Training Facility in Davie on Thursday, November 8, 2018.")
If Matt Burke is going down, he isn’t going down quietly.
In a revealing — and at times testy — news conference Thursday, the Dolphins’ embattled defensive coordinator again defended his system against critics who say is to blame for the Dolphins ranking 30th in yards and 27th in points.
Burke was earnest. He was forthcoming. And more than once, he was more than a bit irritated with those who wanted him to provide a post-mortem on a season that still has two games remaining.
“Obviously, I’m not putting out unsound schemes,” Burke said. “I don’t think anything we do is unsound. I challenge anyone to prove otherwise in that sense.”
As for what has gone so terribly wrong this year, Burke responded: “I think it’s been different week to week, so I don’t want to say, ‘I’m doing my job and they’re screwing up.’ It’s all of this in this together.”
Burke’s defense was a mess Sunday, allowing 41 points and 220 yards rushing yards in a blowout loss to the Vikings. That performance put the Dolphins in danger of breaking some toxic team records.
If the Jaguars and Bills (two offensively challenged teams) combine to score 64 points and gain 491 yards the last two weeks, the Dolphins will have surrendered all-time highs in those two important categories.
This defense also will likely allow the most passing yards in team history; Burke’s group is just 401 yards shy of tying the franchise’s all-time mark in that statistic.
Here’s what’s most remarkable: Those records were all set in different years. There’s a chance the Dolphins could break all three in 2018, which would unquestionably make this the worst defense in franchise history.
And yet, Burke was in no mood to explain what he could have done better in his second season as Miami’s defensive coordinator.
“You guys are already wrapping up the season here,” Burke said. “Guys, I’m trying to win a ball game. I’m trying to figure out how we can stop the Jacksonville Jaguars this week. If you want to have a retrospective at the end of the season, maybe you and I can do that.”
Burke continued: “We try to correct our mistakes week to week. You review the game plan from the week before. What you did good and what you did bad and what happened and you have answers for how to fix it and move on to next week. From a cumulative standpoint, we don’t really get into that all stuff right now.”
In fairness, the Dolphins have been limited by injuries and players not performing as well as the personnel department expected.
The run defense took a major hit when edge-setter William Hayes went down for the year. Xavien Howard, the Dolphins’ lone Pro Bowler, missed the past two games with a knee injury. Defensive ends Robert Quinn and Cameron Wake have combined for just 10 sacks despite counting a combined $20 million against the cap. Reshad Jones has been an ineffective player with an injured shoulder, and he suggested Monday that he is being misused by playing deep instead of inside the box.
“Reshad hasn’t expressed any of that to me directly,” said Burke, who famously angered Jones by benching him for a series in Miami’s home win over the Jets. Jones refused to return to the game, causing yet another headache for the coaching staff.
“One thing I try to do when I come in here with you guys is I try not to make excuses,” Burke said Thursday. “... I could sit up here and complain about injuries and complain about guys who aren’t on the team or what happened in this, but no one cares. So it doesn’t matter. This is our roster. These are our players. They’re working their balls off to help us win ball games so I’m going to do the same for them.
“So it doesn’t help me to come in here and try to tell you guys, ’This is what happened’ or ‘This is this guy’s fault’ or ‘Man, the refs screwed us on this,’” Burke continued. “... So sure, I could complain about missing a Pro Bowl corner last week and this and that, and having two defensive tackles that we got off the street a couple of weeks ago. Yeah, that’s great, but no one cares. It doesn’t matter. You guys don’t care. The fans don’t care. We don’t care. We’re going to go out to win a ballgame with the whatever 46 guys we’ve got ready to play on Sunday. So we’re going to do that again this week.”
