Dolphins defense, with its myriad personnel groupings, was too often confused vs. Pats | Opinion
The New England Patriots opened Sunday’s game against the Miami Dolphins in 12 personnel. That means the home team began the game with what looked like a two-tight end formation even though one of those eligible ends was actually guard Michael Onwenu.
And that seemingly unremarkable decision by Patriots coaches kind of threw all sorts of weirdness at the Dolphins.
In responding to this formation the Dolphins....
Did not start defensive tackle Christian Wilkins.
Did not start linebacker Kyle Van Noy.
Did not start strong safety Eric Rowe.
Started rookie Raekwon Davis as a 3-4 defensive end, which he might not be.
And started veteran Emmanuel Ogbah as something of a 3-4 end, which he didn’t seem comfortable playing most of the day.
Weird.
Wilkins, who ended up playing probably better than most Miami defensive linemen, didn’t get in the game until well into the first quarter. And, yes, that seems strange for the team’s No. 1 overall draft pick of a year ago.
Van Noy is a team captain. He’s a team leader. He signed a $51 million deal with Miami this year.
But he was on the sideline watching second-year player Andrew Van Ginkel start ahead of him on Sunday. And Van Noy, the team’s third-highest paid player, played only 64 percent of the downs.
(No idea if that’s going to be the plan going forward, whether coaches wanted to save Van Noy because he’s nursing a hand injury, or whether the play-time was a result of him being worked in slowly this year.)
Whatever the case, when coaches yelled “Van, get in there,” to start the game, it was Van Ginkel and not Van Noy getting on the field. Van Noy was in for the second play of the game. Then Van Ginkel was in for the third and fourth plays of the game.
It was confusing there for a minute.
And the whole time the Patriots were testing the Dolphins with a quarterback read option that gained momentum after initial success.
“I think it definitely showed up more than we anticipated,” Van Ginkel said. “They got us on a couple early and then from there, just took over. I think if we would have shut it down early, we wouldn’t have seen it as much. But they gained a couple of yards on it early so it kept showing up.”
Then we have Ogbah. He did not play well. When coach Brian Flores talked about needing to improve the team’s edge setting to stop perimeter runs, Ogbah is one of the players that needs to make that improvement.
In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if Ogbah, a solid pass rusher and more a 4-3 defensive end, plays less on early downs in Sunday’s game against the Buffalo Bills as perhaps Miami goes to a more accomplished run defender.
Not saying this will definitely happen, but if the Dolphins aren’t considering it, something is amiss.
All the shifting of personnel and asking them to shuttle in and out of the game to play in certain personnel grouping sounds great in theory. But unless everyone is on the same page and is prepared to play assignment football, all the moving parts can lead to confusion.
And that was a problem for Miami’s defense as the Patriots were averaging 5.2 yards per rush using a quarterback read-option with Cam Newton deciding to hand the ball off or take it himself.
Defensive coordinator Josh Boyer said, “getting all 11 guys on the same page” was a problem.
“There were obviously a lot of issues – setting the edge, those quarterback read plays, whose got the quarterback, there was just some missed communication on that,” Flores said Monday. “We had a couple of calls there where there was just some missed communication. We tried to get it fixed on the sideline, got it fixed, one guy’s got it, somebody else doesn’t have it.
“Change the grouping. There was a plethora of things we’ve got to get fixed. We’ll work on that all week. Again, that falls on me.”
I understand the Dolphins want to maximize the specialized talents of their players.
That is the reason, I suppose, rookie Brandon Jones started the game at safety instead of Eric Rowe.
“I think the biggest thing going into it – I knew I was in a couple of packages,” Jones said. “It was really just based off of what the Patriots gave us depending on personnel and stuff, whether I would get in and play as much as I did.
“I was definitely up for the challenge and I was ready for it. We prepared every single day for that moment. I was ready for it even if I was starting in one package or backing somebody up in the next. I think the biggest thing for me was just being ready because you never know when your number is called. Surprisingly it was the first play of the game.”
But, here are some of the flaws with the constant lineup shifting the Dolphins did:
1. It didn’t work on Sunday. Too much confusion. There were simply not enough plays made by anyone not named Jerome Baker, who had an excellent game, his penalties notwithstanding.
2. It flies in the face of the plans you’ve made in putting the team together.
If the Dolphins are paying Van Noy $51 million to be the man but decide he’s not a full-time player, that seems strange.
If the team invests a first-round pick on Wilkins and then keeps him on the sideline like 10 of the first 11 plays while the Patriots are establishing their running game, that seems strange.
If the team pays Ogbah $7.5 million per year because he’s a gifted edge pass rusher but has him playing 86 percent of the time, most of which is requiring him to be an edge-setting run defender, then it shouldn’t surprise he struggled.
None of this is permanent. Stuff changes week to week in the NFL
But it’s up to the Dolphins to correct course and figure out that this early in the season, communication might not be crisp, and using players like Van Noy more (not less) might be smarter.
“Obviously we’re trying to get a lot of that fixed now – from an edge-setting standpoint, from a tackling standpoint, and schematically,” Flores said. “We’ll work on that over the course of the week, just from a technique, fundamentals and practice standpoint. Hopefully it helps us on Sunday next week.”
This story was originally published September 15, 2020 at 12:00 AM.
