Kelly: Dolphins’ bend-but-don’t-break defense keeps unraveling | Opinion
Sometimes a team can have the perfect call for the right situation on defense, but that doesn’t guarantee a talented player won’t pull a rabbit out of his helmet.
Justin Fields delivered a couple of magic tricks on the Miami Dolphins in Monday night’s nationally televised game, like the 43-yard touchdown he scored after reversing field during a fourth-and-1 play that was supposed to be a quarterback scramble.
“We were in the perfect defense and he just made an even better play,” Dolphins linebacker Tyrel Dodson said after Miami’s 27-21 win over the New York Jets.
On that third-quarter fourth-down play, the Dolphins had eight of 11 defenders in the box, and all but one of them was 5 yards or closer to the line of scrimmage.
Fields faked a handoff and began scrambling to his right, but after he saw Dolphins safety Ashytn Davis in the backfield he reversed course, outrunning four Dolphins defenders going to his left, then followed two blocks from tight end Jets Jeremy Ruckert before crossing the end zone.
“The plan was to keep him in the cage,” said pass rusher Bradley Chubb. “He’s an athletic guy so he’s going to get out a couple of times.”
That play was one of the most dynamic 40-plus yard runs you will see this season. But unfortunately, it probably won’t be the last jaw-dropping run we will likely witness against this struggling Dolphins defense, which has been just as much of an issue this season as Miami’s slow-starting offense, which suffered a massive setback Monday night when it lost Tyreek Hill to a dislocated left knee.
No matter how the offense plays in life after Hill, who swill likely be placed on injured reserve this week, this team is going nowhere with the defense that showed up for the first four games of this 1-3 season.
Defensive coordinator Anthony Weaver pleaded for violence earlier this week, claiming every defender taking a violent, more aggressive approach to their assignment would provide the fixes for his hemorrhaging unit.
But all we saw Monday night was a defensive front that was consistently moved off the ball, driven downfield by a team that was one-dimensional.
Like the three Dolphins opponents before them, the Jets pummeled Miami on the ground, putting New York’s offensive in favorable down-and-distance situations.
The Dolphins defense forced two turnovers, and the special teams unit managed a third when it recovered a kickoff return that was fumbled at the start of the second half..
That helped the Dolphins build a 24-10 lead late into the third quarter, and being up by two scores allowed Miami’s pass rushers to pin their ears back and hunt Fields, who finished the game with a 111.0 passer rating.
Still, the Dolphins allowed the Jets to produce 404 total yards in the season’s first win, and to Weaver’s dismay, a season-high 197 of those yards were on the ground.
The Jets had 170 rushing yards after the three quarters, then had to abandon the ground game to close the deficit.
What’s most troubling is that it was clear the Jets passing game was struggling, and Miami still couldn’t stop a one-dimensional team.
The Jets committed 13 penalties and turned the ball over three times.
That kind of performance would usually lead to a convincing victory, but the Dolphins defense kept letting the Jets back into the game late in the fourth quarter.
“We still got to stop the run. We still got to figure out how to stop the run,” Dodson said. “To play Super Bowl, playoff-contender ball we have to stop the run. We have to figure that part out.”
Not all of Miami’s struggles can be explained by Fields’ 81 rushing yards and one touchdown, which came off seven carries.
The Dolphins allowed the Jets to average 7.0 yards per carry, which raises Miami’s yards-per-carry allowed average to 5.1.
That’s right, Miami’s opponents are halfway to a first down with every run.
Here’s the problem moving forward.
It’s unlikely that Miami faces a team with a worse offense the rest of this season, unless the Cleveland Browns and/or the New Orleans Saints begin circling the drain before Miami faces each. So imagine what could happen against offenses led by Lamar Jackson, Josh Allen, Aaron Rodgers, Baker Mayfield the rest of the way.
The Dolphins’ margin for error, especially in life without Hill, will shrink, which means Miami’s defense has to become forceful.
But the first step on that journey would be for Weaver’s unit to finally become respectable by no longer getting pummeled on the ground.
This story was originally published September 30, 2025 at 12:00 AM.
