RISKY DEFENSE IS PAYING OFF
The 6-3 Miami Dolphins are playing a gambling defense, featuring a lot of blitzing, and it has helped the team forcce turnovers and otherwise disrupt opposing offenses.
The Miami Dolphins defense has been truly something to behold on passing downs lately. Well, something to behold if one is not the object of the unit’s attention. Something to behold if one is not the victim of the unit’s intentions.
“It’s just putting pressure on those guys and making them feel us because you don’t know where we’re coming from, you don’t know what we’re doing and that’s a good thing,” said safety Bobby McCain describing what happens to opposing quarterbacks and receivers and offensive linemen on important passing downs.
“We have good game plans each and every week coming out, starting off and ending the week. Some things may change the day before the game. You never know, but that’s just being able to adapt. We have a big sign in the back of our room that says ‘adapt or die’ — not literally, but you understand.”
Since we’re speaking figuratively here, then let’s consider the body count the Dolphins defense has collected:
San Francisco quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo is there because he couldn’t get out of the way, was sacked three times, converted only one of seven third down plays, and was benched at halftime.
New York Jets quarterback Joe Flacco is there because his team got shut out, he completed only 50 percent of his throws, was sacked three times, and his offense failed — failed! — on 15 of 17 third down plays.
“They started all-out blitzing us, playing Cover Zero, making it tough to kind of hold onto the ball long enough to get those balls out,” a thoroughly defeated Flacco said from his postgame wake.
Los Angeles Rams quarterback Jared Goff and coach Sean McVay add two more to the body count.
Goff passed for a lot of yards but took a lot of hits, threw two interceptions and seemed out of sorts most of the afternoon. And McVay, considered an offensive genius by national pundits, had no answers.
“They were bringing zero pressures,” McVay
said. “We had some answers. We didn’t execute them, and ultimately, the answers were not good enough on my part. That falls on me.”
A battered Goff was actually asked afterward if he had survived the experience.
“I’m healthy,” he said with some dejection in his voice. “I’m good.”
Add Los Angeles Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert and coach Anthony Lynn to the list, too.
Lynn, a former NFL running back who once did great work pass blocking against blitzes, had no way to stop this onslaught.
“That team pressured more than anybody in the National Football League just about,” Lynn said last Sunday. “They brought a lot of stuff. There’s only so many things you can do. And they challenged our protection.”
Herbert?
Poor Herbie was looking for answers and finding none most of the afternoon. And so all he could do afterward was admit what was obvious.
“They did a great job disguising their defenses,” he said. “They’re really well-coached. Those guys fly around on defense.”
All these victims are talking about the Miami Dolphins defense.
It has become a Body Count defense because it’s adding more casualties with every week it meets an opponent.
And how does this all happen? Why does it happen?
Because the Dolphins’ defense has been increasingly hard to predict before things happen.
Hard to decipher as things are happening.
Hard to defeat even when you figure out what happened.
So welcome to the passing down:
The only thing anyone, including Miami’s own players, know for sure is that a lot of uncomfortable pressure on the quarterback is coming, a lot of shenanigans at the line of scrimmage occurs before the ball is snapped, and a lot confusion for the offense is in store because no one on defense is often in the same place multiple times.
“It confuses offenses,” McCain said. “They don’t know what to do and it confuses the quarterback, which is exactly what we want to do.”
Now this is where I try to make sure you, the reader, are not confused about what the Dolphins are doing.
To put in lay terms, there’s organized chaos happening.
On passing downs, often the game’s most important plays, the Miami defense often does fanciful or risky stuff to make offensive players confused or uncomfortable.
Sometimes the Dolphins employ Cover Zero blitzes, which means they play man-to-man with all their defensive backs, do not defend the deep part of the field, and send everyone else after the quarterback.
Sometimes the Dolphins employ what is commonly known as an “amoeba” alignment before the snap. That involves six to seven defenders around the line of scrimmage, threatening to rush or cover.
When the ball is snapped, sometimes six players are rushing, sometimes only four are rushing, sometimes only three are rushing. The quarterback never knows how many.
And he never knows from what spot on the field they’re coming.
Sometimes the Dolphins rush a defensive back and drop a defensive lineman into a short zone. It’s how defensive tackle Christian Wilkins came up with an interception a few weeks ago.
“You kind of just mess with the offense,” linebacker Jerome Baker said. “They might say I’m the Mike [middle linebacker]. I would mess with them and say, ‘No I’m not.’ Then you look up and a tackle or guard didn’t hear and they asked what happened. The center snaps the ball, the next thing you know, we’re in the backfield.
“I get excited because it’s kind of like a mind game. I know it’s confusing and the more you try to communicate, I’m going to communicate with you. I’m going to mess you up. ‘Did you say I’m the Mike, or is he the Mike?’ You kind of just have fun with it.
“I think that’s one of my favorite calls or my favorite defenses because you don’t know who’s who. We’re all moving, we’re all jumping around, we’re all talking. For the offense, it’s pretty tough. The more you confuse an offense, the more fun for defensive players you can have. I love it.”
The result of all this skulduggery?
Frustrated quarterbacks and opposing coaches lamenting what might have been.
It’s part of the formula that has helped the Dolphins win five consecutive games.
“I’ve never done anything like that before, especially in high school and college,” said rookie safety Brandon Jones. “My thing was get the call, get lined up, read your keys, do all that stuff.
“So this was something that — you never know, the quarterback never knows where pressure’s coming, if we’re coming, if we’re not coming. So it gives you a lot of freedom. It kind of just lets you be able to do what you want to do, put your own sauce on it, like our coach says.”
Dolphins defensive coaches and coach Brian Flores get credit — or blame if you’re asking a victim — for unleashing this stuff upon an unsuspecting NFL.
Obviously the players are learning this dangerous, gambling defensive approach and executing it. But someone’s teaching them very well. And someone else who has to answer for everything we see on the field approved the strategy.
“I think [defensive coordinator] Josh Boyer and our defensive staff, they do a really nice job of trying to come up with different schemes, ideas that we can handle, but we also feel like will be an issue for the offense,” Flores said.
“We try to promote creativity really on all three sides of the ball and an outlandish idea to some — I try to be open to any idea from a football standpoint. If we can get it and we can execute it, we’ll give it a shot.”
There’s the possibility, you should know, that someone eventually will figure this stuff out. Or someone might be athletic enough to defeat the strategy. Or someone might simply get lucky.
“What you expect to happen is you pick up the blitz, [the quarterback] avoids the free rusher, he dumps the ball off to the open receiver, who should have a lot of space depending on how they were playing it,” said Rams receiver Robert Woods. “It’s really make just one guy miss and [you] have a lot of running space.”
That really is all it takes. But until that happens, the Dolphins defense will continue to add to the body count.