Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Retooled D-line has potential
New coach Kocurek lives physicality, effort with players
It was a refreshingly honest admission regarding one of the Miami Dolphins’ issues the past two years.
The Dolphins’ widenine approach to pass rushing, which serves as the backbone of the defense Miami has been using for the past two seasons, hasn’t yet been executed the way defensive coordinator Matt Burke envisions it.
Last month, Burke was asked for the game the wide-nine worked the way it was designed, which is to put defensive ends in prime position to get up field and create more difficult angles for offensive tackles to block, and he “there hasn’t been one.”
That might explain why the Dolphins’ most talent-rich unit the previous two seasons had been the team’s biggest underachievers, despite the presence of Ndamukong Suh, who Miami signed in 2015 to the largest contract ever given to a defensive lineman at the time.
Suh is gone, waived this offacknowledged
season to clear $17 million in cap space. He’s now a starter with the Los Angeles Rams, where he’s contributed five tackles in two games. While many wondered how Miami would compensate for the All-Pro talent’s departure, the Dolphins defense line has been firm, if not forceful in the first two games of the season.
“Everything starts up front on both sides of the ball. If people see you being physical they follow suit,” defensive lineman William Hayes said after Miami held a physical New York Jets team to 42 rushing yards in last Sunday’s 20-12 win. “That’s one thing we’re doing good right now. We’re trying to f--- s--- up.”
Excuse Hayes’ language, but he uses assertive, if not hostile words regularly.
That mentality matches his defensive line coach Kris Kocurek, who screams all day, and probably uses a curse word, or two, in every sentence.
“Guys are finally buying in,” said newcomer Robert Quinn, who said he heard about the issues with Miami’s previous D-line unit. “Guys are believing and I guess it’s clicking together.”
Miami’s players won’t say it, but former Dolphins defensive line coach Terrell Williams’ unit consistently underachieved.
That’s why one of the biggest moves made this offseason wasn’t the signing of a new player, but bringing in Kocurek to be the new defensive line coach.
“You’ve got a D-line coach who brings the best out of his players,” Hayes said. “I don’t want to say anything bad about T. [Terrell Williams] was a good coach too, but [Korurek] preaches physicality and effort.”
Doesn’t every defensive line coach — if not every football coach — preach physicality and effort seeing as how it’s the blueprint for success in this combative sport?
“Yeah, but you’ve got some coaches that preach it, and some coaches that live it,” Hayes added.
Hayes offers up an example from last month when he was doing his rehab assignment for the hamstring injury he suffered during the second week of training camp. Next thing he knows Kocurek’s joined the workout and is doing every rep and set he’s doing.
“He pushed me further than what I could have done,” Hayes said of Kocurek. “That speaks volumes.
“It brings a different type of environment, a different type of effort to your defense.”
The type of environment where nobody — even the Pro Bowlers — are better than the collective unit, which explains why Miami’s defensive linemen consistently rotate in and out during games like a hockey line.
Some players in the past (Suh) would have never bought into that approach. It was never Suh’s talent that made him a bad fit in Miami. It was his personality.
The biggest concern coming into this season was whether or not the Dolphins had enough talent on the defensive front to overcome Suh’s release.
Miami’s 2-0 season is young, but so far the results have been favorable, and if the Dolphins can contain Oakland’s rushing attack this Sunday, bottling up Marshawn Lynch to a manageable output, the Dolphins defensive line would provide more evidence that this unit is turning the corner.
And maybe then the wide-nine might work the way Burke envisions it.
“We’re grown men. We control what we do out there. We put it on ourselves,” said Quinn, who recorded two sacks against the Jets. “Everyone that keeps talking about us, just keep biting your words one week at a time.”