Dolphins defense humbles rookie Darnold in home debut
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Coming into Sunday’s game, the Dolphins defense planned to be as aggressive as possible to rattle Jets’ rookie quarterback Sam Darnold and force turnovers through a ball-hawking attack. Mission accomplished. The Dolphins forced three turnovers in an overall opportunistic, sturdy defensive effort that gave them a 20-12 victory at Met Life Stadium.
Overall, Miami had three sacks, nine tackles for a loss and five quarterback hits. The Dolphins held the Jets to 42 yards rushing, limited them to 30 percent (3-for10) on third-down conversions and allowed a team that scored 48 points the previous week just one touchdown and pair of field goals.
“I thought our guys did a good job in executing the game plan,” Dolphins coach Adam Gase said. “We got the turnovers when we needed them. We had opportunities where they were creeping into the red zone, and at least holding them to long field goals, which is important to those guys, giving them an opportunity to possibly miss them.
“Forty-two yards rushing (allowed) is a good start for us.”
Darnold finished 25 of 41 for 334 yards and a touchdown, but was intercepted twice in his second NFL start and couldn’t get the offense moving consistently until late in the game.
“Every loss that we have as a team and every loss that I have as an individual, whether it’s a game or whether it’s a play,” Darnold said, “I’m going to take that as a lesson that I can learn from.”
Strong safety T.J. McDonald ended a New York drive early with a 31-yard interception of his fellow Southern Cal alum that lead to the Dolphins’ first score.
“We wanted to rattle him (Darnold),” McDonald said “We wanted to be aggressive and force turnovers. That was the emphasis coming in. Darnold is a good player and we wanted to give him a lot of different looks.
“We were in a zone coverage and their man went underneath. I was able to slide to the next window. We thought we could force our will on them and give the ball back enough times to the offense.”
Early in the third quarter, cornerback Xavien Howard intercepted a Darnold pass in the back of the end zone and managed to stay in bounds. A play earlier, the Jets forced a Ryan Tannehill fumble and recovered on the Miami 12-yard line, a potential score that could have brought them within 20-13 with 11:38 left in the quarter.
“You never want to be behind, but I thought for a quarter there, we did a good job of fighting our way back,” Darnold said. “We came up a little short.”
Linebacker Kiko Alonso had a productive afternoon with a team-high 13 tackles and a pair of forced fumbles, one on a huge hit on Robbie Anderson in the second quarter that Raekwon McMillan recovered, and later a blast on fellow receiver Quincy Enunwa that the Jets managed to recover in the fourth quarter.
“We played hard and we prepared the right way,” Alonzo said. “We were able to go out and execute. We wanted to come right at Darnold and take the game to them. It was a strong effort and a good win on the road.”
It was a shorter, yet equally effective effort as last Sunday’s marathon game against Tennessee in which the Dolphins intercepted three passes.
“We were coming off a sixhour game and there was plenty of adversity to deal with that,” McDonald said. “We just want to take one game at a time and now move on to Oakland.”