Miami Dolphins Secondary…Please Stand Up
Miami Dolphins Secondary…Please Stand Up
On the way to the gym this morning, a song came on my iPod that I couldn’t get out of my head…..
May I have your attention please?
May I have your attention please?
Will the real Slim Shady please stand up?
I repeat, will the real Slim Shady please stand up?
We’re gonna have a problem here..
I couldn’t help but start thinking about our revised secondary and how this song should be blasting in our locker room, with a hidden message to our recently signed players.
Are we going to have a problem here? Or will our new secondary really stand up?
To say the Dolphins secondary has been completely revised wouldn’t be that farfetched. We have seen that our new regimen has decided that one of our weakest facets was our secondary which is evident by passing on resigning some of our previous starters. Time will only tell if those were the correct moves, but many fans are questioning whether we are better today than we were yesterday.
I have always believed that when you start building your secondary you start with your Free Safety. I could be bias, as this was my former position, but I strongly believe the Free Safety is the quarterback of a secondary. No other position has an eagle eye view of the opposing team’s line up and movement. The Free Safety must orchestrate the movements of his teammate by seeing how the opposing team is lined up.
Will the real Louis Delmas please stand up?
Louis Delmas has potential written all over him; however, his injury concerns have labelled him as a fragile player. Coming out of Western Michigan in 2009, the hype surrounding this fierce player was that he loved contact. Watching his college highlights you can understand how NFL scouts labelled him a first day potential which eventually led him to be selected in the 2nd round of the 2009 draft. Delmas didn’t live up to his potential with the Detroit Lions mainly due to the fact that he couldn’t stay on the field. His game is strong, and he does have a nose for the ball. Comparing his NFL career to his college tenure one key aspect that I found was that he is playing out of position in the NFL. Detroit plays a strong Tampa 2 defense that doesn’t best fit Delmas needs. In college, Delmas played a true free position, where he was allowed the flexibility to disguise his coverage and play a Robber technique. This is the type of Safety that Mike Nolan would have jumped on – our former DC under our previous regimen. However, with Kevin Coyle implementing a Zebra technique in our secondary I believe Delmas will have bounce back year due to his athletic ability IF and ONLY IF he can stay healthy. Coyle is one of the best mentors and coaches for the Safety position as he brought Rashad Jones and Reggie Nelson from NFL players to Pro Ball players. Under his tutelage, I believe Delmas will live up to his 2nd round draft status.
Will the real Courtland Finnegan please stand up?
Rewind two years ago and there was no doubt that the player Wide Receivers would hate to line up against was Finnegan. He found a way to get under your skin and cause you to play his game, just ask Andre Johnson. Finnegan loves to create chaos and sometimes that chaos can either fire up your team or be the reason why things have all of sudden have started to fall apart. His play the last few years has started to decline, some would argue that was is due to the same reason as Delmas; injuries. Finnegan started his tenure with the Saint Louis Rams in style be starting the year with four straight interceptions. That type of desire, cannot be taught, and if can still find that inner desire than we have gotten one of the best steals in free agency. However, that is asking a lot….Time will tell whether or not Finnegan can really stand up.
Will the real Jamar Taylor please stand up?
We all know what we saw this past year with respect to Jamar Taylor, and that was a player that was surprised to be playing in the NFL. To be honest, I was a little shocked surprised that this 2nd round player played so poorly. Taylor couldn’t stay in his zone and his man coverage was just terrible. Drew Brees picked on him, all day, every day. Many of us believed that Taylor would have been a first round pick. I am not sure if he lost his confidence or if his hip injury was bigger than what we thought. Taylor needs to really stand up this offseason, otherwise, we are going to have a problem here.
Perhaps I need to update my Ipod, but sometimes old school music, provides some old school lessons. We have players within our secondary that really need to stand up. The attention is now on them, class will be is session soon, and it will be up to them to stand up or Emimen was right…we are going to have a problem here.