Miami Dolphins Quarter Grades: Secondary

Brent Grimes is still Brent Grimes and Cortland Finnegan looks more like he did three years ago as opposed to the last two seasons. Jimmy Wilson we have found is a better nickel back than a starting safety although he didn’t play too badly in place of suspended Reshad Jones. Louis Delmas has been solid and surprising, in fact I rarely hear his name called or see him get burned. The Dolphins secondary is a strong unit but needs to tighten the coverage a bit and really need to work harder at forcing turnovers.

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Welcome to our grading of the Miami Dolphins secondary.

Turnovers were a big issue heading into last weekend. The Secondary had no interceptions but left London with three. The secondary need to start becoming far more aware as they have left turnovers on the field. A bigger issue however is the teams continued inability to shut out teams on third and long. This could very well be a coaching defect because it has plagued this team long before any of these players arrived in Miami. The Dolphins simply go to sleep on 3rd down and long.

Consider that as fans we find ourselves to have more faith in 3rd and inches than 3rd and 12. Why? Because we believe in the defensive fronts ability to make a stop. When it comes to 3rd or even 4th and long, the Dolphins go into a different scheme, a zone read or a prevent that really does nothing more than prevent the offense from coming back on the field. It’s not pretty and it needs to change.

So far this year we expected to see far more out of our back-ups and while Jamar Taylor is improving he is still not making the big leap many expected. For his case, Will Davis is playing well but at times he become a bit too aggressive and that can create missed opportunities and missed tackles.

Deeper in the secondary Walt Aikens has been playing much better than we expected but will likely see his playing time reduced, as will Michael Thomas when Reshad Jones returns on Monday. The Dolphins will need to release a player to make room for Jones and there is no way to know what position will give up the player to make room for him.

Overall the secondary has played well and combined with the defensive line and edge rushers as well as the linebackers the defensive unit has a whole has supported the secondary well. So well in fact the Dolphins enter the bye week as the 6th ranked passing defense in the NFL and that should continue throughout the season. They will however get a real test in week 5 when the high flying Green Bay Packers come to town.

Final Grade: A-/B+

The lack of turnovers is concerning and despite the fact the team added three against Oakland they need to make those game changing takeaways against better opponents.

What to expect in the next four weeks?

Reshad Jones should bring more stability to the defense and if he can play like he did two years ago and not like last season, the Dolphins pass defense could become one of the top three in the league.