The Miami Dolphins have lost their last two games and the defense has carried a lot of that blame but it’s the offense that is the problem.
Against the Chargers on Sunday night there were plenty of problems defensively and Josh Boyer should be riding his final weeks as the Dolphins’ defensive coordinator. His defensive schemes leave a lot to be desired and when they succeed, it is more often the play of a couple of players rather than the scheme itself.
In the last two weeks, Christian Wilkins has put on a clinic up front and while Jaelan Phillips has some room to grow, his explosiveness is incredible. He needs to fine-tune his craft and stop getting trapped inside allowing QBs out of the pocket. That’s fixable.
The bigger question is what is Boyer doing with Bradley Chubb who really has made little impact at all since arriving in Miami. Against the Chargers, he was non-existent.
Boyer’s decision to line his defense up at the one-yard line on 3rd and 19 allowed Austin Ekeler to take the ball to the one, leading to a touchdown on fourth down. It was a bad gamble that didn’t pay off and hurt the defense’s efforts to stop them. His use of the zone defense with a banged-up secondary isn’t helping either, especially when the team needs to make a big stop late in the game. Last night, the zone defense allowed the Chargers the big gains to drive the field and put a field goal up to seal the game.
All of that is true but let’s not put the entire situation on the defense who in reality, has given up 23 points (should have been at least six points less) against the Chargers and held the 49ers offense down to less than 20 points before the offense caved in.
Miami’s offense isn’t generating sustained drives and the defense is playing far too many snaps on the field. Against the 49ers, the defense was on the field for over 70 snaps and that doesn’t include penalties. On Sunday night, the Chargers ran 74 plays, not including penalties, 51 passing plays.
The offense is putting far too much pressure on the defensive side of the ball and yes, the defense may not be getting off the field immediately but in many cases, they are at least stopping the offenses.
Consider that against the Chargers, Miami’s defense played drive for drive like this.
- Downs
- Field goal
- Touchdown
- Punt
- Touchdown
- Punt
- Punt
- Field goal
- punt
- Field goal
- Kneel down
The Chargers had the ball for 11 series including the kneel-down. The second touchdown scored was the 3rd and goal play from the 19 that should have been a field goal attempt at worse.
Miami’s defense can do better and Josh Boyer needs to do better and will likely be gone after the year but this isn’t all on them and I would actually put 75% if not more on the offensive side of the ball.
Miami’s offense is stagnant and teams are figuring out how to beat Mike Mcdaniel’s offense. The offense worked well earlier when teams were afraid of Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle, they aren’t anymore and the lack of a running game sets them up to drop back and because of that, the Dolphins defense is on the field long enough to not hang on.