Miami Dolphins have big decision on Boyer after solid Bills game

The Miami Dolphins defense hasn’t been great all year but there have been times it was nearly perfect. On Sunday, it was closer.

In the coming days, Mike McDaniel will need to decide if Josh Boyer will be the defensive coordinator in 2023 or if he will replace him with someone else.

Against the Bills, Boyer came out flat in the first quarter and allowed the Bills to run up and down the field spotting them 14 points but his in-game adjustments stopped Buffalo and kept them to only six in the 2nd quarter while Miami was able to generate 17 points of their own.

In the 2nd half, Miami’s defense stripped Josh Allen and Zach Sieler returned it for a touchdown. The rest of the game was well played by Miami’s defense and while they gave up points, they never let the game get out of hand despite giving up 34 points on the day.

Boyer called a good game and while he has taken his share of justified criticism, he didn’t deserve it on Sunday against a very good Bills offense.

One of his biggest problems is that he relies too much on “cover-zero” which puts his secondary one-on-one on the boundaries and with a depleted unit, he is relying on backups. To their credit, they have played well considering how the injuries have piled up this year.

When the defense can get to the quarterback, Cover-Z looks great but when they can’t, it exposes holes in the defense. On Sunday, it worked well enough, most of the time but it killed the defense when it didn’t.

Boyer has dealt with a lot of injuries on his side of the ball as well. He lost Emmanuel Ogbah early in the season, lost Byron Jones before the season started, Trill Williams, and Nik Needham, and at times had to rely on Noah Igbinoghene. The system on defense needs great cornerback play and Miami got above-average from players that were on the fringe of making the roster.

So does Boyer deserve to be fired? Should he get one more year? It’s a tough question and some of that depends on who Mike McDaniel would want for that job if he did get rid of Boyer. Names like Vic Fangio have been floated around but Miami wouldn’t be the only team looking for these coaches to fill holes and you have to wonder if Mike McDaniel can draw veteran coordinators in.

Like it or not the media questioning whether or not McDaniel stays in Miami is also a question. The fact it is even mentioned puts a seed in minds that McDaniel could be on a short leash and in that case, a coach looking to take on a DC role may want more stability or at least the feeling of it.

Of all the coaches, Boyer is the one question mark heading into the offseason and what will be interesting is what decision McDaniel makes or if it is his decision to make at all. When he was hired, he was asked to retain Boyer for the purpose of continuity. The results were somewhere in the middle. Will he be asked to retain him or given the decision on his own now that he has had a year to work with him?

You don’t fire Boyer off of Sunday’s game but you can’t keep him based on that as well. It’s a total season look and a look at how the players would fit in another system, regardless, we will know soon I would believe.