Mar
27
I’ve picked on the offense enough in this piece, and despite how much those stats need to be fixed, I’ll stick by my belief that it was the defense that prevented the Dolphins from prospering in 2014.
If you haven’t drank enough good scotch (or aren’t old enough to do so) to forget about their games against the Denver Broncos, the New England Patriots, the Baltimore Ravens and the New York Jets down the season’s final stretch, then you know exactly what I’m talking about.
Those games all featured teams that could run the ball down the Dolphins’ throat and did just that with impunity.
The Broncos beat the Dolphins by running for 277 yards. The Patriots did so by running for 108. And the Jets, who earlier that month almost pulled out a win over the Dolphins while running for 183 yards, got the win in the final game of the season behind 108 yards on the ground.
These rushing performances set up good passing performances by those teams, which was expected against the likes of Peyton Manning, Tom Brady and Joe Flacco, but it was insulting when Geno Smith got a perfect passer rating.
When you stop the run, the game becomes easier. Sure, teams will pass for more yards against you, but that also means more pass attempts, which isn’t as efficient and leads to more turnovers.
At the start of the season, the Dolphins were one of the best teams at stopping the run, which explains why they were 7-5 with four games left and on their way to a playoff berth.
In the end, the Dolphins finished 24th in the league in run defense (but sixth in pass defense), allowing 1,973 yards and an average of 4.3 yards per carry and 123.3 yards per game.
How can they improve upon this? They took a big step earlier by signing Ndamukong Suh, whose Detroit Lions finished first in rushing yards allowed with 1,109 (an average of 3.2 yards per carry and 69.3 yards per game).
That’s how the team did, but how did Suh do himself against the run? Per Pro Football Focus, Suh graded at 19.6 versus the run in 2014, a big upgrade over Jared Odrick (graded at 1.0) and Randy Starks (graded at minus-9.5).
All that’s needed is for Earl Mitchell to improve upon his minus-3.8 grade, and you’ll see a difference up front. Something tells me that having Suh next to him will help out a lot.
Open all references in tabs: [1 – 10]
Comments
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.