Game Preview: Miami Dolphins
Let's look ahead to Sunday's game against the division rivals.
🗽 Good morning Jets fans. It’s Friday, which means it’s the weekend, which in turn means some New York Jets football. Buffalo was a tough one to shake, but we did kind of expect that, now it’s time to look forward to the Miami Dolphins who are coming off their mini-bye after a rousing victory over the Baltimore Ravens.
Flacco!
The Jets will be starting their 3rd QB of the season and running out their 4th QB all told. I’m sure it wasn’t supposed to go like this, Zach Wilson was supposed to ride in on his steed to instantly save this franchise and put the QB carousel to bed for a decade. Unfortunately, that pesky PCL is keeping him sidelined, so the Jets have decided to give the reigns to 36-year-old Joe Flacco. After all, they did trade a 6th round pick for him, so they may as well use him.
When all is said and done, we probably know White isn’t the answer, so moving to Flacco is kind of a “meh” move. Will he give us a better chance of winning this week? Potentially. My issue isn’t with the move, that is what it is. My issue is that Saleh spoke at the start of the week about not getting too high on White after a good game or too low on him after a bad game. One bad game and he’s benched. Not a good look coach, not a good look.
Flacco did play for the Jets against the Dolphins last year, where he completed 21/44 passes for 186 yards, 0 TD, 1 INT, and 0 points. So let’s hope we get a slightly better performance this time around.
Injuries 🤕
🏈 Game Day 🏈
Who: Miami Dolphins @ New York Jets
Where: Metlife Stadium, New Jersey
When: 6:00 pm EST - Sunday 21st of November.
Head to Head: 111 games, 55 wins, 55 losses, 1 Tie
Offensive Ranking:
Points (Jets 28th, Dolphins 26th)
Total Yards (Jets 24th, Dolphins 22nd)
Passing (Jets 13th, Dolphins 16th)
Rushing (Jets 31st, Dolphins 30th)
Defensive Ranking:
Points (Jets 32nd, Dolphins 28th)
Total Yards (Jets 31st, Dolphins 32nd)
Passing (Jets 28th, Dolphins 32nd)
Rushing (Jets 29th, Dolphins 15th)
Turnovers:
Differential (Jets -15, Dolphins -3)
Defensive Interceptions (Jets 2, Dolphins 7)
Offensive interceptions (Jets 18, Dolphins 9)
The Dolphins Offense 🐬
As you can see from the statistics above, the Dolphins offense isn’t much better than the Jets offense. They don’t turn the ball over as much, but they also have had no consistency at quarterback. This weekend will see Tua Tagovailoa start for the Dolphins following his bench heroics against Baltimore, all with a fractured middle finger.
I’m not sure the Dolphins are sure they have their franchise QB with Tua, but the 2020 first-round pick will get an 8 game audition now, starting with a favorable matchup against the worst defense in the league. The Dolphins had a very public flirtation with DeShaun Watson before deciding his legal woes made the move too risky, and the Dolphins have responded with back-to-back victories, with Tua making a number of clutch plays against the Ravens.
Tua has already missed 4 games this season and played bit-part roles in two others, with just 11 games on his resume where he’s started and finished the contest, it does raise concerns about his durability while making a true evaluation of his long-term future more difficult.
“Since Week 8 of the 2020 season, when Tagovailoa made his first career start, he ranks in the bottom six in completion percentage, passing yards per game, passing yards per attempt, TD-to-INT ratio and passer rating among 26 QBs with 10-plus starts in that span, per NFL Research”
Tua is an accurate deep ball passer, his 50% completion on balls traveling 20 or more yards is the 4th best rate in the league, so stopping the likes of Waddle and Ford from getting in behind is absolutely a priority for this Jets secondary.
Offensive Line Woes 🐬
Earlier this week the Dolphins announced that they would be placing Greg Little on IR, and that move all but confirms that Miami will be sticking with the same starting five who have continuously struggled when they visit the Jets this weekend. The Dolphins have if not the worst offensive line, then certainly one of the worst.
Tackles Liam Eichenberg (LT) and Jesse Davis (RT) have allowed 84 pressures and 14 sacks between them. Both are among the 10 worst-rated tackles in football. It’s hard to get anything going when your line is bookended by that kind of production.
Look inside and it’s only slightly better. Left guard Austin Jackson has only allowed 1 sack, but he’s allowed 5 QB hits and 39 total pressures. Right guard Robert Hunt and center Austin Reiter are average pass-blockers, but nothing to write home about. Just looking at those numbers, I start to feel very sorry for Tua.
The problems don’t just reside with passing the football, statistically, the Dolphins are one of the worst rushing teams in the league. Miami averages 73.6 yards rushing per game, which is 32nd in the league, they’re also moving the ball at just 3.4 yards per carry, which is well below the league average of 4.28.
It doesn’t help that Miami are using their 3rd center of the season in Reiter after both Michael Dieter and Greg Mancz found their way to IR. It also doesn’t help that the Dolphins haven’t invested in the running back position, and instead have opted to try and develop Myles Gaskin (3.4 yards a carry) and Salvon Ahmed (2.7 yards a carry), and while both have the ability as a receiver, neither are going to strike fear into the opposition.
When kept clean, Tua completes 72.4% of his passes with 7 touchdowns and just the one interception, compare that to when he’s under pressure where he completes 50% of his passes for 0 TD’s and 4 INT and the gameplan starts to materialize for both teams. If you’re Miami you have to keep him clean, if you’re the Jets you absolutely have to get pressure on him.
Weapons! 🐬
One thing I will say about the Miami Dolphins is they have some weapons. They may not have put the protection in front of Tua, but he has more than enough talent in the receiving core to make the Dolphins a very dangerous team to face. If his protection holds up, the ability to punish the defense at all three levels makes them extremely difficult to match up against, and this young Jets secondary is going to get a good test on Sunday.
The Dolphins receiving unit is led by rookie Jaylen Waddle. The 6th overall pick from the 2021 NFL draft already has 60 receptions, 557 yards, and 3 touchdowns to his name, it may not be Ja’Marr Chase numbers, but they’re pretty good for a rookie receiver with inconsistent QB play.
Outside of Waddle the Dolphins spread the ball around the field, including to their pass-catching TE Mike Gesicki. DeVante Parker (25 catches, currently on IR), Myles Gaskin (38 catches) Albert Wilson (12 catches) are all players you need to keep an eye on, along with 2nd TE Durham Smythe. All of this without Will Fuller, who’s appeared in just 2 games and caught just 4 balls.
Although Isiah Ford only has 6 catches on 8 targets this season, he is averaging 16.2 yards per reception and he’s a player who can burn you deep if you’re not careful, as he did against Baltimore last Thursday.
Offensive Philosophy 🐬
Eric Studesville and George Godsey are the co-offensive coordinators for the Dolphins and considering they were former running backs and tight end coaches respectively, it probably should come as no surprise that both the TE’s and RB’s are heavily involved in the Miami gameplan on a weekly basis. If the RB’s can’t get it going on the ground, they certainly push the ball to them as receivers, and with the Jets linebacking unit in disarray, Gaskin could be on for a big game on Sunday.
If you listen to the Miami offensive coordinators talk about why the team is struggling to score and move the ball down the field, you’ll get a sense of familiarity from what we’ve been hearing from our own coaches…execution, or to be precise, a lack of it.
The Dolphins run a lot of run-pass option plays, designed to confuse defenses and allow the QB to make the correct read based on what the defense is showing and what the defense is giving them.
Only three teams pass more than the Dolphins (Jets are one of them), but you can see the Dolphins trying to establish the run early in recent weeks, if they can do that against the Jets, that will make defending the RPO’s all the more difficult.
The Dolphins Defense 🐬
A few weeks ago, something clicked for the Miami Defense. They decided to go back to an approach that served them well last year by bringing the heat and trusting their defensive backs to play man-to-man and win their matchups. It’s a method that Brian Flores has used previously, and it’s a method that worked wonders against Baltimore, who had a tough time keeping Lamar Jackson clean.
The defensive metrics at the top of the newsletter is a little misleading. The Miami Dolphins defense that gave up 30+ points to the Bills, Raiders, Bucs and Falcons is largely gone, replaced by a more confident and aggressive defense that limited the Bills and beat the Ravens in the past 3 weeks.
This is the Dolphin’s defense we expected to see all season. Miami are paying a lot of money for their cornerbacks, Byron Jones and Xavien Howard are two of the highest-paid players on the roster, and while Byron Jones has been performing well this year, Xavien Howard has allowed 7 touchdowns into his coverage, not something you’d want to be paying $15.1 million for, which is his cap hit for 2021.
But the Dolphins are also blitzing their defensive backs more than any other team in the NFL this season but Brian Flores doesn’t want his defense to be one-dimensional:
“I think every game plan is a little bit different. It won’t always be blitz-heavy like it was last week. Sometimes it’s a coverage game, sometimes it’s a blitz game, sometimes it’s a mix of both. To have the flexibility to play different styles is something that we want to be able to do. I think what' the young safeties are doing - we’re putting a lot on their plate and they are getting better every day”
Miami blitzes on 38.2% of plays, which is a phenomenally high number and the 2nd highest mark in the league behind Tampa Bay (40.3%). The Jets by comparison blitz on just 25.1% of plays. Despite Miami blitzing at a high rate, they’re still only ranked 15th in terms of sacks generated and 27% in terms of hurry percentage per drop back.
On Thursday against the Ravens, the Dolphins blitzed their safeties more than any defensive backs this season and more than safety duo since Next Gen Stats started documenting it in 2016. Jevon Holland was sent on blitzes 21 times and Brandon Jones 17 times.
Emmanuel Ogbah is their main threat off the edge, the former Oklahoma State player has 5 sacks on the season so far to go with his 24 hurries. He’s supported by linebacker Jaelen Phillips (2.5 sacks), Andrew Van Ginkel (2 sacks), and defensive tackle Christian Wilkins (2 sacks).
Rookie Watch 🔍
I don’t often like to admit such things, but Dolphins 2nd round selection Jevon Holland is one of my favorite players to watch The rookie safety out of Oregon already has 38 tackles, 2 sacks, 2 tackles for a loss, 5 QB hits, 1 INT and 5 passes defended, and that’s just through his first 10 games, with only 7 of those being games he started.
If he continues on this trajectory, he’ll be one of the best safeties in the league within the next 2 years, PFF already has him rated as one of the top 20 safeties in the league.
Miami line Holland up all over the field, and he’s a hybrid safety where he’s as good plaing at the time and rushing the passer like in the clip above, or playing deep and breaking on the ball, using his speed to close the gap.
He really is playing at a high level, and pushing the ball down the field against him and fellow safety Brandon Jones is easier said than done considering their revitalization over the last month, and that feels weird to say as only the Jets have allowed more passing plays of 20+ yards this season.
Cover 0 ⚡
You’ll hear a lot this week that the Dolphins play a cover 0 defense a lot, but what does that actually mean. In the simplest terms, you sacrifice a deep defender for an extra rusher, which basically means you’re relying on your corners to win their 1v1 matchup because there won’t be any help over the top if they get beat.
In last week’s game, Marquise Brown stuck a double move on Howard and got behind him, unfortunately for Brown, Jackson overthrew the ball, but it outlined the danger of playing that kind of aggressive coverage if your pass-rush doesn’t get home and your cornerback gets beat.
One of the reasons the Jets are starting Joe Flacco on Sunday is because of his experience. He has seen these types of defenses time and time again, and the Jets trust him to be able to manage the all-out blitzes better than Mike White. One thing the Dolphins do is show blitz and drop off into coverage. Last year Chargers wide receiver Keenan Allen said that aspect confused the chargers
“Every time they showed it, we thought they were going to bring it,” Allen said. “Most of the game, they backed off and played coverage. That kind of messed with our play calling a little bit.”
The Jets will need to be wary of this and not spend all week just preparing for the blitz. The Dolphins disguise their coverages as good as anyone in the league.
Defensive Coordinator - Josh Boyer
Josh Boyer was at least partially responsible for the Dolphins defensive turnaround. Many people will point to Flores, after all, he did run a championship defense in New England. But, even Flores says that he gets too much credit and Josh Boyer doesn’t get enough.
When the curtain came down on the 2020 season, the Dolphins had the 6th best defense in terms of points allowed, in 2019 they ranked dead last in that very important category.
Boyer’s philosophy matches that of Dean Pees, the current Falcons coordinator and the man who was responsible for bringing Boyer to New England in the first place. Simple for the defense hard for the offense:
“One thing we always believed in philosophically was we were going to be multiple but simple,” Pees said. “I know it sounds crazy, but we’re going to do a lot of things. But we’re going to make it simple for the players. So we don’t want it to be hard for the players but we want it to be hard for opposing quarterbacks. So we’re very multiple up front but we’re very simple in the back end so the guys don’t bust coverages and give up big plays.”
✨ Star Player - Xavien Howard, CB 🌟
There’s a reason Howard is being paid so much money, he actually led the league in interceptions in 2020 with 10 and also came out top with 20 pass defenses, he made a pro-bowl appearance and was named All-Pro for the very first time.
At one point this off-season it looked as though Howard was on his way out of Miami, with the highly paid corner wanting the Dolphins to give him even more after this outstanding 2020 season. Howard racked up nearly $100k worth of fines for not reporting, but eventually, the two sides came to an agreement.
The All-Pro does have 10 pass defenses this year, but he’s only recorded 2 interceptions so far and PFF have him responsible for 7 touchdowns so far this season, which is already 3 more than his previous highest total for a season (4 in 2020, 2018 and 2017).
Saying that, Howard does have those ball-hawk tendencies and the Jets will need to be wary of this when attacking him.
That’s it for today. Thanks for reading, if you like the content, please do consider sharing it with your fellow Jets fans. Enjoy the weekend, and hopefully, we’re back on Monday talking about a victory.