Dolphins point to poor tackling for recent struggles against run
DAVIE, Fla. -- The Miami Dolphins picked up a valuable win against the New York Jets on Monday night, but troubling issues remain with their run defense.
Though they've been consistently ranked in the top-10 against the rush for most of the season, the defense has now turned in two straight poor performances in which the Denver Broncos and the Jets have hammered them on the ground. As a result, the Dolphins have been knocked down from eighth place three weeks ago to 21st in the league.
After allowing a season-high 201 rushing yards in Denver, they followed up with an abysmmal performance in which the Jets rushed for 210 yards... by halftime.
Little wonder that defensive coordinator Kevin Coyle described that first half as a "bad dream" Tuesday. The Jets finished with 277 rushing yards, 13 rushing first downs and were almost able to pull off the upset at home if it wasn't for some late-game miscues.
"We have to tackle better," coach Joe Philbin said Tuesday. "This game is not overly complicated. If you can run the ball that effectively, they're going to continue to do that. So we have to improve without a doubt."
Just like in their performance against the Broncos, poor tackling was a major issue Monday and they were slow to react in the box. One play in which running back Chris Johnson ran for 47 yards that set up the only Jets touchdown of the game was especially egregious, with Coyle estimating his players missed at least three tackles that could have reduced the damage to just a 5-yard gain. It was the first time Johnson surpassed 100 yards in a game for the Jets.
"You have to give them some credit," Philbin said. "They had a couple of good schemes. Some of the reverses, they took advantage. We play with good speed on defense and that's by design. They had a couple of well-designed plays. The Chris Johnson one especially, that's a standard play that you can't let get out for 47 yards. When you look at that play and you say, 'Boy, the tackling wasn't very good there.'"
The Broncos, led by quarterback Peyton Manning, are always going to be a threat with their passing game, and the Dolphins had to respect that. But against a weak Jets team without many offensive weapons, it wasn't exactly a secret that they would try to establish a run game to maximize one of the few advantages they had.
Coyle attempted to downplay the notion that the run defense was broken, pointing out that if it wasn't for a few big plays in which his defense was caught flat-footed, the Jets' rush totals were actually similar to their past performances.
"They're one of the better running teams in the league to start out with," he said. "We weren't as bad as what it comes off initially. We've got to fix some of the things that we obviously need to fix in the run game in terms of our run fits and in terms of dealing with some of these reverses."
Miami was able to patch up some of those issues by adding more defenders in the box and packing it in. But it won't get any easier for the Dolphins with stronger opponents coming up that feature more dynamic offenses. Next up is the Baltimore Ravens and running back Justin Forsett, who is fourth in the league with 1,009 rushing yards and has collected 400 in his last three games alone. After that is a rematch against the New England Patriots on the road, where Tom Brady has been joined by LeGarrette Blount in the backfield.
But above all else, the team must correct its tackling woes that have shown up from time to time since the start of the season.
"Some of the basic fundamentals have been missing at times, whether a guy leaves his feet when he doesn't have to, maybe he doesn't wrap up when he should wrap up with his arms," Philbin said of his team's tackling issues. "Maybe he doesn't accelerate his feet on contact. There are a lot of different things that have shown up, and usually as is always the case, it's never necessarily one thing. It's not every single play obviously because we had some fine tackles out there.
"But we spent a little time on it last week, and we will continue to address it and work on it. It's one of the core fundamentals of football that we all know."
You can follow Surya Fernandez on Twitter @SuryaHeatNBA or email him at SuryaFoxSports@gmail.com.
