3 Yards Per Carry Episode 1.20 - Game Day!

[NoblePhin]

It's a blessing to have 3 starting caliber safeties, especially with one that can play nickel db.

 

[dougb123]

Good Podcast, noticed there was no hot-take?

 

[Fin Thirteen]

McCain in the slot for me always seems slow to flip his hips and track his guy, especially on crossing routes. Dunno if it's a physical or mental limitation but he allows separation out of the stem on a regular basis in nickel where the receiver can break either way.

I think he's better suited to the boundary.

 

[ckparrothead]

Let me ask you this then - do you expect that 25-35% of snaps in base defense to remain consistent, and do you expect Miami to run any 6 DB packages? I remember you pointing out how averse Miami has been in the past to playing Dime packages compared to other teams in the league.

The Base number was 37% last year for Miami. The NFL average will depend on how you consider the new wave hybrid players who are technically listed as linebackers but have college history playing safety or spur, and really look like strong safeties from a decade ago. So the NFL average is either 26% if those guys are categorized as DBs, or 33% if they're categorized as LBs.

Miami technically acquired one of those hybrids in Terence Garvin, who played safety at West Virginia, but he's gained so much weight at this point I'm thinking of removing him off the hybrid list altogether.

Given the weakness we saw out of Run Defense in Base last night, that 37% number could even conceivably go UP if the offenses begin targeting their Base packages. They were already bad defending the pass out of Base (as I said, whenever McCain wasn't part of the Base package). If they've sprung a major leak in Run from Base too...teams could focus on keeping us in Base.

They have explicitly expressed their willingness to use 3-Safety stuff, which as you know isn't necessarily the same as using Dime. If they're willing to throw some Big Nickel out there instead of Base, then that would be a factor that brings the Base percentage down...but not a ton. Looking at how this is used around the league I would say it would impact the Base percentage by at most like 10-15%.

There have been minor indications of their willingness to use Dime. If they're willing to go down the 3-Safety rabbit hole then it's not a far jump to Dime. But this is very much a show-me story because they've used Dime a total of 19 times in two seasons. They're one of 12 or 14 teams that just don't use it. Except that where the majority of those teams have like a Telvin Smith, Mark Barron, Shaq Thompson, Matt Milano, Adarius Glanton, or Josh Harvey-Clemons, and thus their 'Nickel' package with one of those guys in the game will match up a lot like some other 3-Safety Dime packages...Miami had no guys like that. They didn't even have the speed linebackers like Deion Jones, Anthony Barr, Eric Kendricks, Zach Brown, Bobby Wagner, etc. So their willingness to avoid Dime is even that much more conspicuous and stubborn.

This is a wide range, but if the Base didn't fall between 25 and 40% then I would be pretty surprised. And if Dime was more than 5 to 8% then I would also be (pleasantly) surprised, and in fact I might forecast it to be more like 3% based on their history and stubbornness.