Joseph told me the Dolphins have been hurt by the loss of “Number 20,” as he calls him. That’s Reshad Jones. And he said the only way to sorta, kinda replace him is “safety by committee.”
It is going to be a committee of three going forward, according to Joseph. (That’s right, three guys replacing Reshad Jones).
The Dolphins will be using Isa Abdul-Quddus, Michael Thomas, and Bacarri Rambo — so I would expect Rambo to be active on Sunday.
And their duties will be as follows:
“We’ve got Isa who’s really smart and great close to the box,” Joseph said. “Michael is a good blitzer and better in coverage. And Rambo is a helluva of a high safety."
So when the Dolphins bring a safety down it will be Abdul-Quddus. When they’re in Cover 2, it should be Thomas in there. And when they’ve got a single high safety, Bacarri should get some snaps.
“When Mario was a young guy, he was a freak,” said Joseph, who coached Williams with the Houston Texans. “So he was a young guy and he could go at 60 percent and still be better than most. He's no longer that 23-year-old first pick of the draft. He's a little older now so he's got to work a little more. And that's ok.
“So I think Mario understands now that playing 30 plays at 100 percent he helps us win versus 55 plays at 50 percent. So Mario playing less but playing harder helps us win. Sometimes you can't play that hard for 50 plays at a certain stage of your career.”
The Dolphins believe Williams has hit a point in his career where he can’t go full tilt for 55 plays. Maybe he never could. But when he was younger, he could take some plays off and still be productive. He cannot do that anymore. So instead of playing 55 plays and taking 20 off, he’s now going to be playing 30-35 and he better be full tilt on all of those.
Stated simply, Byron Maxwell wasn’t familiar enough with the defense to make it work for him.
The way it was explained to me, Maxwell played best in Seattle because they asked him to do the same thing every single play. The Seahawks made Maxwell a Cover 3 cornerback on the right side every single time.
But the Dolphins play multiple coverages and Maxwell simply wasn’t getting that.
“He has to understand how the coverage works to benefit him and he wasn’t sure,” Joseph said, “and now he’s sure. I think he knew what he was doing. But he didn’t know exactly where his help was and how each call would help him play better. It’s different than playing Cover 3. Now he understands how it will help him. And he’s playing well with his mind again.
“I told him, ‘Bro, you’re going to be somewhat of an older corner one day. And how you survive is with your mind, not your legs. So he’s learning to play with his mind.”
