Johnson Dishes on New Dolphins Defense | Page 2 | FinHeaven - Miami Dolphins Forums

Johnson Dishes on New Dolphins Defense

There's always a downside...does this mean our pass rush will falter (even more)?

I dunno, but he has spent the last 11 years learning under Dick LeBeau and Marvin Lewis primarily. The big thing is wherever he's been, they've been great at getting interceptions. I mean, Deltha O'Neal and Tory James were pro bowlers with Coyle as their position coach. The last few years thanks to injury and free agency he's had a hodgepodge of people in his secondary. A few years ago in the playoffs he had to choose between Chinedum Ndukwe, Tom Nelson, Chris Crocker, and Roy Williams as safeties.

It's really hard to judge what his defense will look like. I know while he was at Syracuse, Maryland, and Fresno State he had some pretty good defenses (that also excelled in turnovers)

Pasqualoni couldn't make adjustments, period. Sean Smith said in an interview than when Pasqualoni was the DC, if an offense sent anyone in motion, the coverage call was automatically changed to man to man. Every. Time. This is monumentally easy to take advantage of if you know it's coming, especially if your inside linebackers are as poor in coverage as Akin Ayodele and Channing Crowder. It was a feeding frenzy.

All too often fans blame poor performances on coordinators because they don't want to believe the players on their team are bad. But in Pasqualoni's case the coaching really was to blame for a lot of what went on.

All I'm saying is that if we're going to be running a lot of quarters coverage this year, the X's and O's is probably going to look more like the Pasqualoni defense than Cincy's defense under Coyle. It's not some kind of inherently flawed concept or anything. But that's what it will look like. Reshad Jones in particular will probably thrive in it. And it will help hide the fact that we don't have a true FS.

Agreed for the most part. Hell Coyle was Pasqualoni's DC at Syracuse for a few years. But I think with how Coyle's career path has taken him, and comparing his interviews to that of Pasqualoni's you'll see a HUGE difference in philosophy. PP wasn't very creative and wanted to keep everything as simple as possible. Coyle wants more flexibility.
 
There's always a downside...does this mean our pass rush will falter (even more)?

The common saying you hear thrown around is "A good pass rush, can make a secondary look good". Well in this case, if we have a very good secondary, that could in turn really help our pass rush, by allowing the rusher to make a second or third move and buy them more time to get to the QB.
 
This is why Im a fan of Richard Marshall. He was a tremendous man corner last season, and he came in under the rader. Everyone fell head over heels for Carlos Rogers but IMO the best free agent CB was Finnegan by far, then Marshall/Carr made up 1 and 2. Marshall is a bit older and comes from multiple systems, but the guy produces in every system he is in. Fantastic in run support and "very good" in coverage, especially man. With him and Vontae we have carbon copies of them so it should make interchanging very simple.

Sean Smith, however, sucks at man but excels at zone and can't catch a beach ball
 
Agreed for the most part. Hell Coyle was Pasqualoni's DC at Syracuse for a few years. But I think with how Coyle's career path has taken him, and comparing his interviews to that of Pasqualoni's you'll see a HUGE difference in philosophy. PP wasn't very creative and wanted to keep everything as simple as possible. Coyle wants more flexibility.

Well, I'm hopeful, of course. I just think it's important to point out the relevant X's and O's. One thing that's already been shown by Coyle that Pasqualoni didn't show is flexibility. They didn't run a ton of quarters in Cincy, yet it seems we're going to run a lot of it here. Coyle has been a 4-3 guy for most if not all of his pro career, but he's willing to be multiple and use the 3-4 here because that fits our personnel.

That's the important thing, that a coach views their schematic experience as a tool for adaptation. That's something Pasqualoni didn't show. He stuck to his guns either out of ignorance or stubbornness, and the defense fell apart as a result.

It's impossible to look at Coyle's resume and say he'll be a success. Only a homer would do that. But so far his stated willingness to adapt to personnel is a positive sign.
 
Back
Top Bottom