If you’re wondering what Dolphins defensive coordinator Mike Nolan has to say about all of this, you’re in luck. We didn’t hear from Nolan – or offensive coordinator Brian Daboll – last week approaching the team’s bye. But both resumed their normal weekly press conferences today. I asked Nolan where he put the most emphasis during the off week – where he wanted to see the most improvement.
He said:
“Well obviously the vertical passing game has hurt us this season thus far. We’ve [allowed] some big plays so that would be the primary concern that we paid some focus to and tried to work on as much as we could. And this is a team [the Jets] that’s talking a lot about trying to get their passing game going.
“So it’ll be interesting to see what they’ve done and what we’ve done.”
Interesting, indeed. We’ll find out on Monday night. But is there any way for Nolan to know before then how much progress his pass defense has made?
“No, you can’t,” Nolan said. “Got to go play the game. I wish we could because then we could say, hey wait a minute, we’re not there yet. But you can’t.”
Defending against the pass is but one area where the Dolphins defense has struggled. The run defense has been so-so – decent enough but not great. There has been a lack of playmaking, and a lack of turnovers. The Dolphins have forced just two of those so far.
Nolan had a week – less, really, given the team’s off days – to figure things out. Or at least try to.
“The obvious things that everyone sees and talks about are the things that we’ve really tried to pinpoint the most,” he said. “But outside of that there’s little things that come up. Statistics are a great way to try and find out where you’re good and why – and the same thing where you’re not very good and why.
“Otherwise, they can be used in a lot of ways and you can twist them any way you want and make yourself look a lot better than you really are. You can take stats – you can throw them out any which way and there’s million of them, as you know. But when you use them the right way I think you’ve got to be critical of yourself and really say, look, this is where we’re bad. And then let’s really pinpoint what it is … there’s a lot of people that can hide behind them.
“But that’s not what you want to do. They’re helpful.”
The numbers are ugly. They’re painful. They tell part of the story about why the Dolphins are 0-4. And Nolan isn’t hiding from them. But trying to figure a way to make them better. He’ll find out on Monday night whether the Dolphins are closer to doing that.
