It is obvious to me that the defense's biggest problem has to be it's scheme. This team has way too much individual talent on defense to be as bad as it has been playing. It does, however, have two weak links on the defensive unit. Kiko Alonso and Byron Maxwell. I think Alonso is awful and Maxwell is a liability against any receiver with quickness. Every team has weaknesses in talent but are able to overcome it and those two shouldn't be the reason this defense has played as poorly as it has so far. My conclusion is like Son's of Shula, it is the scheme.
Scheme or Talent?
- Thread starter rickd13
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I know his cap hit would have been an issue but Mycheal Kendricks sure would look good on our roster. he is playing lights out.
I have never seen a D that i am so confident will give up a 1st down on 3rd and long and the opposing WR will always make the big play against us when the ball is thrown long. R Jones had an awful game last night. Hopefully he gets on track.
Hell on every 3rd down i would just all out blitz. Can't do worse than we are doing
I have never seen a D that i am so confident will give up a 1st down on 3rd and long and the opposing WR will always make the big play against us when the ball is thrown long. R Jones had an awful game last night. Hopefully he gets on track.
Hell on every 3rd down i would just all out blitz. Can't do worse than we are doing
Yessir
Dolfan for Life
Combination of both. Our corner situation is not great. We've got a great strong safety (although he was pretty terrible last night), but we don't have the center fielder with great range at all. Really wish we could have gotten Marcus Maye.
I was listening to the game on SIRIUS RADIO and the announcers for the Eagles mad a comment about the 2nd team offense for the Eagles were having better success against the Dolphins 1st unit than the Eagles 1st unit Offense did. One of the announcers said that the Dolphins Defense looked tired. He said that he noticed that all week during the joint practices that the Dolphins would get tired and that the talk was they didn't think the Dolphins were use to going that hard. I don't know how true that is but it's a bad thing to hear.
BahamaFinFan78
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We have not had good linebackers in what feels like a decade. We do not have two good corners on the team. We have no free safety. Other than Suh, the DT's get pushed around. Hard to blame scheme when you have those holes. We might have a bad scheme too, but...
Can we just wait with such conclusions until we have played maybe 4 games that count? I'm not saying that I'm confident this defense will be good, but after 3 pre-season games where the players usually don't go 100% and the coaches are still in evaluation mode, this sounds like a knee jerk reaction.
I wouldnt doubt it. I think part of it is that Gase put them in "Don't get hurt" mode.
I really dont think it is a talent issue (with some exceptions) but more of a scheme, "Don't get hurt", and asking players to fill roles that they dont normally fill.
For example, Maxwell is a far better press corner, but how much press coverage have we seen from our secondary thus far in preseason? For the life of me, I can't figure out why we play such soft zone coverage, maybe it is because Gase wants to minimize injury?
And playing not to get hurt, trying to keep our starters healthy, has the noticeable effect that the Philly announcers picked up on. They don't have the conditioning they need going into the season because they have been holding back in practices and preseason games.
I get it, we got ****ed with injuries last year, and we got ****ed again in training camp. But you cant play this game scared. Not only will guys be more apt to get injured, they will also wear down faster.
gofins60
Club Member
Miami had a good defense (with a Top 5 Rushing Defense) under Sparano/Nolan. The scheme was changed under Philbin/Coyle and that Top 5 Rushing Defense dropped in the rankings with basically the same personnel. It then continued to drop every year after that as Philbin and a pathetic Front Office replaced talented players with bums. When Gase hired Joseph nothing changed. Under Philbin and Gase, Miami's defense was eerily similar: they couldn't stop the run, CBs played so far off the WRs that the offense would easily march right down the field, and 3rd and very long was almost always an automatic 1st down. I have NEVER seen a defense give up so many 20+ yard runs on 3rd and forever!
Gase is slowly building a respectable offense (if he would only replace the entire o-line!!!!!), but he knows nothing about defense, and neither does his choice of DCs nor the Front Office personnel.
Gase is slowly building a respectable offense (if he would only replace the entire o-line!!!!!), but he knows nothing about defense, and neither does his choice of DCs nor the Front Office personnel.
Our front office personnel are all from the Bill Parcells school of defense. They're rooted in the 3-4 hence the reason our DEs are so undersized and have been tweeners. Olivier Vernon was a tweener and so is Charles Harris...so is Wake for that matter. The back end in a 3-4 and a 4-3 is relatively interchangeable but the front 7 not so much. We've been in a 4-3 since Philbin got here in 2012 and they still haven't figured out how to draft the right players.
I've said before, Gase may end up being a good coach but as long as Tannenbaum and the rest of this front office is in place he'll never sustain any success here. The front office and the draft have been the biggest issue in Miami since Jimmy Johnson left in 1999. The spiral downward started with Dave Wannstedt and him drafting the Jamar Fletchers and Eddie Moores of the world.
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I hate the soft zone. It isn't working. It hasn't worked since Coyle got here.
BTW I completely dismiss the idea Gase doesn't know defense. You cannot scheme to beat defense without understanding defense.
BTW I completely dismiss the idea Gase doesn't know defense. You cannot scheme to beat defense without understanding defense.
True- so he best get more involved, unless in his opinion its truly just personnel. He has some say on personnel also supposedly so...
DANTODUPER
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Lets give Burke some games to surprise us, but I agree. It seems like we should have enough talent on defense to be more competitive, and between soft playing (hope this is an instruction for the preseason), missed tackles by players (surprised by Jones performance) and scheme on the secondary (givin 20 yards of cushion) it seems like we should improve instantly if we change some things.
If this is true, they won't be ready for the regular season opener. This is on Gase. I remember a few years ago they played tired in the 1st few games. Hope this is not a repeat. I noticed the difference myself, when Phillys 2nd unit took over. I thought the defense just let up, never expecting it was conditioning. I was watching the Philly broadcast on NBC here in South Jersey, they made no mention of what you heard on Sirius Radio.
JTech194
Starter
I'll reserve judgement until the real games start. In pre-season we just don't know if the coaches\players are just trying things that they normally wouldn't try to see if they work, if players are taking chances they normally wouldn't take or if players giving 100% effort. As a matter of fact.. I know not all players are giving 100% effort .... There was one punt where the receiver called fair catch but then dropped the ball and none of the dolphins coverage guys pounced on him or the ball.. They just looked him and watched him pick the ball up..... In a real game... that return guy gets pummeled. Unless they've changed the rules or something.
jtoomuch
Apalled and aghast
I really hope Burke knows what he is doing, but so far he is not making me feel confident. Defense looked lost far too often.