He has only had about 10 meaningful defensive snaps since the Buffalo game (one of the 11 snaps was a spike/clock play). And yeah, that confuses me too.
Why is he not on the field? He is what he is, a situational pass rusher. The problem with that is the Dolphins have Jason Taylor and Joey Porter, two of the most productive sackers in NFL history, and it takes some mighty big stones to take those guys off the field in obvious passing situations. That's the bottom line.
But that's going to have to start happening more because probably our best pass rush game happened when we had Jason Taylor playing his more natural spot at ROLB and Cameron Wake rushing from the left side. Eventually you have to swallow your pride, forget about history, look at what is happening in the present, and make the right call.
Since he's only had 10 meaningful snaps, 7 of them against Damien Woody, it's easy to actually look at how he did on those snaps.
What I can tell you is he beat Woody clean on 2 of those 7 snaps, and he beat Jon Stinchcomb clean on the only play he played against Jon one-on-one.
Woody gave Wake's speed rush heavy respect and in the first game Wake went up on him 6 times. Damien did a great job getting back and absorbing Cameron's speed, washing him out for the most part. The one play where Cameron had success on him, he took Woody back about 7-8 yards, read Damien's leverage, and then cut across his face. Unfortunately for Cam, Brandon Moore was keeping an eye on him for the double team and when he crossed Woody's face, Moore came in and stoned him. But it was the one play out of the six that Cam had success against Damien Woody so I find it interesting that in his ONE snap against the Jets in the second game, what did he do? Same thing. Brought him back 7-8 yards, read his leverage and crossed his face, this time using a spin move. No double team this time though, he had a clean path to the QB, it was 3rd & 15 and Sanchez dumped the ball early on a crossing route well shy of the first down marker.
On the other hand, Jon Stinchcomb seemed to be unprepared for Wake's speed. When Wake came in the game on a 3rd & 5, Stinchcomb couldn't get back far enough and Cam beat him around the corner, forcing Drew Brees to step up into the pocket to where the 6'7" Tony McDaniel could dominate the passing lanes and Brees got a ball batted away at the line by Tony. The announcers wisely pointed out that Wake's pressure forcing Brees to move up in the pocket is what got that ball batted away.
This is why I don't agree with the reluctance to put Wake on the field. He didn't JUST beat Kirk Chambers of Buffalo. He's beaten Jon Stinchcomb and Damien Woody too. He also beat Tony Pashos and Tra Thomas in the preseason. The guy can beat NFL talent. Joey Porter is not getting the job done.
