Does Dolphins D smell blood in water after Giants allow 11 sacks? ‘For sure' | Habib
MIAMI GARDENS — Forget the smile that dolphins — the ones with the lowercase D — have permanently plastered on their faces. Lovable creatures? We don’t need lovable Sunday, not when the Dolphins with a capital D attempt to rebound from a four-touchdown whipping last weekend.
We need sharks. Or at least Dolphins acting like sharks.
Because if they aren’t, something’s amiss here.
The New York Giants are coming to town Sunday. If you stayed up for “Monday Night Football” this week, you’re wondering 1) Why and 2) How the Giants’ offensive line can be this godawful. The Giants conceded 11 sacks and were booed off the MetLife field in a 24-3 drubbing by Seattle. Turned out that ad slogan “Get Met — it pays” was targeted at Daniel Jones all along.
Jones, it must be said, wasn’t dropped 11 times Monday night. The Seahawks had compassion. When receiver Parris Campbell attempted one throw, he got the same treatment.
So, sniffing blood in the water?
“Yeah, for sure, man,” Dolphins linebacker Bradley Chubb said Wednesday. “You want to capitalize on the things that you saw last week.”
Linebacker Jerome Baker: “I hope I get one. I hope we all get one.”
Maybe Baker should leave tickets for Oprah (“You get a sack! You get a sack!”). Look, 11 sacks sounds obscene. Probably because it is. Nobody has ever given up more than 12 in a game. You have to go back to 2007 for the last time a team gave up 11. Even sharks can get full stomachs.
But for a Dolphins defense still trying to find its footing under new coordinator Vic Fangio, Sunday needs to be a day the term “high heat” doesn’t only apply to the MLB playoffs.
This is where linebacker Jaelan Phillips, who appears likely to return from an oblique injury, takes a realistic, analytical approach to the MNF massacre.
“Watching that, it’s good to see just because it gives you kind of different looks at what moves are beating certain guys and things like that,” Phillips said. “But you know, when you see 11 sacks it doesn’t automatically mean that we’re going to have 11 sacks. So it’s not like it’s going to be easy by any means. Obviously the Seahawks did a great job, caused a lot of pressure, and we’re looking to do the same.”
Bradley Chubb says players must stick to the script
After giving up 48 points to the Buffalo Bills, the Dolphins are tied for 26th in the NFL in total defense and 28th in scoring defense. Considering Miami ranked 18th defensively last season and added Fangio, the returns aren’t as expected. But four games isn’t much of a sample size.
“I think there’s growing pains anytime we switch defenses like this,” Phillips said. “The defense is a lot different than the defense we ran for the last two years.”
How far along are players in grasping Fangio’s concepts?
“That’s a good question,” Phillips said. “I think we have really high potential and we’re definitely not where we want to be yet. We’re making steady progress. … I couldn’t put a percentage on it.”
Chubb has one sack, which is tied with five others for second on the team behind linebacker Andrew Van Ginkel, who has three. On a more positive note, analytics say Dolphins pass rushers are performing well in “win rate” even if they are only tied for 19th with 10 sacks.
“We’re doing all right, but we could for sure do a lot better,” Chubb said. “Me personally, I feel like I could get after the quarterback a lot better in these first couple of games. It just goes back to technique and being a master of the technique and not trying to do too much getting those sack numbers up and stuff like that. (It’s just) letting the game come to me and letting me be me.”
Whether that feeling is universal on the unit is the question.
“It’s easy to trust it on paper and easy to go out there in practice and trust it,” Chubb said of Fangio’s scheme. “But when bullets are flying, you kind of want to resort back to your old ways and do stuff that you used to do. I feel like as a team, we’re right there on the cusp of perfecting where we need to be. A play or two might resort back to old things and not do stuff how we know how we can do it, and those one or two plays end up hurting us in the long run. That’s when they get their explosive plays. I feel like if we minimize trying to go outside the defense and try to do the next person’s job and try to do the absolute most, I feel like if we get back to those fundamentals and get back to what the defense is asking of us, I feel like we can take this to a whole other level.”
Dolphins must get back on track before trip to face Eagles
The Dolphins aren’t the first defense to have issues staying on script and won’t be the last. But it has to stop. In the Giants, there is opportunity. It’s a home game, just like the following Sunday's game against the Panthers. Then, it's a trip to Philadelphia for a difficult, prime-time assignment against the Eagles. They need only to ask the Marlins how tough it can be playing before those Philly fanatics.
Like the Dolphins, the Giants made the playoffs last year. Rookie Brian Daboll won coach of the year, but that was largely on the strength of a 7-2 record out of the gate. Since then, the Giants have won only four of 14 games.
There are caveats. All-Pro running back Saquon Barkley could return from a high ankle sprain, making the Giants less one dimensional. And, even with all those sacks, Jones completed 27-of-34 passes for 203 yards. He was intercepted twice, so his passer rating was 67.0.
More: Play Cam Smith? Well, Mike McDaniel will offer input to Dolphins' Vic Fangio, as he should | Schad
“But 11 sacks with the completion percentage that he had, it felt like to me when I was watching, that it was either completion or sack,” head coach Mike McDaniel said. “Which means the way I see it and probably the way — I have all the respect in the world for coach Daboll — the difference between sack and completion is that finite.”
No surprise that McDaniel isn’t setting the bar at a dozen.
“I think it’s shortsighted to just say, ‘OK, 11 sacks,’ and then off the rip, you’re like, ‘OK, well block,’ ” McDaniel said. “There’s a lot of things that go into that.”
Daboll being the offensive coach he is, maybe he’ll have some answers by Sunday.
Meantime, the Dolphins ought to be smelling blood.
Dolphins reporter Hal Habib can be reached at hhabib@pbpost.com. Follow him on social media @gunnerhal.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Miami Dolphins must find defensive footing vs. porous N.Y. Giants line
