Game thoughts: Week 9, Dolphins at Bears

white1 wrote:That is some good perspective.  Let us see how the remaining games play out - I'll stop calling for Boyer's head.... for now.

Fields is starting to look like an elite talent.  It could be this last game was nothing more than that...

Fields is a QB drafted out of Ohio St. Not a single such player has amounted to anything in the NFL. The previous first round Buckeye QB was a bust and is now dead. I will say that Fields already has the 3rd most passing yards of any drafted Ohio St. QB   which only proves my point about them. But he's got a ways to go before he's even as good as the best Buckeye QB Mike Tomczak, who somehow went undrafted. At some point Fields actually needs to be able to pass the ball, since that's kind of a big part of a QBs job. Averaging under 200 yards passing per game won't cut it in today's NFL, and didn't even cut it in the NFL of 20 years ago (Jay Fiedler anyone?).

https://stathead.com/tiny/xIbq3

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/T/TomcMi00.htm

The real reason Fields looked good is because the Fins have sucked against running QBs years before Boyer came along. For example, Colin Kaepernick had one of the only two regular season 100-yard rushing games of his career against them 6 years ago, and Josh Allen had his only 100-yard rushing game against them 2 years after that, which is two years before Boyer. Maybe if Grier actually drafted or signed better LBs...but that's another complaint for another time. The Fins are 3-0 VS the three QBs who currently have the most rushing yards this season so there's that. It's not that guys like Herbert or even Brissett can't/won't run but I don't see them ripping up the D for triple digits. And if they do that actually might be a good thing since all five of the QBs who've done it so far lost the game

https://stathead.com/tiny/L7yyC

If anything the Browns actually relying on an actual RB as their main offensive weapon would seem to play right into this D's hands. I WANT them handing off to Chubb, because IMO that would be better than passing against the walking wounded.

white1 wrote:That is some good perspective.  Let us see how the remaining games play out - I'll stop calling for Boyer's head.... for now.

Fields is starting to look like an elite talent.  It could be this last game was nothing more than that...

For the record, I am just as frustrated as you with this defense. I just think we need to keep things in perspective. This defense is statistically awful overall, but in key spots it usually (though not always) delivers. And really, most defenses in the league today land on the mediocre (at best) side of the good-bad scale. We are not alone!

IMO injuries and lack of turnovers have made Boyer's job much more difficult. He can't do anything about injuries, but should be able to somehow increase turnovers.

I'm on board with whatever McDaniel wants to do with the DC position...and my gut tells me he is going to bring in some new blood after the season.

There are some oddities in Miami’s defensive performance against Chicago. They held Fields’ completion percentage to his typical 60% (note that it was over 70% against Dallas and Minnesota), but allowed only 4.4 yards per attempt – his next lowest average was 6.2 yards per against Houston and his season average was well over 7 yards per. However, he threw 3 TD against Miami after having never thrown more than 2 (only twice – Dallas and SF). He only threw 1 TD three times and no TDs in three games. But where he really killed Miami was on the ground. Even if you remove that inexcusable 61 yard scamper (especially if you consider Lamar Jackson had a 79 yarder against Miami – did they not learn anything), Fields still exceeded his next best rushing performance by nearly 30 yards (88 yards against Washington). His 11.9 yard per rush was insane – and again, even if you remove the ridiculous TD run, he still averaged 8.4 yards per rush which against far exceeds his next best effort (7.5) by nearly a full yard and his previous season average (5.6).

So whatever Miami’s defense was doing, it was keeping his passes short (albeit in the endzone), but then allowing him to run at will. I found this interesting…

Rookie Channing Tindall played a season-high five defensive snaps, primarily as a quarterback spy for Justin Fields, whose 178 rushing yards were a regular-season single-game record for a quarterback. Tindall didn’t play on defense in the second half.

https://www.miamiherald.com/sports/nfl/miami-dolphins/article268395822.html

Obviously 5 snaps shouldn’t be the difference maker, but whatever the Dolphins decided wasn’t working to contain Fields in the first half was adjusted to not include Tindall in the second half – and that clearly worked worse as 125 of his rushing yards came in the second half. And its not like Miami’s otherwise running defense was horrible. Other than Fields, the Bears only rushed for 74 yards with a 3 yard average – that would otherwise be winning rush defense.

I think Fields’ low yards per attempts average and his high rushing numbers must be connected. It looks like Miami was playing deeper passes (zone? deep safeties?) to prevent anything over the top, but that seems to have conceded/cleared-out the short to medium portion of the field for Fields. Most of his runs did not appear to be designed, but came after dropping back and either finding no open receivers or feeling pressure. Miami took away the deep passes and dared him to run – and he did, with much success.

Excellent post, merc!

I would add that the defense has been mostly very good against RBs. Running QBs tend to be a problem.

As I mentioned elsewhere, the Bears game saw the D playing pretty well overall on 1st and 2nd downs - 3rd down was the big problem. We got them in a lot of 3rd and long situations, and Fields just kept converting with his legs. We did manage to get some pressure, but due to a combo of poor angles and poor tackling Fields just kept escaping. The D did it's job on a lot of those big runs and were in position to make plays and prevent Fields from running wild - but simply couldn't finish.

And yes, the DBs were playing deep and keeping everything in front of them for the most part - but as we've seen, all that does is give the QB easy short completions for first downs. I think that shows that Boyer doesn't trust his corners to match-up in the typical man/press alignments that he favors. Of course, effective pass rush can help a lot with that - but we're just not consistent enough in that area. Hopefully Chubb fixes that.

Finally, without looking at snap numbers it seemed to me that Duke Riley was given a much bigger role late in the game, and responded well. I think his presence helped keep Fields in the pocket at the end of the game, preventing him from running on that final drive in particular. I would argue that Duke is having a very good season and is one of the more consistent players on this defense, to my eyes. He should be getting more recognition.

I am sorta siding with W1 here... Maybe Boyer is not a complete dipshiite??

I had a long talk with a So. Fla friend who thinks Boyer is playing this zone bend but don't break BECAUSE the offense is putting up points. He is counting on the opposing team to be playing from behind and having to pass.

I think it may be a case of Boyer just LIKES to play this sort of zone defense, but...

As my friend said, paraphrasing, "The defensive game plan was working except for the Fields running on 3rd downs, and nobody on the defense could tackle him, and even then, if the Dolphins O had converted even ONE of the 4th downs and scored another TD, or kicked a couple of FGs, the game would have been out of reach for the Bears."

So, while we are killing Boyer for the suckarse defense, he is playing to not give up the big play with a banged up rookie infused secondary, and counting on the opposing team to be playing from behind, which means chances to sack the QB for the Defensive front and edge players.

That part of the scheme worked, but the DTs and Edge and the Lbs completely WHIFFED when trying to tackle Fields who just took off running every time there was open real estate in front of him.

As someone pointed out, Fields is great when he can get out of the pocket, and the Dolphins let him out of the pocket. I think it was a case of pick your poison here: Let Fields maybe get past the front defenders, or maybe complete some deep passes over the rookies and backups to WRs Claypool and Moody maybe.

It just so happened, Fields had a career rushing day, but...

At some point, the Defenders have got to make a play.

Well stated, FF! Nice work.

FF wrote:
So, while we are killing Boyer for the suckarse defense, he is playing to not give up the big play with a banged up rookie infused secondary, and counting on the opposing team to be playing from behind, which means chances to sack the QB for the Defensive front and edge players.

That part of the scheme worked, but the DTs and Edge and the Lbs completely WHIFFED when trying to tackle Fields who just took off running every time there was open real estate in front
of him.

Yep, I think a big factor in those Fields runs was POOR EXECUTION by the defense - plain and simple. In position to make a play, but then not make the play.

FF wrote:At some point, the Defenders have got to make a play.

Absolutely. Make the damn tackle! Force a fumble! Get an INT! Get it done!!!

I sure hope Boyer is focusing on the fundamentals of tackling with his group - and working to force turnovers - in preparation for the beast of a running back we will see Sunday in Nick Chubb.