Dolphins Secondary Ready for Major Test
The Miami Dolphins pass defense is coming off its best performance of the season, but it better be at its best Sunday at Hard Rock Stadium.
After shutting down the Jacksonville Jaguars passing game, the Dolphins now will face the highest-rated passer in the NFL in Russell Wilson, who just happens to have two of the most productive wide receivers in the league.
One is Tyler Lockett, who is tied for the NFL lead in touchdown receptions with four. The other is DK Metcalf, whose 24.8 receiving average is the best among the 76 players with at least 10 catches so far in 2020.
The Dolphins faced a great wide receiver tandem in Week 2 in the Buffalo Bills' Stefon Diggs and John Brown; this one might be even better.
Metcalf, of course, is the physical specimen with muscle on top of muscle who somehow lasted until the second round of the 2019 draft after a highly productive career at Ole Miss and his combination of speed and strength makes him a matchup nightmare.
Complicating things for the Dolphins is the status of cornerback Byron Jones, who missed the game against Jacksonville last Thursday and hasn't practiced since being injured early in that Week 2 Buffalo game.
With Jones a major question mark, it certainly would surprise no one if the Dolphins ended up deciding to have Xavien Howard cover Metcalf wherever he lines up, though first-year DB coach Gerald Alexander says it's not that simple.
"I actually saw DK at Ole Miss when I was at Cal my first year there, so him doing what he’s doing now is not a surprise to me at all," Alexander said. "But definitely for us defensively, we have to be aware of that. Not only DK and his vertical presence out there on the field; sometimes it’s not just as easy as saying, ‘X,' go cover him. There’s a lot of things that go beyond that because I think Tyler Lockett also needs attention as far as the coverage is concerned.
"They have weapons. They have guys like that. They obviously have a great guy who is engineering the offense with Russell Wilson, so we have to be smart with what we’re doing coverage-wise and I think first and foremost, for us to be effective in the pass game, we have to stop the run. We have to at least not allow the run game to get going, that also kind of generates their play-action package. And then when it is time for Russell Wilson to drop back and throw the ball, we’ve got to do a good job in coverage just kind of mixing in some of the calls.”
Lockett is a different kind of problem because he's quick and often lines up in the slot.
The Dolphins had rookie first-round pick Noah Igbinoghene match up one-on-one against Diggs after Jones was injured in the Buffalo game, but Igbinoghene had a difficult afternoon, so it's difficult to envision a scenario where the Dolphins give him that kind of assignment again.
Instead, the Dolphins could end up guarding Lockett through a combination of coverages and with different defensive backs.
Regardless, it will be a challenge.
"A guy like that, they utilize his skill set and his vertical speed and really put him really everywhere," Alexander said. "He can line up on the outside and do some things on the inside. He can really stretch a defense. ... They get him things on crossing routes and catch-and-run situations, and those are the opportunities where we are playing zones and we’re dropping off and staying back for the intermediate stuff. We have to have vision to break on the quarterback and be able to swarm him and be able to leverage him and be able to get him down on the ground and not allow those check-downs to become rewards for the offense where they go for 12-15 yards when they were really designed to get tackled at 5 or 6.
"So for us, we’ve just got to be aware of all those threats, whether it be Tyler Lockett who does a good job for them, DK, obviously the backfield, the backs. We know and accept the challenge that we have coming in on Sunday and, through preparation, we hope we’re ready.”
