When Calvin Johnson was a rookie in 2007 fellow teammate Roy Williams nicknamed him “Megatron”, because of his large hands being similar to that of the Transformers character called Decepticon. The nickname has stuck and along the way Calvin Johnson has consistently proven himself as the best reciever in the league, and many football gambling fans would say that he will finish his career as one of the best receivers of all time. With all that being said, the Dolphins secondary will be facing a now healthy Megatron, who has sat out the last three weeks with an ankle injury. He has already publically stated that he will play this Sunday against the Dolphins, and he says he feels good; though not so good for the Dolphins.
The Dolphins pass defense ranks second allowing just 201 yards per game through the air, and they have only allowed 12 passing touchdowns the entire season, which is tied for the fourth fewest in the entire league. Can the Dolphins secondary continue to play dominant against the passing attack, when that attack features a very good QB in Matthew Stafford and the best receiver in the league?
Brent Grimes has been playing like the pro-bowl player he is, and he will most likely see a lot of action against Megatron this weekend. The biggest disadvantage is that Johson is 6’5” and very fast and physical, so the smaller Grimes is going to have his hands full on jump type balls. When Grimes was in Atlanta he faced Johnson twice, but he was not on him the entire game, so it was hard to get an accurate representation of how well he did against Johnson, but in 2 games Johnson had 12 catches for 222 yards and a touchdown. Honestly if he gets 8 catches for 100 yards and a touchdown, that is something we can probably live with, and still even be victorious. Grimes will not be matched up soley against Megatron, so it is defintiely going to be a team effort in stopping Megatron. As long as he does not have a multiple touchdown game or many 3rd down grabs that become first downs, then I believe the Dolphins will not be hurt by Megatron too much.
Megatron is going to get his catches, the key is to tackle him immediately, and to limit the times where he is in single coverage deep down the field. Grimes may be on the shorter side, but he has incredible ups on his jumps, and he is a fiesty defender that loves a nice challenge, so there is a good chance he can contain Megatron from having one of his monster games. The other issue is that the Lions also have a very good receiver opposite Megatron, who has been having a fantastic season. Golden Tate is ranked 3rd in the league in receiving yards with 800, and he also has 55 receptions and 3 touchdowns so Coyle and the defense need to focus on limiting and containing two top receivers in this league, in the same game.
Just like the offense has a tough measuring stick-type matchup against a very good defense, the secondary will have it’s own tough matchup against the Lions passing attack. At the very least, after this game we should have a very good idea how good our secondary and offense really is.