Don’t Forget About Defense

Jimmy Bourbon

10 years ago

It is not a mystery that over the past decade the NFL has transformed into a pass-happy, lighting up the scoreboard type league. When the Patriots had an undefeated regular season in 2008 their offense set all types of NFL records, and then last year Peyton Manning and the Denver Broncos broke all those records.

The football betting software fans love watching high scoring shoot outs, and that is what the NFL is giving its fans. However, the Super Bowl Champion Seattle Seahawks proved that defenses can still win Championships.

So even though Phins fans and the Miami Dolphins are focused on grooming Ryan Tannehill to become the Phins’ first franchise QB since Dan Marino, everyone must not forget about the Phins’ defense. Kevin Coyle recently “defended” his defense’s lackluster performance by listing stats that showed Miami’s Defense did not decline as much as everyone thought they did from 2012 to 2013. Instead of boring everyone with those useless stats, let’s focus on the fact that the Dolphins lost twice to backup Thad Lewis, and got carved upon the ground by a winless Bucs team with their fourth-string backup Bobby Rainey. So pardon me if Coyle’s stat of Miami dropping to 8^th best in the league in points allowed an average of 20.9, should be looked at as a good sign. The fact is that the Dolphins defense could not defend against inferior teams, and they often broke down in clutch situations at the end of the game.

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The problem now is that the Dolphins did not really address the defense in the offseason. They lost Paul Soliai, which was the cornerstone of their defensive line for the past 4 seasons to free agency. They also lost 3 contributors from their secondary; Dimitri Patterson, Nolan Carroll, and Chris Clemons. It is not like any of these 3 players were superstars, but as a unit with Brent Grimes and Reshad Jones, they only allowed 4 touchdowns to receivers, which is going to be hard to repeat… The Phins did bring in some players as replacements, such as Louis Delmas, Cortland Finnegan, however, there are big durability issues with both players. So it is hard to say if we improved or became more vulnerable in the back end.

The other issue on defense was clearly the production from the entire linebacking unit. No significant additions or subtractions were made, which actually makes this unit probably the weakest on the team. The Phins appear to think they have found a solution by moving Koa Misi inside and Dannell Ellerbe outside. Hopefully, this is a better fit for both players, but at the moment no one knows, and the result is still a huge question mark in the linebacking unit.

My biggest fear is that our offense becomes explosive and productive, but our defense regresses and lets us down. Don’t forget offense may win some games, but defense is what will win Championships. What is Phins fans’ biggest concern with this year’s team?

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