Jones is a given great, but what about the rest of the Safeties?
Entering 2016, it appeared that the Miami Dolphins had finally found themselves the Safety tandem they’d been searching high and low for.
They already had Pro Bowler Reshad Jones, and then they acquired up and coming Safety Isa Abdul-Quddus from the Detroit Lions.
Unfortunately, this duo was only able to play together for the first 5 games of the season. Jones went down with a season-ending shoulder injury, and then to add insult to injury, Isa suffered a career-ending neck injury in the second to last game of the season.
All last season amounted to in regards to the situation at Safety was ‘what could have been’.
After waiving Isa this off-season, Miami was forced to look for yet another Safety to pair with Jones.
Miami decided to use a free agency, instead of the draft, to fill this new hole. They signed a pair of Safeties in Nate Allen from the Oakland Raiders and T.J. McDonald from the LA Rams.
Miami has been searching for 2 good Safeties for awhile
On the downside with McDonald, he will be forced to miss the first 8 games of the season due to a suspension for violating the league’s substance-abuse policy. If it were not for the suspension, the best pay per head review websites had McDonald as the favorite to start at Safety opposite Jones.
McDonald was a workhorse last season for the Rams contributing 1,072 snaps. he is a physical and big-hitting Safety that racked up 50 tackles and 2 interceptions in 2016. He’s already turned some heads in OTA’s. Coach Clyde Christensen named McDonald as a Defensive stand out. McDonald will allow Miami to play its mirror scheme at Safety and be a strong boost with fresh legs when he is done serving his suspension.
So, even though McDonald is the odds on favorite to win the starting job next to Jones–when he’s eligible to play–Miami must figure out who’s going to be the starter for the first 8 games.
At the moment the penciled in the starter is Nate Allen. Allen is a veteran with 7 years of starting experience in the league. He spent two years in Oakland, but battled injuries, so his production was very inconsistent. The knock-on Allen is that he sometimes makes mental mistakes and gets caught giving up the deep ball. But on the plus side, he’s a bit of a ball hawk with 13 career interceptions.
Together, McDonald and Jones could solidify the secondary
Two other possible options at safety are Michael Thomas and Walt Aikens.
Aikens has not really taken the next step and seems more of a special team’s player, which is fine since he does very well at his special teams’ duties.
The more intriguing player is Thomas, who filled in for Jones last year. While not spectacular, he is stead and is the only player that may be able to win the starting job from Allen.
I actually like Thomas as a surprise pick to earn the starting safety spot opposite Jones because he doesn’t make many mental mistakes. Unlike Allen, Thomas does a much better job of protecting the back end of the field and limiting the big passing plays deep down the field. A Steady Eddie would be a very good compliment to Jones because Jones would then be able to play in the box more and have more freedom to roam around the secondary–where he’s at his best. Then Thomas could focus on being a safety net by holding down the fort at the top of the defense.
What does the rest of the Miami Dolphins News fans think about our current safety group, and which player will emerge as the starter opposite Jones?
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