Miami Dolphins Defense Has Faltered as Stars Struggle

The Miami Dolphins’ season is officially on life support with just three games remaining after a brutal 28-13 loss to the Baltimore Ravens. It’s impossible to place all of the blame on one positional unit or individual for the Dolphins, as the entire team has failed in critical spots lately.

In lieu of the Dolphins’ recent struggles, we’ve looked at coach Joe Philbin’s warts and how that’s limited Miami during his tenure, but now it is time to focus on the issues on the field. Miami’s defense has fallen far from grace in the last month after being gashed for the third week in a row.

Less than a month ago, The MMQB's Andy Benoit called the Dolphins defense the best in the league. He lauded Miami’s “spectacular play at all three levels and a coordinator favoring flexible schemes” and focused on how the front four has dominated every week. With so much help from the defensive line, the dearth of talent outside of Jelani Jenkins had been masked for much of the season.

The last three weeks, however, have exposed defensive coordinator Kevin Coyle’s inability to adjust his scheme and his overreliance on having a tremendous pass rush. Opposing teams have found the major weakness of the Dolphins during this rough stretch. The Dolphins defense has allowed 661 rushing yards in the last three games.

Coyle certainly deserves criticism for his rigidness, but the biggest reason for Miami’s quick decline is that the stars are no longer making a big impact on the games. Let’s take a look at how Miami’s three-best defensive playmakers have done in the last month.

Cameron Wake

With Cameron Wake seemingly slowed down from multiple cheap shots by the Denver Broncos and New York Jets, the Dolphins defense seems to have been greatly affected. It makes sense. Wake has been one of the premier pass-rushers in Miami and still is, grading as the best 4-3 defensive end in the league by Pro Football Focus (subscription required) this season.

Wilfredo Lee/Associated Press

But when he’s hurt there are less double-teams devoted to Wake throughout the course of the game. Taking a look at his snap count, he’s seen 56, 46 and 39 plays in the last three games. It’s clear something is slowing Wake down, and the rest of the defense is suffering.

Wake’s lack of disruption is alarming on an individual basis as well. He logged a single quarterback hurry against the Ravens, according to Pro Football Focus, which gave him only four total for the last three weeks. To give an idea of how uncharacteristic that is, consider that Wake has matched that total in one single game three times this year.

Again, it seems that Wake has been fighting through injuries down the stretch, so any talk of actual physical decline is premature. But his lack of impact cannot be understated.

Reshad Jones

Similar to Wake, Jones has seen a major drop-off in impact the last three weeks of the season. When Jones came back from his suspension, he instantly brought a Pro Bowl presence to Miami’s secondary. That level of play has been absent, and Jones has barely been recognized outside of the occasional tackle.

With the news that Louis Delmas is out for the season with a torn ACL, per the Miami Herald's Adam H. Beasley and Armando Salguero, Jones will have more of a burden on his shoulders. Rookie Walt Aikens could very well move into the starting gig, or it could possibly be slot cornerback Jimmy Wilson. That doesn’t bode well for Jones if he continues to struggle being the playmaker he can be.

Jack Dempsey/Associated Press

Like Wake, Jones is still a great talent. More stock should be put into the fact that the second cornerback spot has failed to make any stops since Jamar Taylor went down to injury than any thought that Jones is regressing.

The perfect example of this can be found in the fact that Joe Flacco routinely completed passes on three-step drops when targeting R.J. Stanford. For Jones to reach the ball on those type of plays would be impossible to expect. If Miami can force quarterbacks to hesitate more, Jones should be able to roam and read as well as he was earlier in the season.

Olivier Vernon

It’s a officially a trend: Vernon has joined Wake and Jones in their three-game slump, which is horrible timing but also shows how intertwined success can be. After posting positive grades from PFF in seven of 10 contests, Vernon has been graded negatively in three consecutive games.

Alan Diaz/Associated Press

He’s created just three hurries and one sack in an average of 50 snaps over the last three contests, according to PFF. Paired with Wake’s ineffectiveness, the Dolphins defense has been neutered. Without edge-rushers creating havoc, the linebackers have been exposed as the liability that was expected of them at the beginning of the season.

Vernon has been an excellent run defender this year, but even that hasn’t helped a unit that has missed 29 tackle attempts in three weeks. It’s unfortunate that his individual play against the run has been so overshadowed by the poor play of others.

Conclusion

The Dolphins are licking their wounds after getting bullied by the more physical Ravens, but pride needs to eventually kick in. Without their stars performing at optimal levels, the role players needed to execute the basics of football, such as tackling or filling gap assignments, but have failed.

If the trends set in the past three weeks continue, the remaining games will be difficult to stomach. Miami’s stars have had some roadblocks set in their paths to success recently, and that has set the defense back tremendously. With the ultimate rivalry game approaching, watch to see if Miami’s stars can lead a banged-up and struggling defensive unit against the New England Patriots.

All stats used are from Sports-Reference.com unless otherwise noted.

Ian Wharton is a Miami Dolphins Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report, contributor for Optimum Scouting and analyst for eDraft. 

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