Dolphins All-22 Breakdown: Why did Miami Give Up so Many Deep Passes?

The NFL heard my cries from last week and released the All-22 on Monday Night. Well, because I just love you all so much I decided to skip watching Monday Night Football and breakdown the Dolphins film for you. 

If I am being honest, what I uncovered made me wish I had watched Monday Night Football instead. The Dolphins defense played a pitiful football game on Sunday. While the final score was 31-28, it should have been much worse. 

The Bills made a living off big pass plays in this game and the Dolphins couldn’t stop it. If you follow my work then you know I was more concerned with how this happened vs who’s fault it was and honestly, it was simple. 

Let’s break it down…

 

Stefon Diggs: 

 

I had no idea how to break these subheaders down, so I decided to break it up by the player who burned the Dolphins. We might as well get the longest one out of the way so let’s start with Stefon Diggs who racked up 153 and a touchdown on Sunday. 

In this play, the Bills come out in 11 personnel with Josh Allen under center. They have one receiver to the bottom of the screen and two at the top. The TE comes in motion and moves Jerome Baker with him signaling man coverage across the board. 

The Dolphins have a single high safety in Bobby McCain who is responsible for reading the eyes of the QB and preventing anything from getting past him. 

Diggs is at the bottom of the screen in 1v1 coverage with rookie corner Noah Igbinoghene. Diggs stutters his release to throw Igbinoghene off and then around the 30-yard line he stutters again. Diggs’ ability to break down so quickly here is what gets him open. Simply put, he can stop and start faster than Igbinoghene. 

This shakes Igbinoghene off of him pretty easily allowing him to come open. McCain is late getting over because Allen looks left off the play-action fake before coming back to his right and hitting Diggs. Allen was able to hold McCain in the middle of the field long enough to take him out of the play. 

 

Okay, this play made me laugh because it is just pure bad luck for the Dolphins. The Bills come out in 20 personnel and keep both backs in the shotgun with Allen. They motion Diggs to the bottom of the screen, and he brings Igbinoghene with him signaling man coverage. The Dolphins are running with Bobby McCain as the single-high safety. 

How does Diggs get open on this play? Well, if you watch Kyle Van Noy who is lined up at EDGE on the bottom of the screen you will see he’s in man coverage with the RB. When the RB releases to the flat and Van Noy goes with him, and he runs into Diggs. 

Typically, this is a good thing but he knocks Diggs right behind Igbinoghene, who loses track of him allowing Diggs to skate wide open for the touchdown. 

This is bad luck for sure, but I honestly have no clue what Bobby McCain is doing on this play. There is no reason for him to be 8 yards deep in the endzone. He’s not going to affect the play from there. He probably wouldn’t have been able to do anything but dropping that deep didn’t help. 

 

I’ll be brief with this one because I will be beating a dead horse. Also, Diggs had four plays over 20 yards in this game but two of them were so similar I decided to just show you this one. 

Diggs starts at the top of the screen, goes in motion to the bottom, and then goes back to the top. He brings Igbinoghene with him both ways, again, signaling man coverage. 

Look, there isn’t a lot of analysis I can bring here. Diggs is running a deep crosser, gets a free release at the line, and then simply runs away from Igbinoghene. 

There isn’t anything to really break down on this play. The coaching staff thought Igbinoghene could cover Stefon Diggs, and he couldn’t.

 

Cole Beasley: 

 

Next up for the Bills, we have slot receiving extraordinaire Cole Beasley. He’s not exactly known as a big-play threat. Instead, he’s more of the underneath threat tasked with picking up key yards on thirds down. 

Beasley is a fantastic receiver in his own niche, but he should not be burning the Dolphins for big plays like this. This is a 2nd and 24 after the Dolphins got gifted a questionable penalty call against the Bills. 

The Bills come out in an empty set and with five receivers. The Dolphins responded with their classic single-high safety look. There are three receivers to the bottom of the screen with Beasley in the slot. 

Now from the best I can tell the Dolphins are trying to have some sort of underneath zone and man coverage on the outside. Jerome Baker drops like he’s in zone coverage and so does Kyle Van Noy. 

Beasley is running a crossing route but Van Noy doesn’t gain enough depth in his drop because he was worried about an underneath crosser. Baker sees this and tries to stick with Beasley but by the time he realized it was already too late. 

On 2nd and 24, Van Noy should not be concerned with the underneath drag route. You should be giving the Bills that one. Instead, he fails to gain depth and Beasley sneaks in right behind him. 

 

After last week’s game, I was upset Nik Needham didn’t play. He was such a bright spot for this team last season and figured to be at least a rotational corner going forward. Well, Needham played against the Bills, and he was quite horrible. 

Beasley is at the bottom of the screen in the slot. The Dolphins are again in cover-1 with man coverage across the board. Beasley is running a deep crosser, so he establishes inside leverage with his release giving him the early advantage. 

If you watch closely, around the 30-yard line he leans into Needham and then quickly breaks away creating separation for himself. That is what we in the NFL Draft community call nuance in route running. Beasley just outsmarts Needham on this route. 

Again, I have no clue what Bobby McCain is looking at here. The Bills run play action, and when Josh Allen drops back he’s looking to his left the whole time. For some reason, McCain started rolling to Allen’s right and then realized Allen wasn’t throwing the ball that way too late. 

I seriously don’t know what he was thinking. I don’t think he makes a play on this ball regardless but being out of position didn’t help. 

 

Isaiah McKenzie:

 

If your reaction to seeing the header was the GIF of Snoop Dogg saying “Who!” really loud into the microphone you aren’t alone. McKenzie isn’t exactly a household name, but that didn’t stop him from getting his own big play this past Sunday. 

This play doesn’t require much explanation. Nik Needham is in man coverage on McKenzie at the bottom of the screen. McKenzie is running one of my favorite routes in the game, the drag- wheel. He starts on a shallow drag route and then when he gets across the formation he turns upfield. 

Needham covers the drag just fine but when McKinzie turns upfield Needham completely wipes out leaving McKinzie wide open. Also, don’t forget the missed tackle by Bobby McCain at the end of the play. This one is just all-around embarrassing. 

 

Dawson Knox:

 

I watched this play about 10 times, and I am still confused as to how Knox gets this open. He starts the play as the H-back in motion in the backfield. Knox then releases through the center of the line and comes through uncovered. 

I am pretty sure it is a simply blown coverage by Kamu Grugier Hill but there are so many Dolphins who look out of place it is hard to tell. Grugier Hill is lined up over Knox pre-snap which tells me he’s probably in man coverage. 

However, when Knox releases to run through the center of the line Grugier Hill doesn’t even think about following him. He gets frozen by the play-action fake and then ends up dropping into space like he’s in zone coverage but there is nobody there. Also, as best as I can tell nobody else is in zone here. 

So essentially, Grugier Hill got fooled so badly by this fake he forgot about Knox and just assumed he went to block someone. If it’s not on him then either Jerome Baker or Kyle Van also forgot about their coverage responsibility and rushed the passer instead. Either way, this is a bad look.  

It’s a good design by the Bills for sure, but Miami needs to be better than this going forward. 

 

John Brown: 

If you are tired of reading my words then don’t worry you can listen to the Dolphins get torched on this play. 

 

Conclusion: 

Congrats if you made it this far and also thank you. If you did this get far you are probably thinking a couple of things. One, why do the Dolphins play man coverage on every snap? Two, why is Bobby McCain still the FS? 

To answer your first question it is because Brain Flores is stubborn. This is by far my biggest knock on him as a coach. He’s not good at in-game adjustments and refuses to stray from his game plan or the Patriot way. It happened last season and it’s happened in both games this season. 

Stefon Diggs cooked Noah Igbinoghene for four quarters and not once did Flores consider doubling him, running zone coverage, or switching to a two-high safety look to prevent big plays. The Patriots style defense only works if your corners can hold up in man with no help. The Dolphins couldn’t on Sunday and Flores didn’t do anything about it. Flores’ coaching this game was borderline coaching malpractice and at the least just plain bad. 

As for Bobby McCain, he’s never been a good free safety, so I’m not surprised he’s still bad. He looked a little bit better at the end of last season, but he never had the speed to play single high even on his best day. McCain is a slot corner at the end of the day, but his performance against the Bills was a disaster. 

He was late in his rotations, didn’t read the eyes of the QB correctly, and was getting consistently moved by play action. The problem is Miami has zero replacements on the roster. Brandon Jones isn’t the answer. He’s a box player who is still learning the game. If you put him back there you will get the same results. 

So why did the Bills convert so many big plays? It’s a combination of three things. Bad man coverage technique, bad safety play, and a lack of adjustments by the coaching staff. Basically, it was total incompetence on all levels. 

Last week, I said Dolphins’ fans shouldn’t panic. After this game, I am starting to panic a little bit. If the Dolphins lose Thursday night and the defense looks bad again. It is full panic mode folks. 

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