NFL Miami Dolphins Defense- 3rd down package fronts, blitzes and coverages

 The Miami Dolphins were a top defense in 2019. One of the reasons was their 3rd down package. The Dolphins were 1st in the NFL in  2020 in that category.

Kudos to 1st year dc Josh Boyer on a great job.

They held teams to 31% efficiency which is very good. Boyer was also the passing game coordinator for the Patriots in 2019 and they were also #1 in the NFL in that department with a 25% success rate by opposing teams. That is an impressive statistic. 

The Dolphins do a great job showing different looks and especially love their mug looks with LB's walked up to the line of scrimmage. They try to create some confusion in pass protection when doing this.They also do a great job bringing pressure but also simulating pressure, forcing 6 and 7 man protections and then dropping 7. They do a great job with this in their 3rd down package.

Here are a few examples of what the fronts look like, but as we get into the article you will see some of the confusion they cause with their pressures and various looks. 

One of the teams they had great success against were the Jets. The Jets were 5/30 against the Dolphins on 3rd down over two games. They confused the Jets with various pressures, mug looks and stunts.  That' a 16% offensive efficiency which was impressive. 

You can see plenty of the looks and pressures on my youtube channel!

Here are a few Mug looks and pressures  vs Jets

vs the Jets During week 6

3rd and 4

Double mug look with the safety on the rb. Show pressure but only bring 5. The Jets run a swing but the dolphins run it down for a 2 yard gain forcing the Jets to punt. The coverage is 0 which is straight man to man with 2 rat players on the lb.

One thing you notice about the Dolphins is that they love to engage and drop, occupying an off lineman and then dropping. This allows another rusher to come unblocked, or get a matchup they like by forcing the issue. They try to dump it to the back here but he is tackled after a 3 yard gain. They punt on 4th down.

great pursuit to the football

3rd and 7 situations

They go with a 3 man defensive line and 3 lb's who are showing pressure. As an offense either you keep the back in or throw hot. The Jets keep the back in and the dolphins run a cross stunt with the 2 inside lb. Both The Rb and C take the same lb freeing up the other lb.

3rd and 12

They run a 4-2 mug look from 3-3 personnel. The great thing is you don't know whose dropping and whose coming. Here they bring 4

They give their mug look but bail and play 1/4,1/4 half. Still get pressure with a 4 a man rush.

They sell the fact they are coming and bail. They force max protection and a 3 man route by the Jets and essentially double every wr downfield. Great design 

3rd and 3 vs the Jets

Love what they did on the next 2 plays vs the Jets on 3rd and 3.

On both looks they show their odd look. 3-2 dime personnel. The first time out of the odd look, they bring the mike.and peel the outside lb to take the  back.

3rd and 3 part 2.

They give the same odd look, Darnold thinks he has the back 1x1 but the safety drops and covers him., They change the coverage and don't bring the mike. 3 man rush. Darnold wants to work the man side with Mims on the slant(not open) back, (not open) so he runs for 4 yards.

An excellent scheme by the Dolphins.

Below is every 3rd down and 1-3 vs the Jets.
You will notice, they love to play their odd look on 3rd +1-4 with 2 olb on the line of scrimmage in those situations.

3rd and 10 vs the Bills 

Here they run a more traditional 3-2 look.

Another look you will see from the odd is bear or traditional odd like below and then run different schemes off it.

These looks are just a few of the ways Miami will play 3rd down. From these looks, they can run different variations of blitzes and coverages.

Here's one of the looks vs the Rams. 

Here's another of the same look:

 

Lets Looking at a few games.
Against, the Patriots, they played a ton of man free coverage in passing downs because their is no fear of any wr in the Patriots passing game. They also dropped 8 on a number of occasions but mostly played man free with 2 rat defenders..

Here's some clips vs the Patriots

 3rd and 11

The Dolphins play man free with 2 rat defenders and a free safety. The Patriots go tunnel screen and it's well played by the Dolphins

3rd and 9

The Dolphins show man vs empty but when the Patriots motion the rb it becomes man free. That helps them because the rb now is covered by the lb and better against the screen the Pats try to run. LB is looking for the rb and has him his way so the Pats don't get the rush they were expecting. Easier for the lb to sift thru blockers and make a play and he was eyeing the back.

On 3rd and 5

they play their 3x3 nickel look. They play man free with 2 rat defenders and a free safety.

They go coverage against the Patriots and match up well. No wr gets separation, so Cam tries to force it in. 

Vs Arizona 

The Cardinals have one of the most athletic qb's in the game. The Dolphins game plan in that game was to show many double mug and odd mug looks where they had 6 men on the line of scrimmage. The Cardinals were 5-12 on 3rd down and some were pure scrambles. 

On 3rd and 4 vs the Cardinals come out in empty. Dophins are in nickel showing 6 man pressure.

Here the Dolphins bring 6 in a read it type stunt with cover o out of  their 3 hands down 3 lb front. Meaning if someone steps to the linebacker you drop into coverage. Watch the lbs on this.

 

c

3rd and 9 they Dolphins go man again Right call and the pressure gets home but Murray gets away and gets 12 yards. 1 play later he scores a td. Instead of a sack, field goal , the Cards get a td on the drive. Just a great athletic play by a tremendous athlete.

This was a great scheme and took away passing lanes with the shorter Murray and disrupted things in the pocket. But, he is such a tremendous athlete, he made a few plays. 

Vs Chargers, (the next 2 plays go hand in hand) 

(man free coverage with a safety jumping crosser)

The Chargers run Allen across the field many times in stack, cluster formations. The Dolphins took the crossing route away by playing the cb on #1, and the Safety jumping allen when he crossed and the safety looking for a crosser back the other way. It's man free with the variation on #2.

3rd and 12

later in the game

The Chargers run it early  in the game but the defensive back #40 blows the coverage. He loses leverage but the safety who was in coverage makes a great tackle for a 9 yard gain.

9 yard gain great scheme but the SS 40 lost leverage

3rd and 5

Dolphins

The Dolphins do a great job on this concept and the Chargers try to hit Henry on the mesh with allen again. The safety comes off nicely and makes the play short of the first down. This time he maintains leverage and does an excellent job.

Here are the 2 clips

Heres some coverage analysis against the Raiders.

D & D                   front                coverage                result

3rd 8                        3-2                  2 man double       inc

You can see the double coverage as the Dolphins anticipate the crossing routes by the condensed wr on the bottom and alignment in the trips by #2 

Later in the  game they change it up but run a 3-2 front again, this time bringing the sam off the edge with mike taking #2/3 inside. Great understanding of route concepts. Excellent 4 man pressure. 

3rd and 8   personnel        front           blitz              coverage  

                    dime             3-2 show    sam fire          2 man with safeties jumping crossing routes

Here are some more clips of the Jets game week 6.

But overall these are some of the schemes you will see from Flores week in and week out and hope this gave you some insight into his 3rd down package.

Here's an excellent YouTube video on the opportunistic defense.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzvvkWdsEjE

I hope you enjoyed my coverage of the Miami Dolphins Defense

Game analysis Nc State Defense vs Liberty Offense-How NC State stifled Liberty's offense

 How NC State shut down the potent Liberty rushing attack

Liberty was 10-1 last year with 1 loss on the season. It came against NC State who did an excellent job containing future NFl Star Malik Willis. They did it playing their 3-3 stack defense with nose guard Alim McNeill and company shutting down the run.

The NC State defense  held him to 13/32 for 172 yards with 2 td and 3 interceptions. They also sacked him 3 times. They also held him to 15 carries for 44 yards. It was a great game plan by Defensive Coordinator Tony Gipson, controlling a high powered offense which consistently put up 30 points per game.

They also held a great rushing attack to 38 carries for 107 yards. That is 2.8 yards per carry as the defense was highly effective. This from a team that averaged 252 yards per game on the ground with a potent rushing attack. They also average 5. 7 yards per attempt and didn't come close to that in this game.

The game plan was very simple but effective:

1. Rush only 3/4 and try to spy him as much as possible. They often sent 3 spied him with a lb and took away zones underneath while only sending 3 rushers.

2. Play a tremendous amount of zone coverage and get an extra hat in the box. This was very effective in shutting down the run.

3. Disguise coverage and give him different looks. Show cover 2 and at times roll to a cover 3 look. 

4. Scrape exchange the zone read and play a more athletic strong safety or olb on the qb in the zone read game. Keep the OLB to the side of the back wider to give him better leverage in the zone read game. 

Game Notes:

One of the few times they decided to send 5, they go man free which doesn't have anyone on the back. Willis shows how dangerous he is as he scrambles for 25 yards. The scheme was sound but it's hard to defend him when you don't spy him as he can take off and is so dangerous with his legs.

Liberty free releases the back which opens up the middle of the field.

They also showed great discipline and eyes on Willis in key situations, here on a key 4th and 1, they don't get fooled as Liberty tries to run a bootleg off a fake reverse. The De stays home makes a great read and forces the incompletion. This was a key stop early and kept the score at 0-0.

Later on with the score tied o-o in the 2nd quarter, Liberty tries to go unbalanced with an end over formation. NC State goes man free with an edge pressure but does a great job as the linebackers keep their eyes on Willis. They give him no running lanes and get the sack. 

Here is the clip as they do a great job containing Willis.

AGAIN, HERE WERE SOME OF THE MAIN COMPONENTS OF THE GAME PLAN.

1. PLAY SOFT ZONE COVERAGE

Later on you see one of the many times they go cover 3 against the Liberty offense. They play soft zone coverage and Willis tries to force it into a tight window when they run 2 slant routes. Great job by the NC State defense and they get the interception 

2. SPY WILLIS

As discussed earlier, the did a great job really spying Willis regardless of the coverage. Here they run man free while spying Willis again. 

They keep the LB's shallow to take away running lanes and when Liberty and Freeze keep the rb in it gives the defense an extra defender to spy him. Here they go man free spy. The Flames go 6 man protection and it gives NC State the extra defender to keep eyes on the QB.

3. CONTAIN WILLIS IN ZONE READ GAME WITH SS/LB ON HIM

In the run game they played the outside LB on him , giving them a more athletic player on the qb vs the zone read. They also scraped the LB over the top as the 4i took the dive. Here the Flames run duo with a read component. 

THE MIKE SCRAPES RIGHT AWAY. THEY GET A 2 FOR 1 ON WILLIS AS A RESULT

Later on they play it the same way. The De to side of the back slants to the b gap, auto scrape exchange with the OLB responsible for Willis playing it well with great leverage. 

The way they played it really was exceptional and they had great results all game vs the Liberty run game. 

with 9 minutes to go in the game, and a crucial 3rd and 10,  the Liberty flames are up 14-9. Again they rush 4 play 2 man spy with a nice pass rush game. The De ends up spying and the mike loop stunt gets home. to the boundary.

 The game gets pressure and the CB does a great job breaking under the route for the interception. 

As you can see the NC State game plan was tremendous and the results were a 15-14 win over a very tough Liberty team.