Two of the Dolphins two most talented front-seven defenders – Mario Williams and Cameron Wake – come into Sunday with a little swirl around them. Williams has been in the concussion protocol all week while Wake is on the receiving end of a snap-count effort to keep him fresh.
If Williams can’t go, head coach Adam Gase said the snaps he’ll miss will fall to the masses.
“It’s just going to have to be a group effort,” said Gase. “We’re going to have to have some plans in place as far as how we’re going to rotate and how many plays we’re going to expect from each guy. I think last week, when you lose two guys on the defensive line, it kind of throws everything off a little bit because you have a plan going in and you have that contingency plan; but I think what happened was it just was a little more than what we thought.”
Miami deserves credit for the way its defense played after taking the personnel hits on the defensive line. They didn’t allow a touchdown to the Seahawks – in Seattle – until 31 seconds remained.
Gase indicates he expects more from his offense this week in terms of converting third downs (3-for-14) than he got in the opener.
“If we stay on the field a little more, they wouldn’t have had 80-plus snaps in that game,” said Gase. “So that kind of threw a little wrench in the plan there. We’ll have a good plan in place as far as how we’re going to rotate those guys.”
The 34-year-old Wake is still a very potent pass rusher but the Dolphins want 16 games of potency and are going to try and keep him from wearing down.
New England Patriots
What’s the wear-down point?
“I think when you start getting in that 50 range, 50-plus range, that’s probably where we want to avoid that, for the most part,” said Gase. “Hopefully, once again, if we do a better job of staying on the field for those guys, hopefully we can keep it between 50 and 60 total plays as far as the defense goes. When we put them in the situation that we did last week, it kind of put a lot of guys in a bad position. If we can keep him on the lower end of that and keep him fresh, we think that’s going to help through the duration of the season. That’s what we’re looking to do.”
What will directly affect Ware’s snap count and Williams’ replacements will be the Patriots’ success on third down. New England was 10 for 16 last week and the Patriots chewed up Arizona with varied targets – Julian Edelman, Danny Amendola, Chris Hogan, Malcolm Mitchell, Martellus Bennett and James White primarily.
Part of the problem for a defense is getting a bead on how different players attack things. For example, the strengths of Julian Edelman on an in-or-out option route and his tendencies from the slot may be different from Hogan’s.
“We keep seeing different guys,” Gase lamented. “It’s not like you’ve got the same guy in the same spot all the time where, if you are the nickel defender, you get used to how this guy releases, the routes he runs, maybe the patterns that they’re trying to go to him in certain big situations. But when you have guys that can play inside and outside, and they all know the offense really well, and they move everybody around, and you’re constantly getting a different guy, it makes it tough on the defense, especially whoever is playing inside.
“You have to be on it,” Gase added. “You have to make sure that you understand, ‘What does this guy do well?’ Every time you go in there and a different guy keeps showing up, you have to really retrain your mind [to think] of, ‘Okay, this what I have to worry about with this player.’ That’s what makes them hard to defend. They all have very good knowledge of the offense, and [Bill Belichick is] able to move all these guys around, because of that. On defense, you have to be on it. You better understand who you’re going against each time, and you’ve got to make adjustments.”
Between settling their rotations up front and staying solid on the back, the Dolphins have plenty of adjusting to do now and on Sunday.