ATLANTA — If you knew a few days ago that one team, either the Miami Dolphins or Atlanta Falcons, would rush for 141 yards and that same team would hold its opponent to 45 yards rushing you’d have bet every dollar you had that it’d have been the Falcons producing the good statistics.
But it wasn’t the Falcons that did the damage Sunday, it was the Dolphins. Stopping the run was absolutely huge.
Stopping the run led to the Dolphins playing their best game of the season in a 34-10 blowout win over the Falcons.
“Monumental,” is how coach Mike McDaniel described that aspect of the game.
“Stopping the run not only changed the time of possession,” he said, “but it was also an assistant to the third-down execution where we could be a little bit aggressive.”
The Dolphins entered Sunday’s game with the NFL’s worst rushing defense, allowing 159.3 yards per game. Every opponent had rushed for at least 100 yards against the Dolphins, whose front seven had been having a disappointing season, to put it kindly.
Conventional wisdom said Falcons running back Bijan Robinson, who entered the game as the NFL’s sixth-leading rusher with 524 yards on 97 carries, was going to run all over the Dolphins. But it didn’t happen. Robinson ended with 25 yards on nine carries.
“Our game plan was just really focused around him and stopping him and kind of making their offense one dimensional,” rookie defensive tackle Kenneth Grant said.
It seemed like the things defensive coordinator Anthony Weaver has been preaching all season —doing your job, trusting that your teammate will do his job, being sure to tackle instead of trying to punch the ball out — finally resonated.
Linebacker Jordyn Brooks (team-best 10 tackles, three tackles for losses) led a swarming attack that seemed to always have more than one man tackling Robinson.
“It allowed us to make them play one dimensional, and it allowed us to be great on third down by being great on first and second down,” he said. “And that’s how you play great defense.”
The Dolphins almost doubled up on the Falcons in time of possession, 37 minutes, 58 seconds to 22:02.
The Dolphins dominated on third downs, holding the Falcons to 2 of 11.
It’d be hard to underestimate the value of shutting down Atlanta’s running game.
“We just emphasized it all week, that was the thing — gang tackle, swarm to the ball,” outside linebacker Jaelan Phillips said. “I thought we executed that.”
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Here’s the good news about what the Dolphins did on Sunday — it’s repeatable.
What the Dolphins showed Sunday is what I thought their front seven would show all season, which is to say they lived up to their potential. No one did anything special. No one had the best game of their career. There were no radical defensive formations. They simply did their jobs and trusted each other. The Dolphins did what they should have done in each of the previous seven games.
The momentum the Dolphins acquired Sunday by stopping the run eventually led to offensive success and special teams success.
And now they carry that confidence and momentum into Thursday’s game against Baltimore (2-5).
It should be a different Dolphins team that takes the field Thursday. No one is expecting another blowout victory. But the Dolphins, even with their 2-6 record, should feel good about themselves.
“If anything, it’s just the first one of many,” Phillips said of the win. “We’ve just got to keep rolling and still improve. It’s not like we can hang our hat like, ‘Oh, we did it.’ We still have a long way to go. But I think we’re getting there.”
McDaniel had the same sentiment. He’s encouraged, but not overly encouraged.
“But you can replicate the things for this team that produce results,” he said.
If the Dolphins can merely improve their run defense they might be able to do good things for the rest of the season. Stopping the run, as this game showed, seems to have widespread results.
