With the 2022 NFL season quick approaching, the South Florida Sun Sentinel takes a take a look at 10 storylines to look at for in a 10-part sequence forward of the Miami Dolphins’ first day of coaching camp, which is ready for July 27.
Say no matter you’d prefer to about Brian Flores’ resume as a head coach. Criticize his willingness to work collaboratively with others, or his capacity to teach offense.
It’s truthful to level out the Miami Dolphins’ former coach’s limitations in these areas.
But what can’t be denied is that Flores is likely one of the NFL’s younger, progressive geniuses on the subject of constructing a protection, sport planning, and in-game defensive play-calling.
The success the Dolphins had beneath Flores, who was fired on the finish of the 2021 season after producing a 24-25 document the previous three years, can primarily be pinned on the protection’s capacity to hold the group to victories, which it did for 2 consecutive successful seasons.
And it might be disingenuous to suppose Flores didn’t take a heavy-handed method on that facet of the ball regardless of who was assigned the defensive coordinator title.
Especially within the second half of the 2021 season when the group rebounded from its 1-7 begin, successful eight of its closing 9 video games, primarily as a result of the protection grew to become one of many NFL’s most aggressive move dashing groups.
While Josh Boyer has obtained many of the credit score for that turnaround, there are gamers and former coaches who declare Boyer’s affect and position had been watered down throughout that stretch as Flores took a heavy-handed method when the wins started to pile up.
That may clarify why the hybrid protection Flores put in in 2019 started to resemble how the group performed, and executed through the 2020 season, which is when Miami’s protection completed sixth within the NFL and had been the league’s leaders in turnovers created.
In equity to Boyer, a scholar of the sport who labored his manner up the teaching ranks as Flores’ understudy in New England since 2006, he was technically the defensive coordinator throughout Miami’s two successful seasons.
So Boyer had a hand in Miami’s successes, and rightly shouldered a few of the blame of their failures.
Let’s hope that Boyer has grown from his experiences the previous two seasons, and doesn’t want Flores’ presence to successfully function the zero-blitz protection, which has grow to be Miami’s calling card on that facet of the ball the previous two years.
Hopefully Boyer has grasp on the protection’s personnel, which options all however two key contributors returning this offseason, and that he is aware of the best way to maximize the unit’s strengths and masks their weaknesses.
Same coordinator, similar gamers, comparable philosophy, paired with extra expertise ought to equate to a dependable, if not stingy protection, proper?
“There is recall, and that gives you the ability to do similar things by tweak it here to improve it. But the biggest advantage is the communication between the players,” Boyer stated this offseason when discussing the continuity Miami’s protection options. “Not only do they know the guy that is next to them, they know how they play.”
And so do many of the coaches, which suggests Miami isn’t ranging from sq. one regardless of Flores’ elimination, the firing of secondary coach Gerald Alexander, and Charles Burks leaving the Dolphins to teach the Cincinnati Bengals cornerbacks.
We all develop and mature in our chosen subject, and Boyer deserved the chance to try this the previous two seasons. But now he’ll must show he can put his personal taste on the Dolphins protection, doing greater than getting ready the meal Flores purchased the groceries for.
Each 12 months a protection is pressured to evolve due to its expertise base, and the infusion of newcomers. For Miami, that label solely applies to move rusher Melvin Ingram, an 11-year veteran signed, and the rookie class, which is made up of draftees Channing Tindall and Cameron Goode.
There’s additionally the hope that children like Jaelan Phillips and Jevon Holland, who had spectacular rookie seasons in 2021, will elevate the extent of their play in Year 2.
Miami wants Boyer to discover a strategy to carry out the perfect in all of its defenders as a result of a dependable, if not stingy and opportunistic protection, is usually a new offense’s finest good friend.
That’s why it’s on Boyer to make sure that the 2022 Dolphins protection stays unfriendly to opponents.
Previously addressed
Can Dolphins get similar manufacturing from Tyreek Hill in Miami?
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Source: www.bostonherald.com