Dolphins morph into aggressive, attacking group on defense

Oh man but I LOVE THIS LINE!!!!! They're active, hostile and well-schooled.

 

What's so different between this year and last is the personnel. We have what, 8 new starters on D, all very young... They've been very successful early so far. A good game against the jests could propel this group into the elite status...what these youngsters are missing is confidence in themselves that they can do it over and over...With young players you sometimes have up and down games...hopefully this won't be one of the latter...

After this preseason everyone was talking about how our D was ultra vanilla and not showing things...well, they haven't gone nutso in changing from that. They are getting plays from guys that they didn't get plays from in the PS, the schemes aren't radically changed from the PS but the execution is superb... Just remember that up and down thing I mentioned about young players...

 

the NEW NAME Defense will shock and awe many

 

Speed and Strength..

Were faster, and were stronger..''stronger teams usually win''... Jim Harbaugh.

 

Well, 2 games is not a huge sample to base anything on, when we reach gm #4 then we will know what we have in Nolan'd Defense.

I do think the increased speed means the Defense won't slump as Denver's did last season, often overlooked is Nolan's Denver D was much older than ours is this year.

Look at the back 8 defenders, there is not a "crafty but slow" veteran in the bunch, everyone runs really well and the Dline is solid, with Starks and Langford really coming into their own this year.

The other thing is, look at where the back 8 were drafted, aside from Wake (who is an Outsider) YBell and Clemons, it is loaded with #1-#3 draft picks, that increased athleticism is one of the keys to this defenses ability to swarm to the ball.

And that is with missing:

#28 overall Jared Odrick
#33 overall Phil Merling
#67 overall Ikaika Francis

When the Raiders were good, they used to pick up other teams castoffs..but those castoffs were high draft picks who could still move well.

 

I don't think the rest of the NFL takes this defense seriously..The Jets are heading into a s*** storm Sunday night and probably don't even know it