Keys to the Game: Texans at Dolphins

Some keys to the game, based on what I know of the Dolphins and what I've seen of the Texans in Week 1.

Offense:

1. Keep them in their base personnel, where possible. Pass on them in their base personnel. They just switched to a 3-4. Even with their performance against the Colts, I don't believe that transition happens overnight. Anticipate how they plan to attack you. If you were defending yourselves, how would you do it? Tony Sparano coached under Wade Phillips. He should know some of his tendencies. Use that. Wade Phillips unfortunately won't have the same advantage because after preseason and the first regular season game, I truly do believe this is Brian Daboll's offense, not Tony Sparano's. That's a good thing. I didn't always believe that would end up the case. If I were the Texans, I would WANT to get my nickel package on the field as much as possible even in base situations, especially when Reggie Bush is on the field. If you need to get Reggie off the field so that they'll put their base on the field and you can get done what you want to get done in the passing game, so be it. If Daniel Thomas is healthy, it's time for him to step up and show he can execute these run plays. Show us why they drafted you. If he's not, then Larry Johnson needs to show us why he's on roster.

2. In the passing game, try and exploit the perimeter. They run some soft zones with some spacing to be had underneath. Test Jason Allen in these zones, try and get Brandon Marshall matched up on him and run a hitch. I bet Brandon could break some of Jason's would-be tackle attempts. Be careful with the inside square-ins on like a levels concept or something like that, because Glover Quin might jump the route. See if Connor Barwin can cover Reggie Bush out of the backfield. Get them in base with Lex Hilliard as the fullback, and then motion Reggie out to the slot. Know where Mario Williams is at all times. He's a game changer. Know your protection schemes. If they're aligned versus your play call to where your protection scheme is calling out an H-Back, Fullback or Halfback to block him, get out of that play. You might as well whistle it dead, even if it's Anthony Fasano playing that H-Back role. If Marc Colombo is blocking him, chip his outside shoulder with the tailback.

3. Take advantage of their strong-side/weak-side tendencies with Mario Williams and Connor Barwin. Get Connor lined up on Jake Long's side by putting Anthony Fasano on the left. Run to this side. Don't try and use Richie Incognito and Vernon Carey to get out into the "double bubble" and get their hands on the linebackers. It's not going to work. Be more creative than that. Jake Long is your best offensive lineman. Put the heaviest responsibility on him. Mike Pouncey is your most mobile offensive lineman. Use that. Get the defense flowing left as you stretch it, with Richie Incognito sealing the Nose, Mike Pouncey releasing to the second level, and Jake Long sprinting out to try and get the outside shoulder of the 5-Tech, while Anthony Fasano blocks out Connor Barwin. You might create some space that way. Shaun Cody is not a great player, he won't fight through and blow those up. Play off the success of that with counters and cutbacks. But don't run into numbers disadvantages if they're bringing safeties up to that side. You're at home, the crowd will be quiet. Use that to get into the right play.

4. If they're getting their nickel on the field, you may be at a little bit of a disadvantage...but you have to know what you're going to do against that regardless. Brian Cushing stands a decent chance of being able to cover Reggie Bush out of the backfield, but I doubt Demeco Ryans can, and yet they like Ryans a lot and give him some responsibility. Use that. Use motion to get Glover Quin matched up in one-on-one coverage on a route, rather than letting him roam over. He's much weaker in man coverage. As I said, get a back to chip Mario Williams' outside shoulder. Don't run on their nickel package unless they've stuck their nickel on the field against your 2-2 or 2-1 packages, and even then be wary of what you're asking your OLs to do.

5. For Christ's sake, figure out your short yardage and goal line identity. The longer you go without figuring that out, the more games you're going to lose. This may not be the reason we lost the Patriots game, but it was one big god damn reason we weren't really competitive in the final score. If you have to put in different OLs according to situation, so ****ing what? We care about hurt feelings more than we care about touchdowns? Have Richie Incognito spend practice time at Center in Goal Line and short yardage. Spend practice time with a different package. If you have to get Lex Hilliard at fullback and Larry Johnson at tailback and run fullback dives to Hilliard behind Incognito at Center, Garner and Cook at Guard, and Carey back out at Right Tackle...so be it. Have them practice a limited number of plays together, make that unit develop an identity, much as the Wildcat originally was, so that they know when they're on the field together they have a specific job and a specific competency and they need to go out and do it. Sub Mike Pouncey as a 2nd Tight End. He's built like one. He's as athletic in a 10 yard area as a Tight End. Don't clog the backfield with 350 lbs road blocks like Paul Soliai. I like the creativity there, but hopefully they put that creativity to more effective use because ultimately that was an awful idea.

Defense:

1. What are you going to do when they replicate the Patriots' hurry-up strategy against you? Are you going to die of cramps in the 2nd and 3rd quarters AGAIN? This is a copy cat league and the Patriots didn't just expose a weakness, they tore open an entire new orafice. You'd better figure this out. Does Mike Nolan have to be on the sidelines rather than in the booth? Is that one factor that is slowing down the process of getting the play in so that guys can get lined up? Karlos Dansby and Kevin Burnett, where is your communication at? Can Will Allen improve the communication in the secondary? Does the team need to hand out 1 gallon jugs of Pedialyte to every player before the game? Don't just assume this is going to go away, be proactive in taking care of it.

2. Let's face it, this is a great offensive line you're facing, and a great ground attack. The offensive linemen are all explosive, very mobile, disciplined, they use their hands, and they find targets to block. You can't just defend this run game by default. You have to give something up in order to do it, because they will string you out and create lots of space, and their runners have a great feel for the sprint and cutback game. Paul Soliai is going to have his mobility severely tested as these athletic OLs get out to the perimeter. You need to run blitz a lot. Get your linebackers cutting into the backfield aiming straight for the fullback and blowing him up as early in the play as you can. Create some indecision from the tailback and wait for help. That's going to have its drawbacks, both in the run game and passing game, but it's imperative that you blow up as many runs as possible so that they can't keep up with the down & distance. Andre Johnson may be damn near uncoverable at times, but he still does his worst damage to you when you're worried about the run and make mistakes that way.

3. When they get your nickel package on the field, they're going to run against it a fair amount. You can't just rely on 4 DLs and 2 LBs to take care of the run even when they're operating out of a 1-1 or even 1-0 package. You need to keep Yeremiah Bell up and have him be active against the run, both in base and in nickel/dime. But you also don't need to have your nickel package on the field at all if you don't absolutely have to. If they march out half personnel but the down, distance and field position don't dictate passing, keep your base package on the field. In that situation you don't need to keep Yeremiah Bell up, of course. You want him active in coverage. But in other situations where they have 2-2, 2-1 or 1-2 personnel out there, you should consider having Yeremiah Bell play up. Let your corners worry about coverage and not the ground game. They were goats last week, let them make up for it this week. As I said, Andre Johnson is pretty bad, but he's 10x worse when you have secondary players trying to cover him and yet more worried about the ground game, which is fairly often because the Texans drive opponents nuts with that ground attack even more I would say than they drive them nuts with Andre Johnson.

4. When you get them into a passing situation, let Cameron Wake be the man. Put the sombrero on him. I don't know if you need to go crazy with the blitzes, because Matt Schaub is a smart quarterback and he can see them coming and get the ball off to some guys like Andre Johnson, Jacoby Jones and James Casey, not to mention Arian Foster, that can all run after the catch. Wake is arguably the best player on your defense. He didn't even have that bad a game against the Patriots. He got to the passer one in 9 plays which is still good on a leaguewide basis, though below average for him. Yet, he feels the sting from Nate Solder's pummeling him into the dirt at times and giving Tom Brady 6.5 seconds to throw the ball. Eric Winston can be had in pass protection by a guy like Cameron Wake. I watched Winston get beat by Robert Mathis several times, and that was in a blowout where the Texans were never under any pressure offensively. Winston pretty much owned Wake in their first matchup back in 2009, but that was only 5 plays, and that was then, this is now. I think Wake has a bounceback game and don't be afraid to rely on him to be the guy that gets the pressure in some of these obvious passing situations this time around.

I won't touch the special teams. It's a huge concern to me especially since the Texans busted a big punt return touchdown last week and Miami got outplayed on special teams yet again. But, I have no answers there.

Prediction: 23-21 Dolphins
The Dolphins' defensive woes are not over by a long shot, but I think they can rally back enough to win this game. As I was watching the Texans play in Week 1, I had a very serious question cross my mind: Are the Texans just too much of team for the Dolphins? At times, they look it. They have an awful (for defenses) machine of a ground game and it helps Andre Johnson be the best receiver in the business. Their quarterback is smart and hard to read on the field, very sudden. Mario Williams changes games on defense and even as a rookie, J.J. Watt already looks like a terror. He will be a big X-Factor because of what he can potentially do to our Guard unit in pass rush. He's so athletic and energetic, more so than Jared Odrick. Their linebackers Demeco Ryans and Brian Cushing are very instinctive, physical and aggressive. Glover Quin looks to me like he could be coming into his own as a strong safety, still a little bit of a liability if you can get him matched up in single coverage defending a route, but if you're allowing him to read the play and roam, I do believe he could jump some balls. But the bottom line is I believe our offense can work over the perimeters of their defense, both in the ground game and in the passing game, and some of the throws and route concepts that Chad Henne specialized in even last year should be effective against this secondary. If the Dolphins get too cute in their new offense, the tables could turn based on the turnover battle. But, in the end I think it could come down to the edge Tony Sparano has on Wade Phillips, that Wade Phillips does NOT have on Tony Sparano. Sparano knows Phillips and can give input to Brian Daboll in the game planning on Phillips' defensive tendencies. But if Phillips tries to anticipate what the Dolphins are going to do based on Tony Sparano's tendencies, he's going to come up with all the wrong answers because I truly get the sense this is a new offense and Tony Sparano has allowed change to happen.

Enjoy the win, Dol-Fans. For over a month, I've been predicting 1-3 heading into the bye week with the lone victory coming against the Texans, and right now tentatively, I'm still predicting that. Then there will be a huge matchup against the Jets on MNF in their stadium. It'll be a prime time clash, as exciting as the previous two, and my feeling is the Dolphins lose that game and head back to the home stadium 1-4 and about to play the Broncos where they've been planning to honor the Florida Gators. Stephen Ross will probably have to cancel that in light of the Dolphins' record and the fact that Tim Tebow might even be starting by then.

 

What time?

 

Alright, I might have somewhere I need to be as it's someone's birthday today and they wanted to go out but if it's something just my girlfriend was planning on without me then I can call in.

 

Thanks.

I think you misunderstood me. No, I didn't have Jason Allen being the primary coverage guy on Brandon Marshall. But it became apparent last week that the Dolphins would be willing to move Brandon Marshall around to try and get him opportunities and spacing. It seemed like the Patriots were willing to move Devin McCourty around to follow him. Will the Texans move Joseph around to follow him? I don't think they will. It doesn't see like something they'll do. And so moving Brandon around, you're going to find him matched up on Jason Allen at times, Kareem Jackson at other times, and Johnathan Joseph at other times. Just like in the Cowboys-Jets game, the Cowboys wanted to key in on the times when they could get Miles Austin matched up on Antonio Cromartie. That didn't happen all the time or necessarily even most of the time, but it did happen and the Cowboys keyed on it when it did. I would do the same with Brandon Marshall and Jason Allen.

I'm pretty comfortable based on watching the Texans' film that I know what their strong side weak side tendencies are and I feel they're exploitable.

I think if there's one thing that has followed Wade Phillips in his career it is the tendency for fans to expect him to get more aggressive with blitzing, and then he just doesn't. So we'll see. But either way my point was Wade Phillips can try and figure out Sparano's tendencies but it won't matter, because Sparano really doesn't run the offense and I'm pretty convinced of that now. On the other hand, Sparano should be able to tip Daboll off about some of Phillips' tendencies and how his defenses react to certain situations.

Fair enough. Very well could be the case. If that does end up working out like that, my feeling is that special teams will have played a role. I think the Texans have the ability to out-class us on special teams and make a serious impact on the game.

 

Fair enough. If the Texans win 28-17 then my feeling is that not only will special teams have made an impact, but Glover Quin will have had an impactful interception off Chad Henne, with Henne possibly throwing 2 picks on the day.

So we'll see.