It has only been two games — two meaningless preseason games — but the early signs have been encouraging.
Maybe this will finally be the year opposing tight ends stop treating the Dolphins secondary like an amusement park.
Last year it started with Visanthe Shiancoe's six-catch, 86-yard output for the Vikings in Week 2 and continued with Dustin Keller (six catches, 98 yards), Bo Sciafe (seven catches, 51 yards), Olsen (four for 40), Ben Watson (10 for 100), Brandon Pettigrew (four for 74 and a touchdown) and on through Rob Gronkowski (six for 102 and a score).
"Last year on third downs — and even on first downs — our linebackers were getting exposed in space," Dolphins General Manager Jeff Ireland said during Friday's TV broadcast.
That's why Ireland admitted it was "important" to make changes at the position.
This year it won't just be Dansby with the ability to chase tight ends from sideline to sideline. Friday night, you saw that kind of range from Kevin Burnett, the free agent addition brought in to replace the oft-injured Channing Crowder.
How quick is Burnett?
"He's real quick," Dansby said. "He thinks he's better than me but he's not."
Not quite, but Burnett's ability to drop in coverage is a marked upgrade on Crowder, who regularly had to come off the field on third down. What's more, Yeremiah Bell no longer should have to move down from strong safety in the nickel package.
It also should be noted that both Dansby and Burnett both played safety in the Southeastern Conference, so agility is not an issue.
And don't forget A.J. Edds, the 2010 fourth-round pick out of Iowa who missed all last season with a torn ACL. So far this preseason Edds is showing the same coverage skills that drove Big Ten quarterbacks nuts.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/...hins-0822-20110821,0,3491598.column?track=rss
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This is one of the areas I'm really pleased with the upgrades they've added, more speed and athleticism, hopefully Edds can fill that downhill ILB role in some situations otherwise we are short a run stuffer at ILB and you just have to have one of them for situational football at least.
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This is going to hurt the Pats quite a bit. Part of how they run the ball is they downsize your defense. If Miami is facing a 2 TE set they'll have the advantage of staying in their base defense or at worst bringing in Sapp who is good in run support.
GMJohnson and Pandarilla like this. -
Edds was supposed to fill that role last year before injury so I am not sure about him being a "run stuffer". I have liked what I've seen of him though, especially since we didn't see him at all last year.
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MrClean Inglourious Basterd Club Member
The drafting of Edds last year and the signing of Burnett this year was a direct response to the Pats loading up at TE. Anyone could see that the moment they happened.
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Anybody knows Burnett's coverage numbers from last year?
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MrClean Inglourious Basterd Club Member
PFF ranked him the 5th best pass rushing ILB and 25th best run defender amongst ILBs.
In his last year in Dallas though, he ranked as the 7th best pass coverage ILB and was 37th in most YAC allowed with 111. -
^^Thanks for that info. Crowder's numbers are actually better than his and Crowder is also a better run defender.
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MrClean Inglourious Basterd Club Member
Crowder was thrown at 21 times with 15 catches for a 14.3 yd average. The average per catch was 3rd worst amongst ILBs. The passer rating for passes thrown into his coverage was 119.9 which was 7th worst for ILBs. Tim Dobbins was the worst ILB last year for passer rating into his coverage with a 142.6. Thrown at 14 times with 13 catches and a league worst 17.8 average per catch.
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MrClean Inglourious Basterd Club Member
djphinfan and ToddsPhins like this. -
this is interesting and our tightends have not been doing to opossing defenses what oposing tight ends have done to our linebackers.
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MarinePhinFan likes this.
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They run the ball with power with multiple WRs out there and Keller. If they run at us in base formations we'll be fine we'll get by. They're dangerous out of that athletic spread set.
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Larryfinfan 17-0...Priceless Club Member
Picking up Burnett over Crowder was done specifically for that reason. To cover the middle of the field since it is the forte of NE and the jests have a couple of receivers that like to drag the middle as well. The only thing about making this move is that we will be giving up some run stopping power as that was Crowder's best attribute. In our case, I still think it's a fair trade off, since our DL is pretty stout for run stopping...
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