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MIAMI GARDENS — The Carolina Panthers didn’t do half the job of stopping Darren Waller that the Miami Dolphins did.
It shouldn’t have happened.
It can’t happen. Not again, if the Dolphins are going to snap out of this funk.
Waller caught all five passes thrown his way in the first half of the Panthers game for 78 yards and a touchdown. Coming off his two-touchdown performance a week prior, he was on his way toward cementing himself as a go-to target for quarterback Tua Tagovailoa now that Tyreek Hill is gone for the season.
Watch Chargers-Dolphins on Fubo
And then? Nada.
It would be one thing if Waller simply didn’t catch a pass in the second half.
More: Time for the Miami Dolphins to move on from Chris Grier, hire Alonzo Highsmith | D'Angelo
It’s another thing that he was never targeted.
The Dolphins say at halftime, the Panthers reconfigured their defense to take Waller out of the game. They blame circumstances including all those three-and-outs. Tagovailoa’s progressions. The harvest moon. You get the idea.
I say: Save it for somebody else.
This is a golden age of tight ends, you probably noticed. From future Hall of Famers such as George Kittle and Travis Kelce to young stars Sam LaPorta and Brock Bowers, they deserve and receive defenses’ attention every Sunday. And still, every Sunday, these guys are beasts. Speaking of which, defenses weren’t oblivious to Waller all through 2019 and 2020 when he was putting up 1,100-yard seasons for the Raiders.
“He was our number one-targeted guy and produced week in and week out,” said Frank Smith, the Dolphins’ offensive coordinator who coached Raiders tight ends at the time.
Waller is 33 and coming out of a year’s retirement. Maybe we don’t know what his ceiling is, but if we haven’t figured out it’s higher than we had a right to expect, we haven’t been paying attention. If the Dolphins are the dawgs they say they are, they should be imposing their will on defenses, not the other way around. With Hill out, Miami’s three best threats are receiver Jaylen Waddle, running back De’Von Achane and Waller, not necessarily in that order.
So even if you’re in a three-and-out rut, you still have three chances to see if Waller can snap you out of it. Is any of this making sense?
“You’re trying to set me up,” Dolphins tight ends coach Jon Embree said.
Not wanting to overstep his bounds on coach Mike McDaniel’s play-calling, Embree instead jokingly inferred that if it were up to him, his crew would be targeted until their hands blistered.
“I’ve always felt like if you have a good tight end, that’s the biggest mismatch you can have on your offense,” Embree said. “Especially if they will do something in the run game, because now your safeties, their eyes are off because they’ve got to look at you, and now their eyes are off as far as their fits, possibly. Or you make a call where you’re risking your linebacker covering a guy like Darren Waller or Kittle or Kelce.”
At 6-feet-6 and 238 pounds, Waller epitomizes today’s tight end: huge enough to set the edge for running backs, yet only fractionally behind wide receivers for speed and quickness. Put a safety on them and you can get burned. Put a linebacker on them and you can get burned. Bottom line: Potential mismatches far outweigh potential solutions against these guys.
Plus, as Embree pointed out, Waller doesn’t have the legs of a typical 33-year-old because of two seasons he sat out, one for retirement, the other while he got sober.
“They want to talk about his age, and it truly is a number because he hasn’t played a lot of football, so to speak,” Embree said.
Waller figures his two breaks equate to about a year of additional tread on his body.
“Thirty-three, you think guys are done or almost on their way out,” Waller said. “But yeah, I think having some time built in where I was able to step away from the game helps.”
Like Embree, Waller isn’t about to make waves with a Keyshawn Johnson-like “just throw me the damn ball.”
“I’ve kind of taken the approach of just being efficient, you know what I’m saying?” Waller said. “I can’t control the number of opportunities or targets that come my way, but it’s what I do with the ones that do come my way. And knowing that it could be a whole bunch, it could be a little. And there may be other things I could do to impact the game, whether it’s a key block or making people bite down on me so other people can get open.”
That’s what the Panthers did. Waller described a third-down play in which he was essentially bracketed to the inside and outside. He called it the classic “make somebody else beat you” approach.
The problem is, despite the Dolphins’ early 17-0 lead, they managed only seven points in the second half. Four of their six possessions were three-and-outs. Other than Waddle, who has six catches for 110 yards and a touchdown, nobody else was going to beat the Panthers.
“I wouldn’t say we weren’t trying to get him the ball,” Tagovailoa said. “It’s just within the progression of how we’re calling plays and how we’re reading it. Sometimes we don’t progress all the way through or sometimes we like a certain matchup that we called.”
Maybe there’s another way to approach this, and it’s contained within something Waller said while talking about how teams defend him.
“I think there’s like situations where they’re like, ‘OK, let’s try him. Let’s kind of see if he’s still got it,’ ” Waller said.
Yes. Let’s.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Miami Dolphins, about the recipe that says ignore Darren Waller? Burn it.
Continue reading...
It shouldn’t have happened.
It can’t happen. Not again, if the Dolphins are going to snap out of this funk.
Waller caught all five passes thrown his way in the first half of the Panthers game for 78 yards and a touchdown. Coming off his two-touchdown performance a week prior, he was on his way toward cementing himself as a go-to target for quarterback Tua Tagovailoa now that Tyreek Hill is gone for the season.
Watch Chargers-Dolphins on Fubo
And then? Nada.
It would be one thing if Waller simply didn’t catch a pass in the second half.
More: Time for the Miami Dolphins to move on from Chris Grier, hire Alonzo Highsmith | D'Angelo
It’s another thing that he was never targeted.
The Dolphins say at halftime, the Panthers reconfigured their defense to take Waller out of the game. They blame circumstances including all those three-and-outs. Tagovailoa’s progressions. The harvest moon. You get the idea.
I say: Save it for somebody else.
This is a golden age of tight ends, you probably noticed. From future Hall of Famers such as George Kittle and Travis Kelce to young stars Sam LaPorta and Brock Bowers, they deserve and receive defenses’ attention every Sunday. And still, every Sunday, these guys are beasts. Speaking of which, defenses weren’t oblivious to Waller all through 2019 and 2020 when he was putting up 1,100-yard seasons for the Raiders.
“He was our number one-targeted guy and produced week in and week out,” said Frank Smith, the Dolphins’ offensive coordinator who coached Raiders tight ends at the time.
Dolphins must determine Darren Waller's ceiling
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Waller is 33 and coming out of a year’s retirement. Maybe we don’t know what his ceiling is, but if we haven’t figured out it’s higher than we had a right to expect, we haven’t been paying attention. If the Dolphins are the dawgs they say they are, they should be imposing their will on defenses, not the other way around. With Hill out, Miami’s three best threats are receiver Jaylen Waddle, running back De’Von Achane and Waller, not necessarily in that order.
So even if you’re in a three-and-out rut, you still have three chances to see if Waller can snap you out of it. Is any of this making sense?
“You’re trying to set me up,” Dolphins tight ends coach Jon Embree said.
Not wanting to overstep his bounds on coach Mike McDaniel’s play-calling, Embree instead jokingly inferred that if it were up to him, his crew would be targeted until their hands blistered.
“I’ve always felt like if you have a good tight end, that’s the biggest mismatch you can have on your offense,” Embree said. “Especially if they will do something in the run game, because now your safeties, their eyes are off because they’ve got to look at you, and now their eyes are off as far as their fits, possibly. Or you make a call where you’re risking your linebacker covering a guy like Darren Waller or Kittle or Kelce.”
At 6-feet-6 and 238 pounds, Waller epitomizes today’s tight end: huge enough to set the edge for running backs, yet only fractionally behind wide receivers for speed and quickness. Put a safety on them and you can get burned. Put a linebacker on them and you can get burned. Bottom line: Potential mismatches far outweigh potential solutions against these guys.
Waller's time away means less wear and tear on his legs
You must be registered for see images attach
Plus, as Embree pointed out, Waller doesn’t have the legs of a typical 33-year-old because of two seasons he sat out, one for retirement, the other while he got sober.
“They want to talk about his age, and it truly is a number because he hasn’t played a lot of football, so to speak,” Embree said.
Waller figures his two breaks equate to about a year of additional tread on his body.
“Thirty-three, you think guys are done or almost on their way out,” Waller said. “But yeah, I think having some time built in where I was able to step away from the game helps.”
Like Embree, Waller isn’t about to make waves with a Keyshawn Johnson-like “just throw me the damn ball.”
“I’ve kind of taken the approach of just being efficient, you know what I’m saying?” Waller said. “I can’t control the number of opportunities or targets that come my way, but it’s what I do with the ones that do come my way. And knowing that it could be a whole bunch, it could be a little. And there may be other things I could do to impact the game, whether it’s a key block or making people bite down on me so other people can get open.”
That’s what the Panthers did. Waller described a third-down play in which he was essentially bracketed to the inside and outside. He called it the classic “make somebody else beat you” approach.
The problem is, despite the Dolphins’ early 17-0 lead, they managed only seven points in the second half. Four of their six possessions were three-and-outs. Other than Waddle, who has six catches for 110 yards and a touchdown, nobody else was going to beat the Panthers.
“I wouldn’t say we weren’t trying to get him the ball,” Tagovailoa said. “It’s just within the progression of how we’re calling plays and how we’re reading it. Sometimes we don’t progress all the way through or sometimes we like a certain matchup that we called.”
Maybe there’s another way to approach this, and it’s contained within something Waller said while talking about how teams defend him.
“I think there’s like situations where they’re like, ‘OK, let’s try him. Let’s kind of see if he’s still got it,’ ” Waller said.
Yes. Let’s.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Miami Dolphins, about the recipe that says ignore Darren Waller? Burn it.
Continue reading...
