Miami Dolphins coach Joe Philbin said Monday that he watched the game film from Sunday’s 23-20 loss at Jacksonville, and he concluded that Pro Bowl defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh didn’t freelance and stray from the defensive gameplan.
“There’s a report that Ndamukong Suh was freelancing out there on the field,” Philbin said, referring to a story from the Miami Herald.
“I just watched the entire tape with the entire defensive staff. I didn’t see anything of the sort, so I’m not sure where that came from.”
Three defensive players also said Suh hasn’t been freelancing.
“That’s not the chatter in the locker room,” a defensive back said.
“It’s nothing,” said a defensive lineman.
“I haven’t seen that,” a linebacker said.
Defensive coordinator Kevin Coyle, like Philbin and the players, denied that Suh has been freelancing.
“That’s not an accurate report,” he said.
Suh has just three tackles and no sacks through two games, and Philbin said a reason for his lack of production could be because Washington and Jacksonville avoided the big defensive tackle.
“A lot of times they’ve been running away from him a lot,” Philbin said. “That’s certainly been the case for a couple of weeks. He was actually, I thought, closer to plays this week than last week. He made some improvements in that area.
“They’re going to come. I’m positive of that. There will be more plays to be made.”
Suh, regarded among the best run-stuffers and inside pass rushers in the NFL, lived up to his lofty billing during training camp and preseason. No one could block him. And he was making plays from all over the field, including once running across the field to track down speedy running back Lamar Miller from behind on a screen pass during an intrasquad scrimmage.
But that hasn’t been the case in the regular season for Suh, who had 8.5 sacks last season for Detroit.
In the 17-10 season-opening victory at Washington, a game in which Suh was subjected to numerous cut blocks, he totaled just two tackles.
In Sunday’s 23-20 loss at Jacksonville, Suh had one tackle.
Philbin said stats don’t tell the entire story.
“I think you have to take into account when you watch the film, you have to look at what’s happening in the bigger picture of things,” he said.
“It definitely isn’t about one player, it’s about 11 players. To say he’s going to have ‘X’ amount of tackles or ‘X’ amount of sacks every game, you have to watch the tape. Are they sliding the center that way every time? Are they double-teaming every time?
“That’s going to inhibit a guy’s ability to make plays. You just can’t look at the stat sheet and say, ‘That’s a good game, that’s a bad game.’ ”
Philbin said he isn’t sure whether Suh has ever gone through a two-game stretch in his previous five-year career in which he’s totaled just three tackles and no sacks.
“I don’t play the comparison game,” he said. “I have to base it on the two games that I’ve seen, the video that I’ve watched, how teams are attacking us, and so forth.”
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