Why didn’t Dolphins mirror Bills WR Stefon Diggs with Xavien Howard?
The Miami Dolphins’ inability to put the clamps on the Buffalo Bills in Sunday’s 31-28 loss in Week 2 was made exponentially more difficult with the injury of cornerback Byron Jones on one of the game’s first plays. With Jones on the sideline with a groin injury, the Dolphins pegged 1st-round pick Noah Igbinoghene to step into his role and cover Bills receiver Stefon Diggs — it didn’t go well.
It is hard to blame Igbinoghene too much, he’s an unseasoned rookie who was playing in his second career NFL game. And remember — Igbinoghene was a former wide receiver himself who only logged two seasons on defense for the Auburn Tigers. There will be plenty of better days ahead for the rookie. But why did he get the call to step into covering Diggs as compared to the Dolphins’ other high-priced cornerback, Xavien Howard?
Here’s what Dolphins defensive coordinator Josh Boyer had to say:
“There’s a lot of factors that go into matching guys up. One, the routes they run. Two, the type of receivers they are and really three, the amount of movement that they do within their scheme. We always put guys in spots that we feel will be best for them and that’s why we made the decisions that we made. Obviously we’ve got to coach it better and we’ve got to play it better, but that’s what went into those decisions,” said Boyer.
Indeed, Diggs is a difficult matchup to solve because while he isn’t small, he’s still extremely sudden. And Igbinoghene is a more agile and fluid athlete in short spaces than Howard is — so the thought process made sense. But why didn’t the Dolphins move off of that assignment when it became clear it wasn’t going to stick? Boyer didn’t pull any punches.
“There were a lot of routes I would say that they hit us on that were similar routes that one, we can do a better job adjusting as coaches, and that’s on me. That’s not on anybody else. That’s on me. And I would say there’s some things fundamentally that we could do from an execution standpoint that will help us from a player aspect, too.”
The Dolphins’ coaching staff has taken ownership of the slow start all week. But the time to turn the page has come — Jacksonville awaits in just over 48 hours. Necessary adjustments will have need to have been made by Coach Boyer and the rest of the staff, already. It’s on to the Jaguars now.
