Stopping Miami’s Power Run Game | Playbook with Merril Hoge | Pittsburgh Steelers

Stopping Miami’s Power Run Game | Playbook with Merril Hoge | Pittsburgh Steelers

[Music] Hi everyone. Welcome into the UPMC Rooney Sports Complex for the playbook presented by Microsoft Co-Pilot. All right, when you hear the Miami Dolphins, if you haven’t watched them for a while, you probably think of a lot of motion, crazy plays to the perimeter. They do a little bit of that, but they went on a losing streak, so they went back to playing big boy football and true football. They run the football with great efficiency, and that’s what’s helped them in their winning winning streak, and that is going to be most pivotal Monday night. So, let’s show you about the traditional way they’re running the football now that they weren’t before, and they’re winning with it. So, first play out of the out of the box is a traditional eye formation. One tight end, fullback, eye formation, quarterback under center. You just don’t see that a lot in the NFL, but more and more teams are doing this. And guess what they’re doing? They’re winning. But let’s watch how effective they are. The tight end will go in motion. And as we get him in motion, we’re going to see the combo blocks that everybody executes well. Stop it there. The center and guard have done a great job of scooping together, getting the defensive lineman, stack backer. Tackle does a great job. Now, the fullback does a great job. And here’s the advantage of having a blocker in the back field. He can adjust. You kind of got two defenders in there. The back does a great job of setting him up, but 30 takes both of them out. The receiver does get in there, but 30 does a great job of pinning him. Once he pins him, then 28 does what he can do. And their backs are dynamic. You better tackle these guys. They break tackles. They’re fast. You got to bring them down. And you got to work defensively together. Now, they do some wrinkles with motions that are very effective. Okay, they have six offensive linemen here. You know, 64 is an offensive lineman. They play and do a lot of this. Quarterback under center, back is behind the quarterback. I want you to see the effect it has on the motion. But the first thing, here’s the blocking assignments. The right tackle and right guard, they got to block the defensive tackle there in their gap. And they got to work to the stacked defensive back all the way to the outside over here. Then the right guard, I mean left guard and center have to work and block that guy in their gap, defensive tackle to number 44. And this ball is going to the right. So those are not easy blocks. So watch what happens when they send number 30 in motion. Watch what happens to those stack defenders. They all move over now. Much easier to execute those blocks as they snap the ball. Watch them now. Watch that tackle get off into the second level. When those guys get to the second level and you get guys on the line of scrimmage blocked, just great things happen. They do this well and efficiently. And what I like what they do is they build on it in the passing game. This is what we call run action. Most people say it’s play action. It’s not play action. This is hard run action. Everybody is blocking up front. They’re making it look like it’s a run. And we’re going to get to that point. We’re going to show you what it looks like. And if you’re a defender, how you going to react to this when Tua snaps the ball. I want you to see what happens before he pulls the ball. Now, stop it right there. Look at how that box is paralyzed. Why? Because they think it’s a run. There’s nothing that would indicate pass here to them. So they, in all fairness, they are playing that as run, which they should be. And here’s the advantage of it. The tight end at the bottom, he’s blocking. Watch what happens when Tub keeps the ball and he turns around and he releases the tight end. Well, they forgot to account for him. It’s a 5yd throw that ends up being like a 20 yardd big- time play in the passing game. This is the Miami Dolphin offense. The key tonight for the for the Steelers is to neutralize their running game. If they can neutralize their running game, then it gives them a great chance to win this game.

Merril Hoge breaks down the Dolphins’ return to a traditional, downhill rushing attack ahead of Monday night

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