Defensive Film Grades From Miami Dolphins' 20-12 Week 15 Loss To Houston Texans

Enough plays made to win, enough missed plays to lose.

A week after posting a disappointing effort against the New York Jets at Hard Rock Stadium, the Dolphins defense stood up and won the trenches against the Houston Texans. Miami’s D put the team in good position to win, allowing less than 200 yards of offense and 20 points. Those 20 points? They came on a drive that started inside the 30 (touchdown), a drive that started inside the 5 (field goal), a drive in which the team forced a punt scenario (touchdown) and a drive on which the Texans fumbled and Miami couldn’t recover the ball (field goal).

For those of you scoring at home, that’s all 20 points! Who led the charge? I’ve graded the All-22 coaches’ film. And here’s what I’ve found.

---

Methodology

I am implementing a portion of the grading process used by Pro Football Focus this year to quantify player performance.

“The PFF grading system evaluates every player on every play during a football game…did the quarterback make a great throw, but it was dropped? The quarterback contributed to positive production and will receive a positive grade for that effort, even though the receiver let him down, earning a negative grade.

Each player is given a grade of -2 to +2 in 0.5 increments on a given play, with 0 generally being the average or “expected” grade. There are a few exceptions, as each position group has different rules, but those are the basics. The zero grade is essential as most plays feature many players doing their job at a reasonable, or expected, level, so not every player on every play needs to earn a positive or a negative.”

— Pro Football Focus on their grading methodology

This is where my implementation of the PFF approach ends, however. Pro Football Focus converts this scoring into a number on a 0-100 scale while factoring in the weighted value of certain types of reps for certain positions. That isn’t what I intend to produce. I’m much less interested in an “adjusted” consumable score for a player than a true reflection of their net excellent and bad contributions relative to the reps they are assigned throughout a game.

I intend to grade each game for the Dolphins this season with this approach. This will allow us to see the full scope of spectacular and game-changing plays from players, ascertain who are models of consistency, and help further amplify poor player performances by the cumulative sum and per-play average in 2024.

---

Defensive Grades Vs. New York

Chop Robinson’s starring role on defense continued on Sunday against the Texans — and he nearly had another sack that would have been a critical 3rd down stop on CJ Stroud, who threw the ball for a first down while in the grasp. He and LB Jordyn Brooks are newcomers who have been scoring consistently at the top of Miami’s defensive rankings over the past month and are a “win” for Miami this season; particularly amid how putrid their respective rooms have been outside of them individually.

Kader Kohou posted perhaps his best game of the season — I graded the first New England game higher but it was close. The usual suspects littered the top of the board the rest of the way — Zach Sieler, Calais Campbell and Jalen Ramsey were all sturdy and the former two made some key plays late to log some stops and keep Miami in the football game.

---

All-22 Coaches Film Analysis