After last Thursday night’s loss to the Packers in Green Bay, Dolphins linebacker Jordyn Brooks said the defense was “soft,” possibly due to the cold.
Dolphins defensive coordinator Anthony Weaver disagrees.
“I think that’s Jordyn — it’s one of those things when you’re talking after the game, you’re reacting purely off emotion,” Weaver told reporters on Thursday. “I’m sure that once he watched the tape, I wouldn’t be surprised if he changed his tune, because that game, the missed tackles you could say they kind of equate to softness in the moment, but when you see why they occurred, you would see that softness had nothing to do with it. I give credit to the Green Bay Packers for just making plays and making us miss.”
Weaver refused to attribute the tackling issues to the cold weather.
“Our poor tackling in this showing was certainly one I didn’t see coming,” Weaver said. “Was it the cold? Who knows. Was it playing on a Thursday? Who knows. It could be a variety of things. You got to give credit to them, right, just in terms of breaking tackles. Josh Jacobs is not an easy guy to bring down. Do we need to be better in our technique and fundamentals and like wrapping up, driving our feet, not diving off the diving board? Absolutely, but I certainly wouldn’t attribute that to the cold.”
Regardless, narratives are stubborn things. And cliché becomes cliché because it’s consistently true. The Dolphins struggle in the cold. Until they change that narrative, it will only get stronger.
