Dolphins’ defense had no answer for Bills receiver Sammy Watkins

Written by Matthew Cannata | Twitter: @PhinManiacs
Rookie wide receiver Sammy Watkins had a huge day, gaining 117 yards on 8 receptions and scoring 1 touchdown. Every time the ball was snapped, it seemed that Watkins was open and the Dolphins had no answer. They tried to defend him with almost everyone – Brent Grimes, Cortland Finnegan, Will Davis, Jamar Taylor and others – but still couldn’t get the job done.

“He was a playmaker and he made plays,” Jared Odrick said. “It’s something that you’re going to have to handle, deal with and eliminate. We didn’t do that as well as we wanted to do today. It’s something we’re going to have to do moving forward because he’s going to be in our league for a while.”

Cortland Finnegan said that the reason why Watkins did so well was because of coverage breakdowns in the secondary.

“You don’t want to take anything away from what he does, but they were,” he said. “You credit them for finding the weaknesses in the defense and turning him loose. We turned him loose in the zone, or man-to-man got picked or something like that. It was nothing that they did, and everything that we did. However, he’s going to be a great talent in the NFL. That’s really it. He had a good day. Kudos to him.”

Brent Grimes also echoed Finnegan to an extent and said that Watkins didn’t do anything too special and instead, it was a result of the way the secondary played.

"We made too many mistakes on defense and he was just wide open sometimes. Anybody who's wide open can make those plays. We need to tighten up and communicate on defense."

Odrick and Finnegan are right in saying that Watkins will be around for the next decade or so. Making things worse is that the Dolphins will play them twice a year and will need to start figuring out how to slow him down moving into the future.

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