Joe Philbin speaks on the overall performance from the Dolphins

Written by Matthew Cannata at 12:05 PM EST | Twitter: @PhinManiacs

The Miami Dolphins certainly didn’t win in normal fashion as they relied on their defense to carry them throughout the game. With the Dolphins offense getting less than 50 yards in the first half, many wondered what would happen in the second half and if the Dolphins would be able to pull away from the Jacksonville Jaguars, who had their struggles as well. 

Their offense did pick it up in the second half and their defense continued to make plays, which made Joe Philbin happy at the end of the game.
 
“I thought it was a good, hard-fought football game. A lot of the things that we said about this football team (Jacksonville) are true. I think Gus is doing a great job up here. Their tempo was outstanding,” Philbin said. “As I said to the team at halftime, in tight times over the course of a season, you’re going to have one unit that is going to have to help pick it up when you have another unit that is maybe not as productive as they need to be on a particular day. I thought that’s what happened today. The defense obviously with Brent (Grimes) and Louis (Delmas) having two touchdowns was absolutely huge in a game that was not an easy win on the road. The guys hung in there and made plays to win the game.”

Winning on the road isn’t easy but the Dolphins were able to make it happen. A big reason for that is that Dolphins defense feasted on the Jaguars rookie quarterback, Blake Bortles. Jaguars defensive tackle Sen’Derrick Marks gave credit to the Dolphins defense.

“If you look at it from that aspect. If we’re going against a rookie QB, that’s our mindset, take advantage of him, put pressure on him, let’s make him make errant throws, make him force things in, so I can see that they probably had that mindset coming into the game. On our defense, we know the exact same thing. We have a rookie quarterback and he doesn’t mind taking chances. So if he makes a mistake, it’s on us to go and get him the ball back and we’ll continue to do it.”

Philbin is looking forward to reviewing the film and getting the team ready for their showdown against the San Diego Chargers. He understands that it wasn’t a pretty win but at the end of the day, it was a win.

“It’s not easy to win on the road. It’s our third win [on the road] in a row. I thought our guys hung tough. Let’s face it … it wasn’t overly pretty, especially on offense. It was a little bit of a struggle. I’m not going to say it wasn’t, but at the end of the day, our defense gave up one touchdown and offensively, we made a couple of plays in the second half. We have to do better without a doubt. I think this is a young team (Jacksonville) that is improving up here and doing a good job.

---