Philbin and Coyle talk about the challenges of playing the Chargers

Written by Matthew Cannata at 6:30 AM EST | Twitter: @PhinManiacs

The San Diego Chargers will present plenty of problems for the Miami Dolphins today and the Dolphins will need to be fully focused heading into the game if they want any chance to win after 60 minutes of playing football. As we’ve seen all week, the coaches and players are well aware of the challenge but all of them are looking forward to it. Joe Philbin broke it down a little more for us heading into the game.

 “They’re a real balanced football team. They are good in all three phases. They’ve obviously got an experienced quarterback who is having a tremendous year. He’s got some outstanding weapons to work with, both on the perimeter and at the tight end position. Their young running back has filled in incredibly well. He’s done a fantastic job there. They’re very diverse and multiple on offense. Defensively, they’ve played extremely well. Their blitz package and they’re as multiple a team that we’ve played, coach (John) Pagano and his staff, they do a great job. They’re a lot to prepare for. It takes some extra time in the meeting room and so forth to get ready for these guys. They are good on special teams. It’s a good football team. Mike (McCoy) has done a great job there and we’re going to have to play awful well.”

Kevin Coyle added his thoughts about Phillip Rivers and said that the defense, especially the line, will need to be careful with the way they attack Rivers because he can make pretty much every throw in the book from almost any position on the field.

“At times, it can be to our advantage, but as you watch Rivers, he tends to make a lot of plays not the most conventional way. He can make some throws in positions that you scratch your head and look at the tape and say, ‘How did he get the ball there?’ He’s not quite as mobile as Rodgers, yet he has, as a lot of the great quarterbacks do, a great sense of where he is in the pocket and where the pressure is. Countless times, you’ll watch as someone is getting close to his throwing arm, he’ll end up just shifting the ball or sliding a half a step one-way or the other, (and) then he gets the ball out. We will try to do some things to keep changing it up on him, but he’s one of the more effective guys making some plays that aren’t exactly how you draw them up.”

The Dolphins will certainly have their hands full but they’ve held their own against some of the best in the league thus far. Sunday is a different day though so we’ll see which Dolphins team shows up at kickoff at 1 PM EST.

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