Chargers WR offers eye-opening assessment of Dolphins defense

The Miami Dolphins defense effectively had their way with the Los Angeles Chargers’ offense in Week 10 of the 2020 season. Yes, Miami conceded 21 points. But seven of those came late with the game in hand and Miami handed the Chargers a short field on another score. For all the billing of this being a clash of high-profile rookie quarterbacks, the Chargers’ offense wasn’t what we expected — with Justin Herbert playing very conservative and offering just two passes beyond 10 yards down the field.

How bad were things for the Chargers on Sunday afternoon? Star receiver Keenan Allen came out on Monday afternoon and offered a scathing review of his offense’s strategy against the Dolphins due to “confusion” on the field with Miami’s defensive looks.

Ouch. With a young quarterback at the helm, the Dolphins certainly had success rattling the cage of Herbert early and definitely dictated the pace of play to Los Angeles throughout the entirety of the game. And while the Chargers did find some success running the football, to hear an opposing player say they adopted running the ball to avoid any catastrophic plays is still a pretty surreal statement to be made about the Dolphins’ defensive approach and game plan as crafted by Brian Flores and Josh Boyer.

NFL Network’s Daniel Jeremiah offered some great insight as to how Miami was able to throw the Chargers out of their game plan on Monday:

The next challenge for Miami will be to keep creating new pressure looks to keep the young quarterbacks left over the next three weeks equally confused. Miami’s next three quarterbacks on the schedule to face?

• Drew Lock, Denver Broncos (rib injury)

• Sam Darnold, New York Jets (shoulder injury)

• Joe Burrow, Cincinnati Bengals

If they can confuse each as well as they did Herbert, Miami will be entering December on quite the tear.