The Giants might want to steal some speed-limit signs from parking lots and post them along the sidelines Sunday in hopes of tricking the Dolphins’ playmakers into tapping their brakes.
The most difficult part about preparing to face Tyreek Hill, Jaylen Waddle, Raheem Mostert and De’Von Achane is that there is no way to simulate the quartet’s speed in practice because most teams — the Giants included — don’t have receivers and running backs who run 22 mph with the ball in their hands just languishing on the scout team.
“I think speed is the hardest thing to defend when you play timid,” said cornerback Adoree’ Jackson, a former USC track sprinter. “When you don’t play your game.”
The Dolphins lead the NFL with 619 yards gained after the catch because Hill (28 catches for 470 yards) and Waddle (12 catches for 210 yards) can take the short pass and turn it into a big gain by running away from tacklers.
Mostert and Achane do the same out of the backfield, which is why the Dolphins have the NFL’s five fastest ball-carrier speeds this season, according to NextGenStats.
“Speed is the most deadly thing,” said Fox analyst Jonathan Vilma, a former Jets linebacker who will be in the booth for the Giants-Dolphins broadcast. “It is an enhancer — or an upgrade pack from a video game — to your quarterback. It makes everything five times better offensively and 10 times harder to defend.”
The Giants look particularly vulnerable because of their trend of slow starts (outscored 33-3 in the first quarter) and the Dolphins’ fast starts (10.6 yards per play with 17 total points scored on their four game-opening possessions).
With quarterback Tua Tagovailoa at the controls, the Dolphins average a league-high 511 yards per game — 113 more than the No. 2 49ers.
“Even if you think you can mimic it, it’s not [the same],” defensive coordinator Wink Martindale said. “That’s why they’re so successful on their first drives. Guys have to get used to the speed of the game and the speed of those guys. It’s like if you were driving on Daytona [in] NASCAR and jumped and tried to race against a Formula 1 guy.”
For non-racing experts: A NASCAR automobile accelerates from zero-to-60 mph in 3.4 seconds compared to 2.6 in Formula 1.
The average top speed in Formula 1 is about twice as fast.
“They are faster than fast,” said Martindale, who compared the Dolphins to the 1999-2001 “Greatest Show on Turf” Rams.
In their one game on the grass at Hard Rock Stadium — located roughly 250 miles from the Daytona International Speedway — the Dolphins scored 70 points against the Broncos.
“Somebody said they scored 70 … and I thought they were joking,” Jackson said of when he first heard the NFL scores on Sept. 24.
“Then I go look and I’m like, ‘Oh s–t. The game got lopsided quick.’ Seventy points is unheard of. The ball is going to be in the air, so it gives the defense an opportunity to make plays. That’s the positive. The negative is if you don’t, then 70 points are put up on the board.”
So, what’s a defensive play-caller to do? Especially Martindale, whose preference is to blitz and leave cornerbacks in man-to-man coverage.
“Wink Martindale’s defense has been very successful for many years,” Vilma said. “When it becomes hard [is to say] ‘Just play Cover 2.’ Not if you haven’t practiced it. That’s where the challenge is — choosing maybe a zone defense that they did practice and are good at and can communicate.”
One Giant who could see a matchup-based uptick in playing time is athletic inside linebacker Isaiah Simmons.
He will be on alert for pre-snap motion, which the Dolphins are using more frequently than any NFL team since 2017, according to ESPN.
“You have to lock into your keys and not let them behind you — that’s really the only way to defend the speed,” Simmons said. “They present a lot of eye candy and things that can distract you, so you have to have discipline with your eyes and depth in your drops.”
The Bills held the Dolphins to 20 points last week with the complement of their offense keeping the ball for long drives and piling up touchdowns to build a lead.
The Giants haven’t shown the capability to use that formula, so it rests on the defense.
“The way to slow them down — not necessarily stop them — is to go after the point guard,” Vilma said. “You have to figure out to confuse Tua, mentally make the coverages a little muddy for him, figure out how to speed up his clock or get him out of the pocket. There’s just no way you can say, ‘Run stride-for-stride with Tyreek and Jaylen for 60 minutes.’ Not happening.”