How Colts defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo shut down Dolphins’ explosive offense in Week 1 originally appeared on The Sporting News
The Indianapolis Colts giving the Miami Dolphins 1.5 points to open the season stuck out like a sore thumb ahead of Week 1’s action. The vibes had rarely been worse in Indianapolis. Daniel Jones “won” a job that Anthony Richardson fumbled with a preventable preseason sack, head coach Shane Steichen was on the hot seat, and a playoff drought threatened to make itself known in September. Against a Dolphins team that’s regularly dangerous when Tua Tagovailoa is healthy, this game was supposed to be a lock.
Then Miami got pantsed.
The Colts ended this one early, winning 33-8 at the hands of Jones’s best game since 2022 and a defensive performance that put Indianapolis back on the map. Defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo, the Mad Scientist, made a splash in his debut. Two schematic decisions headlined his banner day.
Tagovailoa was sacked three times on Sunday and pressured regularly. That was partly a matter of the Colts’ defensive line winning against an inferior unit that clearly hasn’t added the muscle it needed to in the offseason. Anarumo was liberal with his usage of stunts and twists that added stress to the Dolphins’ front.
However, the quickest way Indianapolis wreaked havoc was by sending defensive backs on a beeline to the quarterback.
This was more apparent on the blindside, where Tagovailoa struggled to identify blitzers pre-snap and frequently had no chance of making a play. He’s never strong out of structure, and the Colts didn’t let him get comfortable at any point. As the offense roared along with Jones and Jonathan Taylor, the defense was allowed to get even more aggressive.
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A nice wrinkle uniquely tied to Miami’s offense was the use of simulated pressures and secondary blitzes, the latter of which was most effective against the Dolphins’ pistol looks. When the Dolphins run play-action out of pistol, the running back receives the fake like it’s an interior run and proceeds to press the A or B gap.
Sending an unblocked defensive back around the edge creates an angle that De’Von Achane simply cannot get to, giving Kenny Moore II an on-ramp to a free sack.
Between Tagovailoa’s poor sense of pressure, the consequences of the play call, and creative coverages to take away the first read, Miami simply didn’t have the answers within structure to attack what was supposed to be a pedestrian defense.
The book has long been out on Tagovailoa. Whether one thinks he’s the 12th-best quarterback in the NFL or league average, 20th or 25th, there’s no denying that Tagovailoa is difficult to disentangle from the Dolphins’ offense.
His superpower is throwing to keyholes in the intermediate part of the field, running the RPO, play-action heavy offenses that Mike McDaniel has cooked up. Take away the first read, and things get really messy. He lacks the arm, athleticism, and post-snap processing to bail himself out when those answers aren’t there.
As Zach Hicks broke down, it’s awfully hard to find those answers against Drop 8 coverages that make the middle of the field a no-fly zone.
By disguising coverages and adding extra bodies between the numbers, the Colts shrank the windows where Tagovailoa does his best work. This is an offense that doesn’t work if its quarterback is hesitant or regularly working past its first read. When things are going well in Miami, the gravity of its collective speed and the success of its run game pry those windows open.
When things are in disarray, it looks a lot like Sunday afternoon.
Anarumo is justifiably getting the most credit for edge rusher Laiatu Latu’s interception. It was a funky look that dropped eight into coverage, including both edge rushers, and blitzed an off-ball linebacker. He didn’t make Tagovailoa see ghosts, but it’s clear the Dolphins quarterback wasn’t quite sure what he was seeing.
Last season, Anarumo took the fall for a Cincinnati Bengals defense that cost Joe Burrow a playoff appearance. But Anarumo has repeatedly shown the ability to game-plan better than just about anyone in the sport. He rose to the occasion in Week 1 and quickly shifted the outlook of Indianapolis’s season. The Colts will get another tough test in Week 2 against Sean Payton and the Denver Broncos. With Anarumo calling the shots, Indianapolis looks well-suited to exceed expectations again.
