Prior to the 2023 season, the Miami Dolphins hired one of the best defensive minds in football to be their defensive coordinator. Vic Fangio, who was fresh off a year consulting for a Philadelphia Eagles defense that was one of the best in the NFL, and who had devised a scheme that has been sweeping through the league for years now, came in to join Mike McDaniel's coaching staff.
But things did not work out as planned. Fangio simply wasn't a good fit, as he clashed with both the staff and the players on his defense. Several Dolphins took veiled shots at Fangio after news broke that he was leaving, and a few of the best players on the unit have expressed that they are much happier under new DC Anthony Weaver, who came over from the Ravens.
Star cornerback Jalen Ramsey passed up the opportunity to make a direct comparison between Fangio and Weaver, but did praise the new coordinator for what he views as a more fun style of defense.
"I'm not going to compare them," Ramsey said, via All Dolphins. "I'm not going to sit here and do that. Y'all can do that on your own, but I think (Weaver is) a great coach. I think he's a good hire. I think he'll put guys in position to do really good things and show their whole skill sets. That's fun ... it makes the game fun."
And what exactly is more fun? Well, it appears that Ramsey is going to both shadow receivers and move around the formation more often than he did a year ago.
"Those are things that I've done throughout my whole career besides last year," he said. "Last year was the only time I didn't follow and only stayed on one side of the field. So last year was kind of a different year for me rather than this being different. This is like back to what I do, back to where I thrive and made impact and have a lot of fun playing the game."
In the table below, we broke down Ramsey's alignment during his career by position: left corner, right corner, slot corner, box safety, and deep safety. (With help from Pro Football Focus.) We highlighted in bold the position at which he played the greatest share of snaps in that season. The distinction here should be very, very obvious.
| Year | Team | LCB% | RCB% | SLOT% | BOX% | DEEP% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | JAX | 44.1% | 36.5% | 11.7% | 7.7% | 0.1% |
| 2017 | JAX | 67.5% | 14.7% | 6.3% | 5.7% | 5.7% |
| 2018 | JAX | 55.7% | 28.6% | 6.4% | 5.2% | 4.0% |
| 2019 | JAX/LAR | 49.1% | 33.2% | 10.3% | 6.2% | 1.3% |
| 2020 | LAR | 34.9% | 40.1% | 18.0% | 6.8% | 0.3% |
| 2021 | LAR | 25.9% | 28.1% | 32.3% | 13.0% | 0.6% |
| 2022 | LAR | 28.9% | 39.8% | 20.2% | 10.6% | 0.5% |
| 2023 | MIA | 8.4% | 83.0% | 2.4% | 6.0% | 0.2% |
His best years came where he was used in a hyper-versatile role, but Ramsey played 83% of his snaps at right corner last season after he had never played more than 67.5% of his snaps at a single position and in recent years had been splitting his time between three or four spots on the field. That didn't happen hardly at all in 2023, but it looks like he'll be back to playing that style in 2024.
