Plenty of people took shots at the Dolphins defense after they yielded 516 yards in a 23-20 loss at Indianapolis on Sunday. But not first-year coach Joe Philbin.

“I have a lot of confidence in our defense,” Philbin told the Palm Beach Post. “I like the way they play the game. Obviously, that wasn’t one of their finer performances. When you’re a really good football team, which we’re not yet, because our record states that, as [much] as our defensive guys are disappointed, they made a stop when they had to and we had the ball first and 10 on the 50-yard line with two and a half minutes to go.”

The unit also managed only one sack as the team’s inability to generate a consistent pass rush was a huge factor in Colts QB Andrew Luck picking apart a beleaguered secondary for a rookie-record 433 yards with two touchdowns.

“We hit him 11 or 12 times when we actually got to him,” defensive coordinator Kevin Coyle said. “But to his credit, he’s very good in the pocket. He’s got great poise for a young player. As you watch him on tape, you see things that he does that you see a lot of veteran players in the league not do. In other words, when the rush is coming in his face, he’s not fazed by it. He doesn’t change his way, his demeanor.”

The bigger problem, however, was the team’s inability to get off the field on third down. Miami allowed the Colts to convert 13 of 19 third-downs.

“We tried a lot of things as the game went on to try to change it up,” Coyle added. “We rushed them, we covered them, we spied the quarterback, we blitzed them. It wasn’t like, I went back after the game, wanted to see exactly what we called in what instances and tried to determine if there was a pattern or a trend. I don’t think it was that. It was just one of those games that they made some plays and we didn’t and we’ve got to do better.”

Blocking out: Dolphins OTs Jake Long and Jonathan Martin will want to burn the game film of their loss to the Colts.

The duo routinely struggled to stop Colts DEs Robert Mathis and Dwight Freeney from getting to rookie QB Ryan Tannehill. The veteran pass rushers combined for two sacks and three quarterback hits as they lived in the backfield much of the second half.

“We’ve had some pretty good protection throughout the season, but I wouldn’t say this was our best game in relationship to that,” Dolphins offensive coordinator Mike Sherman said. “Mathis and Freeney gave us some problems of the edge as evident by, well anybody could see that. But overall throughout the course of the season we’ve had pretty good pass protection.”

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