Stephen White: 'There was Suh's big ass chasing Mathews down from behind '

The Miami Dolphins looked headed for a third-straight loss and another disappointing performance as they trailed 16-3 in the first quarter against the Philadelphia Eagles last Sunday. The Dolphins had given up a safety, the third straight week of allowing the two-point score, and the Eagles offense was marching all over the Dolphins defense, without anyone appearing able to even slow them down.

That is until defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh took over the game.

Retire NFL defensive end Stephen White named Suh his "Hoss of the Week" for what his performance against the Eagles. White writes of Suh, "I don't know if a light went off or what. Maybe the Eagles' playcalling suddenly afforded Suh more opportunities to make plays. Whatever the reason, the guy was a helluva lot more productive than I have seen him in most of the games this year from literally the moment the second quarter started."

White goes on to break down several of the key plays Suh made during the game, starting with:

On the first play of the second quarter, first-and-10 at the Dolphins' 47-yard line, the Eagles tried to run some kind of counter/draw toward their left tackle with Mathews. Suh, who was playing a G alignment head up on the right guard Matt Tobin, slipped behind the Tobin's zone block attempt. For some odd reason, Eagles right tackle Dennis Kelly elected not to block Suh on that play and Suh made a hard right turn to chase Mathews down from behind for a 5-yard loss. That's the kind of play that usually gets an offense way off schedule.

The Eagles, however, countered by hitting tight end Brent Celek for a 40-yard gain on the next play, a corner route that took them all the way down to the Miami 12-yard line.

What does Suh do?

Oh, he just sacked Bradford, who was attempting to throw the ball off a bootleg action, on the very next play. So first-and-10 at the Dolphins 12-yard line turned into second-and-17.

White continued onto the next play, writing:

After an incomplete pass on second down the Eagles completed a screen pass to Mathews on third-and-17 that he turned into a 5-yard gain.

Guess who chased him down. No, seriously, just guess.

Yep, there was Suh's big ass chasing Mathews down from behind and limiting him to just 5 yards.

If you are counting at home, the Eagles had run five plays in the second quarter at that point and Suh made plays on three of them. And the Eagles ended up missing the field goal to keep the score at 16-3.

White explains his thoughts on Suh so far this season:

One of my criticisms of Suh early on this season was that when I watched the film, I just didn't see him being nearly as effective with his bull rush as he had been in years past. Hell, Suh's bull rush was kinda his thing, so to see him not crushing fools on Sundays was concerning. I don't know what changed, but he looked like his old self against the Eagles.

Suh played like the $114 million man Miami hired this offseason. White does a great job breaking down more of Suh's play, and I highly recommend you check out the full article over on SBNation.com.