Dolphins’ Holland emerging into star: ‘He makes plays he really shouldn’t be making’

Dolphins quarterbacks have spent the past month trying to learn and operate a dynamic NFL offense. There’s lots of work to do, plays to install.

But Jevon Holland keeps getting in the way.

There’s no more encouraging story to emerge from Dolphins training camp than Holland’s dominance, which could potentially portend his evolution from a good NFL safety to an elite one. He had three interceptions in three practices this week, all against Tua Tagovailoa.

Allow tight end Durham Smythe to explain the disruptive effect that Holland has had on the Dolphins offense during a training camp in which he has intercepted at least five passes and broken up several others:

“He’s so instinctual. He’s obviously a great athlete, but the instincts [set] him apart. He makes plays he really shouldn’t be making in terms of what his job is in the defense on certain plays.

“When you have a guy that knows what’s coming that can read things so quickly, he’s a guy that can make a play on the opposite side of the field when he’s not supposed to be there. That’s tough as an offense because when you don’t expect a guy, when [you’re running a play on one side and] he’s playing on the opposite side and he makes a play in the middle of the field, it’s like, ‘What am I supposed to do here?’ Wow, he’s come a long way and this camp has really shown it.”

Holland doesn’t merely want to disrupt opposing offenses. He wants to instill a sense of dread in the people on the opposing sideline.

“I just want offenses to fear me, really — not necessarily the quarterback, more the coaches,” he said.

Holland already was borderline elite by the end of his rookie season. Among 94 qualifying safeties, Pro Football Focus rated Holland fourth in overall performance last season.

He allowed an 88.6 passer rating in his coverage area — with just 12 completions in 22 targets for 208 yards, four touchdowns allowed and two interceptions.

What’s more, he had three sacks (second among all NFL safeties), 16 pressures (also second behind teammate Brandon Jones) and two forced fumbles.

Pro Football Focus’ Doug Kyed noted that “Holland is PFF’s highest-graded rookie safety since Derwin James’ 2018 season. He was dangerous as Miami’s post safety, registering the fourth-highest forced incompletion rate among safeties with at least 250 snaps [at 27.7 percent].”

But none of that was good enough for Holland, who spent the offseason studying tape and refining his game.

Where is he a better player than a year ago?

“My entire game,” he said. “I think I’ve improved in every category… because I don’t think I hit my ceiling yet. As a competitor, as a high-level competitor, I hold myself to a high standard. So every day, I’m trying to get one percent better than I was yesterday.”

His appetite for studying other safeties on film has gone back years.

“Tyrann Mathieu when he was at LSU, I watched his tape every Friday before my college games, and then right before I went to bed, me and my roommate, Jamal Hill — he’s out of Oregon — we watched Minkah Fitzpatrick’s last year in college [at Alabama] every day.”

Ask him what safeties he has admired over the years and he rattles off a bunch:

Besides Mathieu and Fitzpatrick, he mentions: “Bob Sanders, Troy Polamalu, Ed Reed, Micah Hyde, Jordan Poyer, Derwin James, Kevin Byard, Budda Baker.” He said he’s not yet in a group text with some of those players because “I’m not at that level yet.”

He has sought feedback from some of them, as well as Bengals safety Jessie Bates.

“Jessie Bates (III) helped me a lot last year. So those guys are — everybody in the safety community and the football community in general is always cool about spreading love, spreading ideas.”

With Reed, who’s now chief of staff at UM, “I try to take his whole game, everything he does, really. He was a phenomenal player. He played with such energy, such grit and furious intention.”

How much has he enjoyed the string of training camp interceptions, most of which have come against Tua Tagovailoa?

“I love it, I love it,” he said. “Coach [Josh] Boyer, he makes the calls based on the situation. He does a great job aligning us in the right position.”

Holland and the quarterbacks often talk after a practice or before the next one, discussing what one of them could have done differently.

“I usually ask him about plays that I messed up on or things like that,” Holland said. “I’m not really looking for him to explain what I did right or what he saw in that specific play. I’m more looking for things that bother me when I go to sleep at night and how I can correct them, because Tua is helping me tremendously, him and Teddy Bridgewater. But because Tua is a left-hander, it challenges me a lot, because I’m seeing things from a different side.

“Tua is a hell of a competitor, and his desire to be great is the same as mine, and that resonates with me. That’s why I’m continuing to ask him questions and I’m trying to compete with home every day in practice. They want to know what they did wrong or how they could get better. So the atmosphere in the locker room between us four [Holland and the team’s three quarterbacks] is awesome, really. I would want to go watch film with them too. So that’s something that I plan on doing in the future.”

Holland doesn’t downplay a personal goal: Making a Pro Bowl. Defensive backs coach Steve Gregory said he doesn’t specifically discuss that or becoming an All-Pro with him.

Gregory said it didn’t take long to realize Holland has special skills.

“You watch the guy play — he’s extremely instinctual,” Gregory said. “When you have a guy that’s that naturally instinctive, he can do things that are outside the box a little bit and you’re like, ‘Don’t take that away from him.’ Sometimes there will be some growing pains with that where he will make a little bit of a wrong decision but that’s all right. It comes with the territory.”