The New England Patriots have made great efforts to revamp their defense in recent seasons but one player who has stuck around quietly doing his job is Rob Ninkovich and he popped up against the Dolphins with a big game as a pass rusher, profiting from favorable matchups and unblocked opportunities to make a mark in this game. Ninkovich registered a season-high nine total pressures (one sack, two hits, six hurries) to take his season total through eight games to 36, only six short of his total for the entirety of last year’s regular season. He added to his fine display with a pair of batted passes (one of which was nullified by a delay of game penalty) and a trio of tackles (one of them a stop). He even notched up a missed tackle to register a stat in every column of our defensive stats page for this game. We have seen much better from Ninkovich as a run defender this season but this was the most productive we have seen Ninkovich as a pass rusher this season and comfortably the most effective more importantly.