Madison Explains Crossen No-Call, Plus Other Cornerback Talk

Miami Dolphins cornerbacks coach Sam Madison shed some light on one of the key plays in the team's victory against the Chicago Bears

Miami Dolphins cornerbacks coach Sam Madison discussed the big no-call controversy from the victory against the Chicago Bears, as well as sharing his thoughts on a couple of his players Thursday.

Madison, a former Pro Bowl cornerback, brought up a very interesting point regarding the Bears' next-to-last offensive play when no penalty flag was thrown at the Miami 22-yard line despite replays clearly showing cornerback Keion Crossen pulling wide receiver Chase Claypool from behind with his hands around his waist.

"When the referees come in here and we talk and they come out there and they watch us practice, one of the things that they always talk about, don't put your hands up high," Madison said. "Put your hands down low. As long as you don't turn the wide receivers, then it doesn't become a penalty. So having your hands down low, those are the things that they tell us when we're working with them when they come out here during training camp. So those are the things that we work on and those are the things that that they go out there and they try to work and execute. For there to be a no-call? Hey, any given Sunday, it could be called a penalty or not, just like it was for Keion."

The replays showed Crossen pulling Claypool backward and restricting his ability to jump for the ball but also never twisting his body.

Madison's comments came one day after a report from NBC Sports Chicago saying, according to Bears sources, that the NFL admitted they should have flagged Crossen for defensive pass interference.

Bears heard back from the league on a few plays they sent in from the Dolphins game.

According to a team source, the league said officials missed on two big penalties.

-DPI against Eddie Jackson should not have called
-DPI should have been called on the Chase Claypool deep ball

— Alex Shapiro (@AlexShapiroCHSN) November 9, 2022

With the no-call, it became fourth-and-10 and the Dolphins secured the victory on the next play when Equanimeous St. Brown dropped Justin Fields' pass.

HIGH HOPES FOR HOWARD

This has not been a typical season for Xavien Howard, who has yet to record an interception and also has some nasty-looking advanced stats.

Howard, who had 15 interceptions the past two seasons, had what would have his first of 2022 against the Bears nullified when he was flagged for defensive holding on a play where Chicago also was flagged for offensive holding.

Worse, Howard's opponent passer rating when targeted is a career-worst 129.4 after those figures were 72.6 last season when he made the Pro Bowl and 48.3  in 2020 when he made the Pro Bowl and was a first-team All-Pro.

To be sure, Howard hasn't been helped by the groin issues that hampered for a few weeks, and Madison is confident things will turn around soon.

"Just going in and watching film over when I first got here, and just understanding and knowing exactly who he was watching him for a number of years doing television, he's a playmaker, and these little nicky-nack injuries, they can take a toll," Madison said. "So being able to finally get him through those different little injuries and not really having him during training camp, the offseason and trying to make sure that he was healthy to get him to this point, those were our main goals. And now, I think he feels comfortable. He's practiced very well the last couple of weeks. So you've just got to get his confidence back, knowing that he's healthy, and then whoever he's covering, he's just got to go out there and dominate, just like he's been able to do over the last couple of years.

"He's feeling comfortable, I'm feeling comfortable about everything he's doing. And now we've just got to go out there and just get that confidence back and then just go and attack, get his hands on the ball. Last week, I thought that was good for him. But now he's just got to take it to the next level and dominate every play."

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KADER KOHOU CHECKING ALL THE BOXES

Madison always has been very impressed by undrafted free agent Kader Kohou, who would stand as a runaway winner for best Dolphins rookie so far.

Kohou is an impressive success story after not only making the team but becoming a starter at cornerback opposite Howard in the absence of Byron Jones.

"Yeah, he's an NFL starter," Madison said. "And guess what, he doesn't shy away from contact, he doesn't shy away from any challenge. It doesn't matter if it's Stefon Diggs, or no matter who it is, he goes out there and he's gonna give it his 100 percent and that's what we ask from these guys. And that's what he's been doing since he's been here.

"He's the guy that when you give him something that you talk to him about, he's gonna go out there and try to execute it in. Challenging at the line of scrimmage or some of the things that we work on an everyday basis, he's going to do it. He's nice, thick, he's strong. It really hurt him when he missed those couple of games so coming back has really helped our depth and as you can see when it comes to run support, he doesn't shy away from that at all."

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