September 7, 2025 • 30 mins
The Dolphins lose 33-8 to the Colts in the opener. Travis is breaking down the game from every angle including the pre-game checklist, the themes of the contest, the individual performances, and five big picture takeaways.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is Drivetime with Travis wing for you.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
What's up Dolphins and welcome to the Draft Time Podcast.
I am your host, Travis Wingfield. On today's show, about
as tough of an opener as you can have against
the Colts who roll to their first opening day win
in thirteen years over the Miami Dolphins thirty three to eight.
We'll talk about how Miami fared in the pregame checklist,
(00:32):
the themes that develop from the game, the individual standouts,
the big picture takeaways, and plenty more here from the
Baptist Hell Studios inside the Baptist Health Training Complex. This
is the Draft Time Podcast. I have reimagined and rethought
the open to the show several times. I just did
two hours of postgame radio with Jamal bush Rod. I
(00:55):
told him I felt like the show was repetitive, because
what else are we gonna talk about? There wasn't wasn't
a whole lot of good to look at in this game,
and you kind of just feel like you're harping on
a bad quarterback day, a bad day from the defense, bad,
you know, bad everything. There wasn't a single thing you
can point to and feel like you accomplished. You know
(01:16):
that aspect of the game. I'm sure there's going to
be some individuals that stand out on tape and we
go back and watch it tomorrow. But I keep on
wondering how I want to start the show, how I
want to address you know, I'm even confused in my
own mind about like is this a continuation of what
you saw last year? Because I sure as hell feel
like I did after that Jets lost last year. Right,
(01:39):
But also we've talked about this in the on the
show all week long, like week one can can spring
some curious results and some not truth telling results, and
that wasn't really the case across the entire league. We
had some close games today, like the Browns and Bengals
game was a lot closer I think folks probably thought
would be you know, I yeah, I mentioned on a
(02:01):
break during the radio show, like, oh, back in two
thousand and three, the Patriots cut Ty Law and he
signed to the Buffalo Bills, and then the Bills beat
the Patriots thirty eight nothing, And the cover of Sports
Illustrated that week was Sam Adams three hundred and seventy
pounds running with the football down the sideline for a touchdown,
and everyone thought the Patriots run was over and they
go on to win the super Bowl. That's not what
this is, but it is somewhere in between this idea
(02:24):
of Week one absurdity versus a continuation of what you've
seen and the things that have worried you about what
this team has been the last year and plus now
I'd be going back to twenty twenty three as well
towards the end of the season there. But I do
feel like I owe all of you a moment here,
all of you listeners, you diehards, and the folks that
are probably hate listening as well. I guess if you
(02:46):
want to jump into that group, because everything you know,
people want to say about the Dolphins, and we've been
complaining about it on the show here and making faces
of this idea that the twenty ninth ranked team in
the league is gonna be the Miami Dolphins this year.
I still don't believe that's who they Arthur core, but
we're just gonna have to wear it this week, aren't we?
And who more than me? I mean, I told Seth
(03:08):
and oj I feel like I convinced myself of these
things for the last seven months or whatever it was,
and you get your first crack at it, and it's
the opposite of that. It's what you were worried about
the previous season, and some of the tough training camp
days looked like this, Like I just didn't think that
these like oh, there's bad vibes in Miami was a
(03:31):
tangible thing and I'm not even saying it is now,
But to come out and look like that, you know,
sometimes sometimes Week one.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
B like that. But we've seen this movie before.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
It is tough as a fan to get off the
mat after a game like that.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Is it time for me to go full Maya Kolpa?
Speaker 2 (03:52):
You know? I kept on putting the questions to Jamal
bush Rod and you know, asking him.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
About how big of a deal he thinks this is.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
And he made a really good point about, you know,
the Week one oddity of it all. He referred to
the twenty sixteen team that he was part of and
how they started off one and four and they knew
they had this great outside zone game and a good
running back and if they just ran that enough they
could get him to break through eventually, and they found
their identity that way. And he kept asking the questions like,
who is this Miami Dolphins team going to be and like,
(04:20):
half of me wants to stay grounded and remember that
Week one is not a truth teller. Half of me
wants to be like, I don't know, I don't see it,
but I guess that's where you get this kind of
strange in the middle, me wondering out loud on the
show about my own thoughts and my own feelings and
(04:42):
the idea of like who are you as a football team?
That was the best part of the show to me
with Draman was him saying, like who are you? And
I was like that it used to be a track
team that was explosive and no score was too great
to overcome the twenty twenty two Baltimore game. No offense
was too high powered to stay away from us and
keep us out of football games. And we had to
(05:03):
correct these little things here and there, like the procedurals
and the alignments and making sure we got to the
right call and didn't burn timeouts. And once we get
that corrected right, we're gonna be a world beater that
can't be stopped. And in the process of trying to
find that stuff, it almost feels like you lost a
little bit of who you were in this explosive offense,
and I mean we'll start at the quarterback position. I guess,
(05:23):
actually know we'll come back to the quarterback position because
I'm gonna tell you guys right now, it was not good.
You don't need me to tell you that, but I'm
gonna I'm gonna give you a full assessment on to
his game today. It was not a good football game
from QB one. He said as much. Mike McDaniel said
as much. And you saw the freaking game with your
own eyeballs. Let's go ahead and do our normal routine
here though pregame checklist. Absolutely nothing worked right. Nothing was
(05:45):
a check I had four things on my list today.
Offensive fluidity. Did we look like the twenty twenty three Dolphins,
who you know this time on the calendar two years ago,
we thought we were the greatest thing in the league.
Right points to a game winning drive, big third down throw,
under pressure, beat the Chargers in their house, beat Justin Herbert,
(06:05):
and the offense just kept rolling from there. Last year,
it wasn't that way. You started off slow, the quarterback
got hurt. Easy to blame it on the quarterback. The
absence of the quarterback and then he came back and
we played better football, but then it kind of got
away from us late in the year again, And so
I was curious, would it look like twenty three or
twenty four and got the fullback running a basic route.
(06:27):
You got you tight ends getting beat across their face
in critical pass protection situations, and you know, the running
back and pass protection getting beat, like all these things
that have been hindrances in the past were there again.
And in twenty twenty four it's like the same buggaboos
were there. So that's a big X, not a check
mark there. Would the guard additions change our run scheme? Flexibility?
(06:47):
Can't we convert short yardage? I can't give it a
check because we didn't really ever get there. We had
one third and one. We did convert it with Ali Gordon.
That's cool to see, I guess, but I'm not going
to give a check mark because what does it matter there?
Would the pass rush be?
Speaker 1 (06:59):
For real?
Speaker 2 (07:00):
All these bullets they have up front, all the games
they can run, How can Anthony Weaver cook up Daniel Jones,
who's not been a good quarterback in his career. He
had all kinds of time throughout the course of this game.
They had a game plan that attacked us where we
were vulnerable, that took advantage of our aggressiveness and put
us in bad spots like Shane Steiken cooked up a
hell of a game plan and they started from the
very first drive of the game. No check mark there,
(07:21):
Big X. Would the secondary concerns be quelled or would
they be highlighted? Storm got beat a couple times earlier
in the game. We got a holding call on Jack
Jones on second. Was it second and thirty or maybe
it's first and thirty. I forget, it doesn't matter. Guys
had a position, you know, long explosive plays in the
past game, big runs after the catch, Big X mark
(07:42):
on that quite frankly. And I get it's going to
be about all the things that we talked about as
potential concerns all off season. But I think the things
that you thought were calling cards for this football team
are a bigger concern right now. Quarterback play was dreadful, man, dreadful,
And I don't feel like it's a stretch to put
that word on it, because that's what it was. Like.
You made bad decisions, put the ball on the wrong spot,
(08:05):
didn't put it away when there was pressure on him.
You got thoroughly out planned, like the Colts game plan
from jump. We'll talk about that here in one second.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Was just.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
They punched you in the mouth and you had no
answer to it. The pass rush, it wasn't there. Right,
let's just go ahead and get into some of the
crucial moments here. We're gonna do this in the podcast,
and it plays better when the game is close. You
can't really, you know, break down crucible moments in a
game where it was never closed from the start of
the football game. But I guess we can do the
first few drives of the game. The first drive, first
and ten at the eleven yard line, and this was
(08:35):
the first one that Miami got to win on. Right,
They hauled him to three with a good run defensive
stop on Jonathan Taylor. Storm Duck after giving up a
big completion, gets a one on one win against Alec
Pierce in the corner of the end zone. And then
they get a play that breaks down from like the
quarterback in the pocket has to Daniel Jones has to
leave the pocket and you get a you know, a
(08:56):
fire play where receivers are breaking off their routes and
running around and they play and keep good eyes on
Daniel Jones and force him to scramble and force a
field goal. That's a win early on. But that, like
everything after that, was not. You know, the Colts first
touchdown play, they hold melafon Wu on that seam route
with a nice little two man combination to split your
split field safety.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
But here's the part that gets me. You know, the
touchdown to Michael Pittman.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
They have Tyler Warren run that seem to hold the
split field safety, that is if he Mela Fawn will
and they don't run a flat route to hold Storm Duck.
If there's no flat route there, sink into that coverage
and go run with that vertical because there's nobody there
to threaten you.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
But we didn't.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
We take it, and we turn them wide open for
a walk in touchdown. Like that is a critical moment
on a big time play that cost you seven points
and it could have been a three point play in
that spot. The two are turnovers, I mean flat out
sales one right, And Jermond talked about this a lot
in the postgame show. Like football is a game of
like building momentum and you get these you know things
(09:56):
can snowball, and you can debate whether that's a true
thing or not. He played the game, so I tend
to refer to him. But if Tua throws that ball
on the target on a third and eight and it
doesn't get picked off, like it's a three to nothing game,
and we have a first in ten, maybe a first
in goal, maybe he scores because he was open out
of that break, and that's our damn bread and Butter's
throwing that ball out of the break on the endcut,
(10:17):
you know, over the linebacker, under the safety, but two
as sails it and then he doesn't protect the football
in the next drive, and like that was one of
those surprise pressures that Mike McDonel talked about post game
that got after Tua. But like, you got to put
the ball away, man, you know, like you can't have
the ball with one hand while you're getting sacked like that.
This just isn't gonna work out. The third and goal
(10:38):
at the one, they sneak it across with Daniel Jones
seventeen to nothing. Then we get a stop and at
seventeen to nothing at the end of the first half,
and you get a chance to possibly double dip with
your drive here at the end of the first half
as well, and you get your one of your three
penalties in the game. That allows the Colts to resume
the drive and they wind up not punting the football
or they score on all seven drives after that because
(11:00):
as we ran to the punter, so you know, now
you've had all three phases make negative impacts. Third and
ten before the end of the half. After the punt penalty,
they convert because Chop Robinson goes off side, but then
stops and takes himself out of the play, like go
unabated to the quarterback there and just shut the play
down for third and five and live to fight another day.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
But instead, not.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
Only is it a free play which gives the quarterback
all the confidence to do whatever he wants, you also
took out the top like the one on one pass
rusher on that play because they had him single blocked
and he wasn't a factor in the play, so he
can just go do whatever he wants on the right
side of the formation and throw the ball wherever he wants.
A fourth and one with two forty two left in
the half, we can use our last time out there
(11:39):
trying to get the ball back right and we go
zero coverage, you know, no safety, help man coverage, send
it all out, blitz and the and you want to
disguise that I get this, but it became like a
super simple pitch and catch for a first down because
if Imla fan wu is covering was a Josh downs
I think it was in the slot and they run
a speed out and he is ten yards off the
(11:59):
foot ball five yards inside leverage to where the receiver is.
He's never going to get there for that play. So
that's I mean, they won every single critical moment of
this game except for that first drive in the red zone.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
That was it.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
That was it, because there's not you know, scoring a touchdown.
Wh you're down by thirty, who cares, you know? You know,
I suppose you could say to a second pick when
he had Eskridge on the crosser and opted to bite
off a bigger chunk or try to and never saw
Layatu Latu in the hook zone there, that's points off
the board because if you take d s Gridge and
the crossing rute right right in front of him, excuse me,
(12:34):
it's a first down and we're in field goal range.
And then plus you know forty yard line going in.
It just yeah, it was a tough start. Let's go
ahead and take our first break right there. Come back
and talk about some of the themes that developed. We'll
talk about the hits and misses. We'll get to the
five takeaways as well. All of that coming up. Drift
Time Podcast brought to you by Autoation. There's a song
(12:55):
by my favorite band Coheat and Cambria, and they talk
about the world's Smallest violin, which I know is a
a common phrase when you talk about, like, you know, complaining.
But my apologies if this entire you know podcast isn't
me playing the world's smallest violin for Dolphins fans, who
I just feel like you've been punching the gut several
(13:15):
times enough times now and today felt like an even
bigger one, is it? Just if you have the sense
of like where do you go from here? That's like
the worst place to be as a football fan, right,
Like where do you go from here? Because here you
are in the fourth year of this thing, and you
started off in the fourth year with hopefully a much
better result than last year. In this you know, improve
culture and improve performance and improve playing for each other.
(13:38):
And you come out lay an egg like that. It
makes you wonder, and it makes you wonder when the
next time you will experience joy in this sport where
it feels like it's been too few and far between
for Dolphins fans for a long time. Let's talk about
some of the themes here. Actually, let's go into the
stats first. I always, I always do the stats. Didn't
do it in the first segment. Twenty seven first downs
to twelve, twenty seven A lot of first downs. I
(14:01):
think it's when you don't punt the football. They were
seven for fifteen on third down, three for three on
fourth downs, So the what, Matt not a math guy?
Eight times you got stops on third downs? They converted
three of those for first downs, So what happened to
the other ones? I'm just confusing myself. Five for ten
were we on third down? One for two on fourth
four hundred and eighteen to two hundred and eleven yards,
(14:23):
Like that's how I thought the game was going to
go in the opposite direction, So good call on that one.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Travis yadingis.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Seventy plays to forty six, three turnovers to none, three
sacks to one, only had three penalties for fifteen yards
to win. I guess four for forty five for the Colts.
They outpossessed you two to one, thirty eight minutes and
forty three seconds to twenty one minutes and seventeen seconds.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
What a what a brutal day? Man? How do they
do it well? Some of the themes.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
I thought they started off the game exactly how you
should and actually it was kind of how the It
was how the Chargers started off against the Chiefs of
the Night. Like we draft Omary and Hampton, We signed
Makai Beckton, we draft Joe Allt. We you know, give
Rashaan Slater a massive contract. We had Zion Johnson, a
former first round draftic. We signed Bradley or not Bradley Boseman,
who is our new center. I forget, it doesn't matter.
(15:14):
They go after all these you know, big parts up front,
and they have this power run game and then they
come out and play action the Chiefs to death and
just keep getting Herbert wide up from receivers and he
carves them up. The Colts are the exact same thing
to the Dolphins open the game with play action. Dolphins
mug up their linebackers, right, that's kind of how this
defense operates mug the linebackers up and the best way
to beat that is to play action off of that
and run little slides, little routes under the formation where
(15:36):
the receiver comes across. And one of the Colts calling
cars we talked about from their offensive scheme of the
Thursday podcast the preview show was their ability to get
split zone where you bring the tight end back across
the formation and you dig out that backside you know, edge,
and they were running off of that with play action
and throw on the slide route, and then the cornerbacks
are you know, have been ran off, and the linebackers
(15:57):
are already too sucked up into the formation and they
can't get over there, and all of a sudden, you've
got safe. He's coming from fifteen yards of depth making
the tackle. It's an easy pitch and catch for eight, nine,
twelve yards at a time. It's hard to get stops,
and you do that. And then after they get the
Dolphins kind of out of that look, they go back
to the run game and they find these checkdowns off
the run game, and the one on the second drive
(16:19):
to Jonathan Taylor was schemed up with him out to
the field all by himself and there was no cornerback
over there, and Jones goes through his progressions and he
has you know, if we cover it well, like it's
great because for them because no one covered Jonathan Taylor.
He just throws it out there. We overrun the tackle
and he goes for a big game there. So play action,
scheming it up early, get the run game going off
(16:42):
of that, get the check down game going, force the
Dolphins to tackle up it.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
Just it was.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
A clinic from the Colts offense and Shane Steichen and
the opposite of that for the Dolphins defense. And then offensively,
it sure seems like you kind of packed up everything
that we thought this team might pivot too with the
more aggressive nature. You know, I talked about Faroh Brown
and Nick Westbrook Akine one of those guys didn't make
the team, but I digress. You know, the two guards
you would add, which James Daniels peck injury. We'll see
(17:10):
what happened with him. Hopefully he's back soon. You know,
he was questionable coming in. He plays in the first
drive of the game, he goes down with a different injuries.
So tough tough spot there, But you make all these
changes jonas ivite you Andaya you know trade trade two drafts,
used two draft picks to go get him, and it's
like it looks just like it did last year, all right,
Like the the the two point conversion play you had
(17:32):
to call a time out on because the motion and
the shift like was too late and you couldn't get
it off in time. They go back and around the
same play again.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
It worked.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
It's great, but you know that, you know Tanner Connor
and in critical pass protection spots to von Han in
critical pass protection spots. You know, early wide runs that
get blown up for negative and then we try to
get back on schedule. Then it's third long and we
blow up protection. It's tough to watch.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
Man. The Colts on the other side puzzled us with
their scheme as well.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
I mean that that that Nit cross coverage to blitz
where he could where Alec Ingle motions across the formation
and Cross converts from a coverage role to a backside
blitz and two Wood just never saw him. It's a
schemed up win right there, right. They ought to lat
to peeling back into coverage two and not accounting for
that and throwing it right to him. He said he
(18:19):
did see him. He tried to throw a different pass
to get it around him, but through it right to him.
The stacks in bunches they had. We talked about that, right,
you have to rewrap these guys and get hands on
them and make sure they can't get to those those
looks easy and give easy declarations to Daniel Jones. Off
of those looks, they get to these double moves and
decoy routes to lift coverage exactly how they were intended
to do it. They eventually got to enough of the
(18:40):
run game to reinsert the play action game and hit
those big plays like the first play of the second half.
Rasul Douglas, who I thought played really good and relief
of Storm Duck in the first half, bite on a
run fake and a possible like slant little slugo move
and they go up over the top to Alec Pierce
for like thirty yards or whatever that was.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
And then it's just more of the same.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Right the penalty and third long game, the free play
took your one on one pass prushure out of the play.
They're running into penalty a defensive holding on second and
thirty man the Colts had the ball for twelve minutes
and thirty seconds in the first quarter after the game
was seventeen to nothing. Right, it was forty three plays
they had run to our forty three yards and they
(19:18):
outgained US two fifty five to forty three. It's more
than four times as much offense. And it was twenty
one minutes and forty seconds to eight minutes and twenty
seconds to possession. You absolutely ran over. You got steamrolled
in every way possible. Some of the individual hits in
this game, I thought Tyreek played pretty well. It was
cool to see some fire from him, but that's not
(19:39):
the result you wanted for Tyreek in his first game
back in terms of the team performance, because that's just
seems dubious at best. But I thought he ran good
routes and caught the football well. Got shaken up a
little bit there and had to come out of the
game for a second. I thought Aaron Brewer did some
nice things, had a really nice pin on the third
and one conversion that Ali Gordon had. That's all I
got for you offensively. Defensively, I thought Bradley Chubb and
(20:01):
Jaylen Phillips had a couple of nice rush wins, including
Beach Hubb's first sack back. That was cool to see.
JP had a couple of pass rush wins. I thought
Jordan Brooks and Tyrrell Dotson played pretty well in this
game for the chances they were given. Jermon Bush Rods
had that he thought the defensive tackle position in the
interior the defensive line didn't do enough to move the
Colts and got a lot of surge for them in
the running game that allowed them to kind of control
(20:23):
the game and dictate the tempo that way. Dante Trader
had a really nice play on that second goal that
you probably forgot about by now. I liked how Jack
Jones plays against screens all the time. He almost had
himself a pick on one of them today, broke up
different one as well. He's kind of consistently in that mold,
but I thought he played up and down, but more
good than bad. We'll take a look at the tape
for him tomorrow. And then Rasul Douglas made a couple
(20:43):
of plays as well. Almost had that pick that would
have been a nice bounce back there, but at that
point you're kind of, you know, disassociating from the game.
So I don't know as far as the misses offensively toua.
I mean beyond the turnovers we've already talked about here,
Like there was a deep out to Malik where there
was Malie. He can waddle, we're both in the same
part of the field. That throws got to get there
(21:03):
right like he was. He was late and it was
soft to the perimeter. That was a bad throw. The
one the Tyreek that we didn't didn't challenge that I
didn't think was a catch watching the review, I don't
know what Jason mccordy saw or Devin McCarty. I'm sorry,
I forget who it was. He was saying to throw
the challenge flag, but I didn't see it. So I
didn't think that was a bad decision to not challenge
it because I didn't think he caught it. But that
ball hung up there for a minute and didn't get
(21:24):
there on time.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
Man, just an avalanche of bad plays for two and
he was He was not thrilled about it after the
game either. He talked to the media and he was
a little bit shortened and a little bit snippy about
the idea of you know, turnovers coming in bunches, But
for him it did today through he had three and
in pretty quick successions. So I thought that was the
worst game I've seen two a play as a pro
(21:48):
fourteen for twenty three, one hundred and fourteen yards.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
A touchdown, two picks.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
That that just you're not going to win games the
way he played the game today. I thought Devon han
and pass Pro really struggled.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
Again.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Go ahead and take a look at the to a
fumble against Kenny Moore. Look at Devon h On on that play.
You just you're not gonna win with that. Like I
love everything Devon brings to the offense of running and
receiving threat, but man, that is.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
He was standing there watching it.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
By the end. Tanner O'Connor thought had a really really
rough game. Crabs Tech text me mid game abject disaster,
and I was like, yeah, it's hard to disagree with that.
I thought Keon struggled, and I thought Jonah struggled. I thought
Austin had ups and downs. I mean, I think it's
like a burn the tape all the way around, just
really really bad performance. I don't want to make any
(22:34):
bold clans about the offensive line because I have to
watch tape before I do that, but I know that
those things I felt pretty good about. I'll get you
a big report on those guys and Patrick Paul tomorrow
on the podcast. Defensively, Storm was out of position a lot,
I thought, And I don't know the coverage, I don't
know the calls, but it looked to me like he
was out of coverage, out of position a heck of
a lot. Pressure wasn't there. They were doublin Zach Sealer.
We couldn't get anything else anywhere else. The pressure from
(22:55):
like kg and and Jordan Phillips, I thought wasn't really there.
Jordan Phillips though, I would put him in the hits category.
He played really well done the stretch of this game
and really was was physical and kind of resetting guys
late when it was, you know, already too late for
the Dolphins. Jason Marshall, I thought struggled. Ram passed some tackles,
you know, first game for him. That was kind of obvious. Again,
pass rush just wasn't there, you know, Chop had the
(23:16):
bad penalty. Daniel Jones had a career high first half
passing total one ninety seven. Like there was a stat
they showed at the end of the game. I forget
who the quarterbacks well like Troy Aikman, Auto Graham, like
Hall of Fame quarterbacks of guys that had two hundred
and fifty and then two rushing touchdowns in a game.
So congrats, DJ, I guess on that thought. Benito Jones
really struggled just across the board. Struggle bus right. We'll
(23:37):
do it more on the tape tomorrow, but that's it
for now. Let's go ahead and take our last break,
come back and do five big picture takeaways.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Not good.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
That's next Drag Time podcast, brought to you by Auto Nation.
Five takeaways from the game today. We got punch in
the mouth early? How do we respawn?
Speaker 1 (23:56):
That was?
Speaker 2 (23:56):
I wrote that down like after the I think the
first quarter again the misdirection play action slides. They went
downhill in the second drive with success. We get the
sack to back them up second and twenty on the
edge of the red zone. The initial response was a
thirty or something yard touchdown on a coverage bust right
after that, and then you know Tua couldn't put the
ball away with Hn having bad pass pro we'd get
(24:17):
a stop and then a penalty on teams create a
fourth down allow a conversion. They just had answers, and
we never did. They won every critical moment incredibly lopsided game.
And look, the season's not going to be over or
not going to be salvage next week. But I am
incredibly interested to see what this team looks like next
week against the Patriots, because I think it's going to
tell you a lot about who they are and what
(24:38):
they're going to be this season. So this one, you know,
that's kind of the theme of the podcast day, like
stuck in this middle ground between week one is a liar,
and like that was more of the same of what
we were worried about in terms of how this team
looked at certain points last year and in the in
the downturns of the last four years. Right, But what
we get on Sunday against the Patriots, to me will
(24:59):
be off awfully telling Number two, you didn't win enough
early downs and it didn't package your ability to rush
the passer, which is that gonna be an issue all
year long? I don't think it will be. I still
think that's one of the strongest points of the football team.
But the quick game and play action passing felt like
it got us off on rhythm. I want to watch
the tape on that and kind of see how they
were able to kind of remove the things that we
(25:19):
do well. But the first several third downs of the game,
we were third and two, you had a third and
eight that you got to stop on for a field goal.
But then third and three, and then third and one,
third and one, third and one. You're not gonna win games.
You're not gonna win defensive downs and third and one
that often, and it just continued throughout the game. They
converted fourth and two after our fourth down failure in
the third quarter, but the pressure was just not there,
(25:42):
whether it was one on one matchup wins, scheming up
wins with sim pressures and different looks, exotics, it just
it just never never actually got to that point. So
curious to see if they can fix that next week.
And that goes into our third takeaway. This was the
ultimate like back to the drawing board type of game plan, Right,
who are are we?
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Who are we going to be? Right?
Speaker 2 (26:01):
The fourth down conversion at the end of the half,
you know, zero it up, you're covering the slot and
from a safety position from depth, and it's it's just
as easy as you like. We kept mugging up the linebackers.
They kept having answers for that with the early slides
and flats, the tight ends and expanded hooks o throws.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
Who are we going to be?
Speaker 2 (26:16):
You know, mcdalily talked about dropping guys and protection with
surprise pressures and that's not an expected thing. Like okay,
well let's get that corrected. Overrunning tackles, guys leaving the
huddle the wrong direction. That was the part that got
me because like that's supposed to be the benefit of continuity, right,
Like for the longest time, this offense was, Okay, we
(26:37):
do all the hard stuff really well. We do the
we create chunks. We can compete with anybody in the scoreboard.
We can light them up even that like Eagles game
from a couple of years ago, like we had the
explosive to Tyreek Hill, we had the big play on
defense for a you know, pick six. Like you found
ways to generate plays to stay in those games, and
then you lost them in the margins with the procedurals
and the special teams and the drop passes and the
(26:57):
third down conversions because you couldn't tackle a quarter back outside.
But now those things still exist as you try to
take care of them. But it feels like you've like
like reverted back to pre McDaniel offense where it wasn't
explosive and it wasn't fun to watch, and it was
everything was a slog and a grind out. If you
put that together with the procedurals, you can't function at all.
(27:18):
Like that's that's when you become completely inept. And that's
what we saw in this game today was the explosives
were gone, the quick rhythm passing game, the schemed up
stuff was gone, and we had the minor, you know,
miscues that just puts you in a buy and where
you score eight points in a freaking football game. Fourth
takeaway is that was a quarterback problem today, man, Like
you know, what are they gonna say about it, because like,
(27:40):
you missed an explosive on the first drive and it
becomes a turnover. Has as big of a swing as
you possibly can get. He tried to do something he's
not really equipped to do and couldn't secure the football
and doing that on the lost fumble and gives it
away back to the Colts offense as a crosser for
a first down to try to stay alive early in
the second half, which the game is still somewhat within
reach twenty to nothing, I guess, and throws it right
(28:01):
to the hook drop like it was to pick up
what five more yards and we end up putting the
ball in the colt's hands. That was I think he
would tell you it was his worst game of his career.
And I think it's pretty easy to say that even
the staunchest of supporters, you boy, you know, a little
bit worried because that was bad and there was some
things that looked like regressive in the game after that
single game, like is the book out and we don't
(28:22):
have a solution to the answers that were the tests
that's being thrown at us, the quiz it's being presented
to us. I mean, this didn't happen last year in
the Houston game. It did with there was some bad
vision and bad plays, but there was at least the
explosives and the nice touchdown throw to John huy Smith
and some plays here and there. But today like heavy footed,
bad decisions, bad accuracy, like everything was bad, laid on throws,
(28:44):
lack of zip. I mean, it looked like one of
those It looked like one of the games where you
don't have Tua and then people, you know, people like me,
say oh, once we get to a back, it's gonna
be okay, and then that's a game we'll win. But
today it wasn't. He's never fallen in that category before,
not even the Houston game last year. But here we
are and that was man, that was tough to watch.
And then my final takeaway, and this is to put
a cherry on top of a bow on all of it.
(29:06):
I guess week one can be weird, right, That's about
it for Silver Linings. We get weird results in the
first week every single season. But that's not going to
make you feel very good when all the concerns you
had coming into the game were on display. On top
of the things that you thought were solid, they were
not there to a week eight, Chan waddle, the pass rush.
Oh man, I don't want to watch quarterbacks already again
(29:28):
here on September seventh, But it feels like that's where
we are today. We'll see if it changes next week,
but today, brutal, brutal game. Let's go ahead, get out
of here, Subscribe, rate, review the show, follow me on social,
check out the YouTube channel Dolphins HQ Media availabilities all
that stuff under the sun Miami Dolphins dot com. Until
next time, Fin's up, Caroline Cameron and Willow Daddy. He's
coming home.
This is Drivetime with Travis wing for you.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
What's up Dolphins and welcome to the Draft Time Podcast.
I am your host, Travis Wingfield. On today's show, about
as tough of an opener as you can have against
the Colts who roll to their first opening day win
in thirteen years over the Miami Dolphins thirty three to eight.
We'll talk about how Miami fared in the pregame checklist,
(00:32):
the themes that develop from the game, the individual standouts,
the big picture takeaways, and plenty more here from the
Baptist Hell Studios inside the Baptist Health Training Complex. This
is the Draft Time Podcast. I have reimagined and rethought
the open to the show several times. I just did
two hours of postgame radio with Jamal bush Rod. I
(00:55):
told him I felt like the show was repetitive, because
what else are we gonna talk about? There wasn't wasn't
a whole lot of good to look at in this game,
and you kind of just feel like you're harping on
a bad quarterback day, a bad day from the defense, bad,
you know, bad everything. There wasn't a single thing you
can point to and feel like you accomplished. You know
(01:16):
that aspect of the game. I'm sure there's going to
be some individuals that stand out on tape and we
go back and watch it tomorrow. But I keep on
wondering how I want to start the show, how I
want to address you know, I'm even confused in my
own mind about like is this a continuation of what
you saw last year? Because I sure as hell feel
like I did after that Jets lost last year. Right,
(01:39):
But also we've talked about this in the on the
show all week long, like week one can can spring
some curious results and some not truth telling results, and
that wasn't really the case across the entire league. We
had some close games today, like the Browns and Bengals
game was a lot closer I think folks probably thought
would be you know, I yeah, I mentioned on a
(02:01):
break during the radio show, like, oh, back in two
thousand and three, the Patriots cut Ty Law and he
signed to the Buffalo Bills, and then the Bills beat
the Patriots thirty eight nothing, And the cover of Sports
Illustrated that week was Sam Adams three hundred and seventy
pounds running with the football down the sideline for a touchdown,
and everyone thought the Patriots run was over and they
go on to win the super Bowl. That's not what
this is, but it is somewhere in between this idea
(02:24):
of Week one absurdity versus a continuation of what you've
seen and the things that have worried you about what
this team has been the last year and plus now
I'd be going back to twenty twenty three as well
towards the end of the season there. But I do
feel like I owe all of you a moment here,
all of you listeners, you diehards, and the folks that
are probably hate listening as well. I guess if you
(02:46):
want to jump into that group, because everything you know,
people want to say about the Dolphins, and we've been
complaining about it on the show here and making faces
of this idea that the twenty ninth ranked team in
the league is gonna be the Miami Dolphins this year.
I still don't believe that's who they Arthur core, but
we're just gonna have to wear it this week, aren't we?
And who more than me? I mean, I told Seth
(03:08):
and oj I feel like I convinced myself of these
things for the last seven months or whatever it was,
and you get your first crack at it, and it's
the opposite of that. It's what you were worried about
the previous season, and some of the tough training camp
days looked like this, Like I just didn't think that
these like oh, there's bad vibes in Miami was a
(03:31):
tangible thing and I'm not even saying it is now,
But to come out and look like that, you know,
sometimes sometimes Week one.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
B like that. But we've seen this movie before.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
It is tough as a fan to get off the
mat after a game like that.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Is it time for me to go full Maya Kolpa?
Speaker 2 (03:52):
You know? I kept on putting the questions to Jamal
bush Rod and you know, asking him.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
About how big of a deal he thinks this is.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
And he made a really good point about, you know,
the Week one oddity of it all. He referred to
the twenty sixteen team that he was part of and
how they started off one and four and they knew
they had this great outside zone game and a good
running back and if they just ran that enough they
could get him to break through eventually, and they found
their identity that way. And he kept asking the questions like,
who is this Miami Dolphins team going to be and like,
(04:20):
half of me wants to stay grounded and remember that
Week one is not a truth teller. Half of me
wants to be like, I don't know, I don't see it,
but I guess that's where you get this kind of
strange in the middle, me wondering out loud on the
show about my own thoughts and my own feelings and
(04:42):
the idea of like who are you as a football team?
That was the best part of the show to me
with Draman was him saying, like who are you? And
I was like that it used to be a track
team that was explosive and no score was too great
to overcome the twenty twenty two Baltimore game. No offense
was too high powered to stay away from us and
keep us out of football games. And we had to
(05:03):
correct these little things here and there, like the procedurals
and the alignments and making sure we got to the
right call and didn't burn timeouts. And once we get
that corrected right, we're gonna be a world beater that
can't be stopped. And in the process of trying to
find that stuff, it almost feels like you lost a
little bit of who you were in this explosive offense,
and I mean we'll start at the quarterback position. I guess,
(05:23):
actually know we'll come back to the quarterback position because
I'm gonna tell you guys right now, it was not good.
You don't need me to tell you that, but I'm
gonna I'm gonna give you a full assessment on to
his game today. It was not a good football game
from QB one. He said as much. Mike McDaniel said
as much. And you saw the freaking game with your
own eyeballs. Let's go ahead and do our normal routine
here though pregame checklist. Absolutely nothing worked right. Nothing was
(05:45):
a check I had four things on my list today.
Offensive fluidity. Did we look like the twenty twenty three Dolphins,
who you know this time on the calendar two years ago,
we thought we were the greatest thing in the league.
Right points to a game winning drive, big third down throw,
under pressure, beat the Chargers in their house, beat Justin Herbert,
(06:05):
and the offense just kept rolling from there. Last year,
it wasn't that way. You started off slow, the quarterback
got hurt. Easy to blame it on the quarterback. The
absence of the quarterback and then he came back and
we played better football, but then it kind of got
away from us late in the year again, And so
I was curious, would it look like twenty three or
twenty four and got the fullback running a basic route.
(06:27):
You got you tight ends getting beat across their face
in critical pass protection situations, and you know, the running
back and pass protection getting beat, like all these things
that have been hindrances in the past were there again.
And in twenty twenty four it's like the same buggaboos
were there. So that's a big X, not a check
mark there. Would the guard additions change our run scheme? Flexibility?
(06:47):
Can't we convert short yardage? I can't give it a
check because we didn't really ever get there. We had
one third and one. We did convert it with Ali Gordon.
That's cool to see, I guess, but I'm not going
to give a check mark because what does it matter there?
Would the pass rush be?
Speaker 1 (06:59):
For real?
Speaker 2 (07:00):
All these bullets they have up front, all the games
they can run, How can Anthony Weaver cook up Daniel Jones,
who's not been a good quarterback in his career. He
had all kinds of time throughout the course of this game.
They had a game plan that attacked us where we
were vulnerable, that took advantage of our aggressiveness and put
us in bad spots like Shane Steiken cooked up a
hell of a game plan and they started from the
very first drive of the game. No check mark there,
(07:21):
Big X. Would the secondary concerns be quelled or would
they be highlighted? Storm got beat a couple times earlier
in the game. We got a holding call on Jack
Jones on second. Was it second and thirty or maybe
it's first and thirty. I forget, it doesn't matter. Guys
had a position, you know, long explosive plays in the
past game, big runs after the catch, Big X mark
(07:42):
on that quite frankly. And I get it's going to
be about all the things that we talked about as
potential concerns all off season. But I think the things
that you thought were calling cards for this football team
are a bigger concern right now. Quarterback play was dreadful, man, dreadful,
And I don't feel like it's a stretch to put
that word on it, because that's what it was. Like.
You made bad decisions, put the ball on the wrong spot,
(08:05):
didn't put it away when there was pressure on him.
You got thoroughly out planned, like the Colts game plan
from jump. We'll talk about that here in one second.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Was just.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
They punched you in the mouth and you had no
answer to it. The pass rush, it wasn't there. Right,
let's just go ahead and get into some of the
crucial moments here. We're gonna do this in the podcast,
and it plays better when the game is close. You
can't really, you know, break down crucible moments in a
game where it was never closed from the start of
the football game. But I guess we can do the
first few drives of the game. The first drive, first
and ten at the eleven yard line, and this was
(08:35):
the first one that Miami got to win on. Right,
They hauled him to three with a good run defensive
stop on Jonathan Taylor. Storm Duck after giving up a
big completion, gets a one on one win against Alec
Pierce in the corner of the end zone. And then
they get a play that breaks down from like the
quarterback in the pocket has to Daniel Jones has to
leave the pocket and you get a you know, a
(08:56):
fire play where receivers are breaking off their routes and
running around and they play and keep good eyes on
Daniel Jones and force him to scramble and force a
field goal. That's a win early on. But that, like
everything after that, was not. You know, the Colts first
touchdown play, they hold melafon Wu on that seam route
with a nice little two man combination to split your
split field safety.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
But here's the part that gets me. You know, the
touchdown to Michael Pittman.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
They have Tyler Warren run that seem to hold the
split field safety, that is if he Mela Fawn will
and they don't run a flat route to hold Storm Duck.
If there's no flat route there, sink into that coverage
and go run with that vertical because there's nobody there
to threaten you.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
But we didn't.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
We take it, and we turn them wide open for
a walk in touchdown. Like that is a critical moment
on a big time play that cost you seven points
and it could have been a three point play in
that spot. The two are turnovers, I mean flat out
sales one right, And Jermond talked about this a lot
in the postgame show. Like football is a game of
like building momentum and you get these you know things
(09:56):
can snowball, and you can debate whether that's a true
thing or not. He played the game, so I tend
to refer to him. But if Tua throws that ball
on the target on a third and eight and it
doesn't get picked off, like it's a three to nothing game,
and we have a first in ten, maybe a first
in goal, maybe he scores because he was open out
of that break, and that's our damn bread and Butter's
throwing that ball out of the break on the endcut,
(10:17):
you know, over the linebacker, under the safety, but two
as sails it and then he doesn't protect the football
in the next drive, and like that was one of
those surprise pressures that Mike McDonel talked about post game
that got after Tua. But like, you got to put
the ball away, man, you know, like you can't have
the ball with one hand while you're getting sacked like that.
This just isn't gonna work out. The third and goal
(10:38):
at the one, they sneak it across with Daniel Jones
seventeen to nothing. Then we get a stop and at
seventeen to nothing at the end of the first half,
and you get a chance to possibly double dip with
your drive here at the end of the first half
as well, and you get your one of your three
penalties in the game. That allows the Colts to resume
the drive and they wind up not punting the football
or they score on all seven drives after that because
(11:00):
as we ran to the punter, so you know, now
you've had all three phases make negative impacts. Third and
ten before the end of the half. After the punt penalty,
they convert because Chop Robinson goes off side, but then
stops and takes himself out of the play, like go
unabated to the quarterback there and just shut the play
down for third and five and live to fight another day.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
But instead, not.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
Only is it a free play which gives the quarterback
all the confidence to do whatever he wants, you also
took out the top like the one on one pass
rusher on that play because they had him single blocked
and he wasn't a factor in the play, so he
can just go do whatever he wants on the right
side of the formation and throw the ball wherever he wants.
A fourth and one with two forty two left in
the half, we can use our last time out there
(11:39):
trying to get the ball back right and we go
zero coverage, you know, no safety, help man coverage, send
it all out, blitz and the and you want to
disguise that I get this, but it became like a
super simple pitch and catch for a first down because
if Imla fan wu is covering was a Josh downs
I think it was in the slot and they run
a speed out and he is ten yards off the
(11:59):
foot ball five yards inside leverage to where the receiver is.
He's never going to get there for that play. So
that's I mean, they won every single critical moment of
this game except for that first drive in the red zone.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
That was it.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
That was it, because there's not you know, scoring a touchdown.
Wh you're down by thirty, who cares, you know? You know,
I suppose you could say to a second pick when
he had Eskridge on the crosser and opted to bite
off a bigger chunk or try to and never saw
Layatu Latu in the hook zone there, that's points off
the board because if you take d s Gridge and
the crossing rute right right in front of him, excuse me,
(12:34):
it's a first down and we're in field goal range.
And then plus you know forty yard line going in.
It just yeah, it was a tough start. Let's go
ahead and take our first break right there. Come back
and talk about some of the themes that developed. We'll
talk about the hits and misses. We'll get to the
five takeaways as well. All of that coming up. Drift
Time Podcast brought to you by Autoation. There's a song
(12:55):
by my favorite band Coheat and Cambria, and they talk
about the world's Smallest violin, which I know is a
a common phrase when you talk about, like, you know, complaining.
But my apologies if this entire you know podcast isn't
me playing the world's smallest violin for Dolphins fans, who
I just feel like you've been punching the gut several
(13:15):
times enough times now and today felt like an even
bigger one, is it? Just if you have the sense
of like where do you go from here? That's like
the worst place to be as a football fan, right,
Like where do you go from here? Because here you
are in the fourth year of this thing, and you
started off in the fourth year with hopefully a much
better result than last year. In this you know, improve
culture and improve performance and improve playing for each other.
(13:38):
And you come out lay an egg like that. It
makes you wonder, and it makes you wonder when the
next time you will experience joy in this sport where
it feels like it's been too few and far between
for Dolphins fans for a long time. Let's talk about
some of the themes here. Actually, let's go into the
stats first. I always, I always do the stats. Didn't
do it in the first segment. Twenty seven first downs
to twelve, twenty seven A lot of first downs. I
(14:01):
think it's when you don't punt the football. They were
seven for fifteen on third down, three for three on
fourth downs, So the what, Matt not a math guy?
Eight times you got stops on third downs? They converted
three of those for first downs, So what happened to
the other ones? I'm just confusing myself. Five for ten
were we on third down? One for two on fourth
four hundred and eighteen to two hundred and eleven yards,
(14:23):
Like that's how I thought the game was going to
go in the opposite direction, So good call on that one.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Travis yadingis.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Seventy plays to forty six, three turnovers to none, three
sacks to one, only had three penalties for fifteen yards
to win. I guess four for forty five for the Colts.
They outpossessed you two to one, thirty eight minutes and
forty three seconds to twenty one minutes and seventeen seconds.
Speaker 1 (14:48):
What a what a brutal day? Man? How do they
do it well? Some of the themes.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
I thought they started off the game exactly how you
should and actually it was kind of how the It
was how the Chargers started off against the Chiefs of
the Night. Like we draft Omary and Hampton, We signed
Makai Beckton, we draft Joe Allt. We you know, give
Rashaan Slater a massive contract. We had Zion Johnson, a
former first round draftic. We signed Bradley or not Bradley Boseman,
who is our new center. I forget, it doesn't matter.
(15:14):
They go after all these you know, big parts up front,
and they have this power run game and then they
come out and play action the Chiefs to death and
just keep getting Herbert wide up from receivers and he
carves them up. The Colts are the exact same thing
to the Dolphins open the game with play action. Dolphins
mug up their linebackers, right, that's kind of how this
defense operates mug the linebackers up and the best way
to beat that is to play action off of that
and run little slides, little routes under the formation where
(15:36):
the receiver comes across. And one of the Colts calling
cars we talked about from their offensive scheme of the
Thursday podcast the preview show was their ability to get
split zone where you bring the tight end back across
the formation and you dig out that backside you know, edge,
and they were running off of that with play action
and throw on the slide route, and then the cornerbacks
are you know, have been ran off, and the linebackers
(15:57):
are already too sucked up into the formation and they
can't get over there, and all of a sudden, you've
got safe. He's coming from fifteen yards of depth making
the tackle. It's an easy pitch and catch for eight, nine,
twelve yards at a time. It's hard to get stops,
and you do that. And then after they get the
Dolphins kind of out of that look, they go back
to the run game and they find these checkdowns off
the run game, and the one on the second drive
(16:19):
to Jonathan Taylor was schemed up with him out to
the field all by himself and there was no cornerback
over there, and Jones goes through his progressions and he
has you know, if we cover it well, like it's
great because for them because no one covered Jonathan Taylor.
He just throws it out there. We overrun the tackle
and he goes for a big game there. So play action,
scheming it up early, get the run game going off
(16:42):
of that, get the check down game going, force the
Dolphins to tackle up it.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
Just it was.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
A clinic from the Colts offense and Shane Steichen and
the opposite of that for the Dolphins defense. And then offensively,
it sure seems like you kind of packed up everything
that we thought this team might pivot too with the
more aggressive nature. You know, I talked about Faroh Brown
and Nick Westbrook Akine one of those guys didn't make
the team, but I digress. You know, the two guards
you would add, which James Daniels peck injury. We'll see
(17:10):
what happened with him. Hopefully he's back soon. You know,
he was questionable coming in. He plays in the first
drive of the game, he goes down with a different injuries.
So tough tough spot there, But you make all these
changes jonas ivite you Andaya you know trade trade two drafts,
used two draft picks to go get him, and it's
like it looks just like it did last year, all right,
Like the the the two point conversion play you had
(17:32):
to call a time out on because the motion and
the shift like was too late and you couldn't get
it off in time. They go back and around the
same play again.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
It worked.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
It's great, but you know that, you know Tanner Connor
and in critical pass protection spots to von Han in
critical pass protection spots. You know, early wide runs that
get blown up for negative and then we try to
get back on schedule. Then it's third long and we
blow up protection. It's tough to watch.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
Man. The Colts on the other side puzzled us with
their scheme as well.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
I mean that that that Nit cross coverage to blitz
where he could where Alec Ingle motions across the formation
and Cross converts from a coverage role to a backside
blitz and two Wood just never saw him. It's a
schemed up win right there, right. They ought to lat
to peeling back into coverage two and not accounting for
that and throwing it right to him. He said he
(18:19):
did see him. He tried to throw a different pass
to get it around him, but through it right to him.
The stacks in bunches they had. We talked about that, right,
you have to rewrap these guys and get hands on
them and make sure they can't get to those those
looks easy and give easy declarations to Daniel Jones. Off
of those looks, they get to these double moves and
decoy routes to lift coverage exactly how they were intended
to do it. They eventually got to enough of the
(18:40):
run game to reinsert the play action game and hit
those big plays like the first play of the second half.
Rasul Douglas, who I thought played really good and relief
of Storm Duck in the first half, bite on a
run fake and a possible like slant little slugo move
and they go up over the top to Alec Pierce
for like thirty yards or whatever that was.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
And then it's just more of the same.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Right the penalty and third long game, the free play
took your one on one pass prushure out of the play.
They're running into penalty a defensive holding on second and
thirty man the Colts had the ball for twelve minutes
and thirty seconds in the first quarter after the game
was seventeen to nothing. Right, it was forty three plays
they had run to our forty three yards and they
(19:18):
outgained US two fifty five to forty three. It's more
than four times as much offense. And it was twenty
one minutes and forty seconds to eight minutes and twenty
seconds to possession. You absolutely ran over. You got steamrolled
in every way possible. Some of the individual hits in
this game, I thought Tyreek played pretty well. It was
cool to see some fire from him, but that's not
(19:39):
the result you wanted for Tyreek in his first game
back in terms of the team performance, because that's just
seems dubious at best. But I thought he ran good
routes and caught the football well. Got shaken up a
little bit there and had to come out of the
game for a second. I thought Aaron Brewer did some
nice things, had a really nice pin on the third
and one conversion that Ali Gordon had. That's all I
got for you offensively. Defensively, I thought Bradley Chubb and
(20:01):
Jaylen Phillips had a couple of nice rush wins, including
Beach Hubb's first sack back. That was cool to see.
JP had a couple of pass rush wins. I thought
Jordan Brooks and Tyrrell Dotson played pretty well in this
game for the chances they were given. Jermon Bush Rods
had that he thought the defensive tackle position in the
interior the defensive line didn't do enough to move the
Colts and got a lot of surge for them in
the running game that allowed them to kind of control
(20:23):
the game and dictate the tempo that way. Dante Trader
had a really nice play on that second goal that
you probably forgot about by now. I liked how Jack
Jones plays against screens all the time. He almost had
himself a pick on one of them today, broke up
different one as well. He's kind of consistently in that mold,
but I thought he played up and down, but more
good than bad. We'll take a look at the tape
for him tomorrow. And then Rasul Douglas made a couple
(20:43):
of plays as well. Almost had that pick that would
have been a nice bounce back there, but at that
point you're kind of, you know, disassociating from the game.
So I don't know as far as the misses offensively toua.
I mean beyond the turnovers we've already talked about here,
Like there was a deep out to Malik where there
was Malie. He can waddle, we're both in the same
part of the field. That throws got to get there
(21:03):
right like he was. He was late and it was
soft to the perimeter. That was a bad throw. The
one the Tyreek that we didn't didn't challenge that I
didn't think was a catch watching the review, I don't
know what Jason mccordy saw or Devin McCarty. I'm sorry,
I forget who it was. He was saying to throw
the challenge flag, but I didn't see it. So I
didn't think that was a bad decision to not challenge
it because I didn't think he caught it. But that
ball hung up there for a minute and didn't get
(21:24):
there on time.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
Man, just an avalanche of bad plays for two and
he was He was not thrilled about it after the
game either. He talked to the media and he was
a little bit shortened and a little bit snippy about
the idea of you know, turnovers coming in bunches, But
for him it did today through he had three and
in pretty quick successions. So I thought that was the
worst game I've seen two a play as a pro
(21:48):
fourteen for twenty three, one hundred and fourteen yards.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
A touchdown, two picks.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
That that just you're not going to win games the
way he played the game today. I thought Devon han
and pass Pro really struggled.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
Again.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Go ahead and take a look at the to a
fumble against Kenny Moore. Look at Devon h On on that play.
You just you're not gonna win with that. Like I
love everything Devon brings to the offense of running and
receiving threat, but man, that is.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
He was standing there watching it.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
By the end. Tanner O'Connor thought had a really really
rough game. Crabs Tech text me mid game abject disaster,
and I was like, yeah, it's hard to disagree with that.
I thought Keon struggled, and I thought Jonah struggled. I thought
Austin had ups and downs. I mean, I think it's
like a burn the tape all the way around, just
really really bad performance. I don't want to make any
(22:34):
bold clans about the offensive line because I have to
watch tape before I do that, but I know that
those things I felt pretty good about. I'll get you
a big report on those guys and Patrick Paul tomorrow
on the podcast. Defensively, Storm was out of position a lot,
I thought, And I don't know the coverage, I don't
know the calls, but it looked to me like he
was out of coverage, out of position a heck of
a lot. Pressure wasn't there. They were doublin Zach Sealer.
We couldn't get anything else anywhere else. The pressure from
(22:55):
like kg and and Jordan Phillips, I thought wasn't really there.
Jordan Phillips though, I would put him in the hits category.
He played really well done the stretch of this game
and really was was physical and kind of resetting guys
late when it was, you know, already too late for
the Dolphins. Jason Marshall, I thought struggled. Ram passed some tackles,
you know, first game for him. That was kind of obvious. Again,
pass rush just wasn't there, you know, Chop had the
(23:16):
bad penalty. Daniel Jones had a career high first half
passing total one ninety seven. Like there was a stat
they showed at the end of the game. I forget
who the quarterbacks well like Troy Aikman, Auto Graham, like
Hall of Fame quarterbacks of guys that had two hundred
and fifty and then two rushing touchdowns in a game.
So congrats, DJ, I guess on that thought. Benito Jones
really struggled just across the board. Struggle bus right. We'll
(23:37):
do it more on the tape tomorrow, but that's it
for now. Let's go ahead and take our last break,
come back and do five big picture takeaways.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Not good.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
That's next Drag Time podcast, brought to you by Auto Nation.
Five takeaways from the game today. We got punch in
the mouth early? How do we respawn?
Speaker 1 (23:56):
That was?
Speaker 2 (23:56):
I wrote that down like after the I think the
first quarter again the misdirection play action slides. They went
downhill in the second drive with success. We get the
sack to back them up second and twenty on the
edge of the red zone. The initial response was a
thirty or something yard touchdown on a coverage bust right
after that, and then you know Tua couldn't put the
ball away with Hn having bad pass pro we'd get
(24:17):
a stop and then a penalty on teams create a
fourth down allow a conversion. They just had answers, and
we never did. They won every critical moment incredibly lopsided game.
And look, the season's not going to be over or
not going to be salvage next week. But I am
incredibly interested to see what this team looks like next
week against the Patriots, because I think it's going to
tell you a lot about who they are and what
(24:38):
they're going to be this season. So this one, you know,
that's kind of the theme of the podcast day, like
stuck in this middle ground between week one is a liar,
and like that was more of the same of what
we were worried about in terms of how this team
looked at certain points last year and in the in
the downturns of the last four years. Right, But what
we get on Sunday against the Patriots, to me will
(24:59):
be off awfully telling Number two, you didn't win enough
early downs and it didn't package your ability to rush
the passer, which is that gonna be an issue all
year long? I don't think it will be. I still
think that's one of the strongest points of the football team.
But the quick game and play action passing felt like
it got us off on rhythm. I want to watch
the tape on that and kind of see how they
were able to kind of remove the things that we
(25:19):
do well. But the first several third downs of the game,
we were third and two, you had a third and
eight that you got to stop on for a field goal.
But then third and three, and then third and one,
third and one, third and one. You're not gonna win games.
You're not gonna win defensive downs and third and one
that often, and it just continued throughout the game. They
converted fourth and two after our fourth down failure in
the third quarter, but the pressure was just not there,
(25:42):
whether it was one on one matchup wins, scheming up
wins with sim pressures and different looks, exotics, it just
it just never never actually got to that point. So
curious to see if they can fix that next week.
And that goes into our third takeaway. This was the
ultimate like back to the drawing board type of game plan, Right,
who are are we?
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Who are we going to be? Right?
Speaker 2 (26:01):
The fourth down conversion at the end of the half,
you know, zero it up, you're covering the slot and
from a safety position from depth, and it's it's just
as easy as you like. We kept mugging up the linebackers.
They kept having answers for that with the early slides
and flats, the tight ends and expanded hooks o throws.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
Who are we going to be?
Speaker 2 (26:16):
You know, mcdalily talked about dropping guys and protection with
surprise pressures and that's not an expected thing. Like okay,
well let's get that corrected. Overrunning tackles, guys leaving the
huddle the wrong direction. That was the part that got
me because like that's supposed to be the benefit of continuity, right,
Like for the longest time, this offense was, Okay, we
(26:37):
do all the hard stuff really well. We do the
we create chunks. We can compete with anybody in the scoreboard.
We can light them up even that like Eagles game
from a couple of years ago, like we had the
explosive to Tyreek Hill, we had the big play on
defense for a you know, pick six. Like you found
ways to generate plays to stay in those games, and
then you lost them in the margins with the procedurals
and the special teams and the drop passes and the
(26:57):
third down conversions because you couldn't tackle a quarter back outside.
But now those things still exist as you try to
take care of them. But it feels like you've like
like reverted back to pre McDaniel offense where it wasn't
explosive and it wasn't fun to watch, and it was
everything was a slog and a grind out. If you
put that together with the procedurals, you can't function at all.
(27:18):
Like that's that's when you become completely inept. And that's
what we saw in this game today was the explosives
were gone, the quick rhythm passing game, the schemed up
stuff was gone, and we had the minor, you know,
miscues that just puts you in a buy and where
you score eight points in a freaking football game. Fourth
takeaway is that was a quarterback problem today, man, Like
you know, what are they gonna say about it, because like,
(27:40):
you missed an explosive on the first drive and it
becomes a turnover. Has as big of a swing as
you possibly can get. He tried to do something he's
not really equipped to do and couldn't secure the football
and doing that on the lost fumble and gives it
away back to the Colts offense as a crosser for
a first down to try to stay alive early in
the second half, which the game is still somewhat within
reach twenty to nothing, I guess, and throws it right
(28:01):
to the hook drop like it was to pick up
what five more yards and we end up putting the
ball in the colt's hands. That was I think he
would tell you it was his worst game of his career.
And I think it's pretty easy to say that even
the staunchest of supporters, you boy, you know, a little
bit worried because that was bad and there was some
things that looked like regressive in the game after that
single game, like is the book out and we don't
(28:22):
have a solution to the answers that were the tests
that's being thrown at us, the quiz it's being presented
to us. I mean, this didn't happen last year in
the Houston game. It did with there was some bad
vision and bad plays, but there was at least the
explosives and the nice touchdown throw to John huy Smith
and some plays here and there. But today like heavy footed,
bad decisions, bad accuracy, like everything was bad, laid on throws,
(28:44):
lack of zip. I mean, it looked like one of
those It looked like one of the games where you
don't have Tua and then people, you know, people like me,
say oh, once we get to a back, it's gonna
be okay, and then that's a game we'll win. But
today it wasn't. He's never fallen in that category before,
not even the Houston game last year. But here we
are and that was man, that was tough to watch.
And then my final takeaway, and this is to put
a cherry on top of a bow on all of it.
(29:06):
I guess week one can be weird, right, That's about
it for Silver Linings. We get weird results in the
first week every single season. But that's not going to
make you feel very good when all the concerns you
had coming into the game were on display. On top
of the things that you thought were solid, they were
not there to a week eight, Chan waddle, the pass rush.
Oh man, I don't want to watch quarterbacks already again
(29:28):
here on September seventh, But it feels like that's where
we are today. We'll see if it changes next week,
but today, brutal, brutal game. Let's go ahead, get out
of here, Subscribe, rate, review the show, follow me on social,
check out the YouTube channel Dolphins HQ Media availabilities all
that stuff under the sun Miami Dolphins dot com. Until
next time, Fin's up, Caroline Cameron and Willow Daddy. He's
coming home.
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