September 11, 2025 • 32 mins
The Dolphins are back at Hard Rock Stadium for the first time in 266 days. Standing in their way, division rival New England. Travis is breaking down the matchup from all angles. Scheme, personnel, matchups keys and much more.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is Drivetime with Travis Wingfield. What is up Dolphins
and Welcome to the Draft Time Podcast. I am your host,
Travis Wingfield. And on today's show, Week two kicks off
tonight at lambeau Field and that means it's a Dolphins
(00:22):
Patriots preview edition of the DT podcast. Matchup, schematics, keys, predictions,
what's at stake, and a whole heck of a lot
more from the Baptist Health Studios inside the Baptist Health
Training Complex. This is the Draft Time Podcast. I have
no idea this week, guys. I'll open with that, I
have no idea what I'm to expect come Sunday. I
(00:47):
feel like it's going to be one of two extremes,
one being the extreme you just saw. The other extreme
being the polished squad that I thought we were going
to see coming out of the gates in Week one. Personally,
I'm gonna to see two wins here. I think back
to back, maybe Patriots and Jets. I don't know. It
depends how it looks, I suppose, but it's gonna take
(01:09):
a lot to get your boy back to where I
was before Sunday. And it starts Sunday against the new
England Patriots. Just before we get into the intro here,
I gotta tell you, guys, and I'm there's a parallel
here to Week one in the NFL, and that's not
an excuse by any stretch, but Week one is a
tough podcast to do. In week two, you have an
(01:31):
actual game tape that makes the guests work so much less.
Not that this was a new revelation to me, because
we've been doing this for almost a decade now, going
back to the analysis podcast, but piecing together Colts concepts
from Bengals defense Daniel Jones is Giants tape with Colts
offense from last year it was a freaking short man,
and this one I feel a lot better about it,
just in terms of how I present the information to y'all.
(01:54):
And I also, you know, that was a new format
for me, So this one, I feel like I kind
of figured out exactly how it's supposed to look. So hopefully,
like me, the Dolphins have a better game plan here
for week number two. And I just I take a
lot of pride in being transparent about my process here
with the listener. So if you came off the Thursday
podcast thinking that wasn't Travis's best work. I agreed with that.
(02:15):
I actually felt bad about it when it published, So
I think this is better. Let's go ahead and get
into it, beginning with the Patriots intro here, and as
is tradition, of course, we don't spend a lot of
time on this portion of the show when it's a
divisional rival, right, and that'll be the case for the
next three weeks as well. With the Bills and Jets
on the docket. It's kind of an interesting schedule quirk
actually these three division games weeks two through four, then
(02:37):
we don't see these teams again until week ten, fourteen,
and eighteen. Now, this portion for the Patriots will be
longer than Buffalo because well, there's a lot of change
in New England. We know about the reign of Terror, right,
twenty years of dominance, which feels like we're kind of
entering or have entered that about a decade ago with
Josh Allen as well. But you know, twenty years of dominance,
(02:57):
ten years of advancing into the at least the A
title game, which is a record that I don't think
will ever be topped. That the Chiefs are heading for
that right now. But we'll see some success off the
Brady retirement in twenty twenty one, with a playoff berth
that year, with then fell on hard times, following up
that year with an eight win season, followed by consecutive
four win seasons. The first of those four win seasons
(03:18):
afforded them a chance to spend the third pick in
the draft on quarterback Drake May, which the Bears would
have taken Jayden Daniels and the Commanders had taken Drake
May and the Patriots had taken Kayleb Williams. But I digress.
Mike Vrabel is the new man in charge. You knew
that by now. Josh McDaniels back for his third stand
as OC. Terrell Williams is the DC, but Vrabel announced
this week that he will be away from the team
(03:39):
for a couple of days with a medical issue. So
we'll see what hopefully coaches. Okay, he's got Mike Smith,
Ben McAdoo, Doug Morone, Thomas Brown, Todd Downing on a
staff as names you've probably heard before. There's three X
head coaches in there. It's year two of Elliott Wolfe,
who I think a lot of folks that agreed this
year's draft was a lot better than last year's which
has pretty much only produced Drake May A lot of
(04:00):
players that got cut and are injured. Reminded me a
bit of twenty twenty for this Patriots team when they
just went ham and free agency and everybody was like,
that's not a very Patriots move. And this Hall was
more impressive than that one was to me. With Milton Williams,
Harold Landry, Robert Splane, Carlton Davis, Marcus Epps. That's a
total facelift to a defense that had sort of regressed
(04:20):
the last couple of seasons. On offense, they adds to
Von Diggs and Matt Collins and Morgan Moses and Garrett Bradberry.
Then they have a draft class that was pretty much
unanimously praised with Will Campbell, Traveon Henderson, Kyle Williams. I
thought all three of those guys would start Week one,
but Kyle Williams kind of got buried here and got
some good value on guys like Craig Woodson and Josh Farmer.
(04:42):
Craig Woodson is a starting safety for the Patriots. Their
depth chart, they're the way it lines up. Let's actually
just go ahead and talk about some of the matchups here.
I have the depth chart spelled out here, but I
want to just talk about the matchups that kind of
intrigue me off of this. So Harold Landry as the
top rusher. He had three sacks in the game on
Sunday and he was back to you know, pre injury
(05:05):
form with speed from wide alignments and array of two
way go moves. But Patrick, Paul, you guys see that
chart top right, Tua has become Paul Wall and you know,
sitting sideways boys in the day. But the way he
can jump set that was something he got really good
at this offseason that I saw on the tape on Sunday.
That was really impressive. The old tested specialty go get
(05:26):
the pass rusher, don't give them run, shorten that runway
and try to score some stealemates early in the rep.
That's one of the fun matchups of this game for
me to watch, and I imagine he'll get a lot
of one on one chances in that position, as we
are likely to see Larry Borum and Keon Smith off
the right side. McDaniel did say they're preparing to start
Larry Borum at right tackle. They will not rule Austin
Jackson out. He did not practice on Wednesday, and that
(05:48):
it should It could be Keon Smith at right guard,
but they're gonna evaluate all options there. I imagine you
slide your protection that way most of the time to
create one on ones for Patrick Paul and trust your
big left tackle to win those matchups against Harold Andry
their best against our best. First things first, though, I
think in this entire matchup is Christian Gonzalez. What is
the status of him? He did not practice last week,
(06:09):
He did not play last week, He missed pretty much
all of camp. He did not practice on Wednesday. Can
he go? If he does? Is a hamstring injury in
September in Miami where cramps are very prevalent. Against Tyrek
and Wattle, is that a matchup you want to run
him into? Do you risk having him go out for
a longer period of time. If he does, his athletic
(06:31):
ability stands out. But his movements are rare, like it's
poetry in motion, the way he moves. That's why he's
a good matchup against us from their perspective. Last year
we just avoided him altogether. He saw three targets, one
against each. Tyrek and Wattle Obj for one two for
fourteen on those targets. The one in completion was too
you guessed at Obj. But we went after Kyle Dugger
(06:53):
for seventy four yards, Marcus Jones for sixty eight yards,
and July to Vie for fifty one yards, and Tua
got his in that game. He picked that team apart
that year. So I'm curious to see how much different
that might look this year. Speaking of that Tyreek Hill
and Jalen Waddle against Alex Austin, this is in no
way a shot at Alex Austin. In fact, I don't
know much about his game outside of watching one tape
(07:15):
where I thought he played pretty well. And Greg Rosenthal
of NFL Media and an admitted lifelong Patriots fans, said that
Patriots found something in Alex Austin at cornerback. Great camp
off to an excellent start Sunday in place of Christian
Gonzalez end quote. And it's that last part of that
tweet that makes my point here. That's a guy you've
got to challenge, right because when Gonzalez is in there,
(07:35):
you don't want to throw the ball towards Christian Gonzalez
if you can avoid it, but Tyreek and Waddle on
a sixth round rookie in his second career game, first
game on the road, against two receivers that make you
declare decisions like that. It's the old Channing Crowder. You
might think you're bad, but when you're in a defense
with Zach Thomas Junior, sew Sam Madison and Patrick Surtain,
(07:56):
where do you think the balls going Crowder? It's you.
So I just think you've got to try Alex Austin
and if he performs, then you adjust and tip your
cap to the kid. I wouldn't even say Malik. I
would say Malik and really anybody, because I imagine the
Patriots want to find a way to get their experienced
cornerbacks on ten to seventeen and maybe find a way
to get Alex Austin on the leak Washington, Nick Westbrookakine.
(08:17):
But you can dictate matchups that way too, So I
would go after that player very, very aggressively. I wouldn't
continue this thought to the safety position test the communication
of Jalen Hawkins and Craig Woodson because Jalen Hawkins has
been with a few teams in his career. Craig Woodson
is a rookie. They haven't been proven themselves. What I'm
(08:38):
trying to say there were some deep ball shots from
the offense and the Colts game that we couldn't get to.
If we can get to those, the Patriots busted coverage
in their first drive of the game for a long touchdown.
You gotta find a way to hit one of these
and then just put them into binds with their coverage,
put them in positions to make tackles from depth. With
our running game, I think you can attack these two
Patriots safeties. This is a team that you can pick off.
(08:59):
I thought the exact same thing of the Colts. Miami
just has to be way more on their stuff on
Sunday than they were last Sunday. Milton Williams and Christian Barmore.
That's a good test for our interior offensive line, especially
at the right guard position, where if you go back
and look at pass rush win rates and effectiveness from
the defensive tackles to Forest Buckner and Grover Stewart, both
guys that talked about in the preview last week, they
(09:19):
were on there. But guess where it came against Bueller,
right guard Aaron Brewer and Jonas. Savit Andaya were fine.
Brewer was really good. I thought Savit Naya fine, but
Keon Smith really struggled. You're gonna have to find a
way to take care of these two guys at that position,
which is why I think you're gonna help off that
side a whole heck of a lot more. And you're
gonna have to get somebody else in there to help
pass pro from the backfield and the tight end position
(09:40):
because Devon a Chian is not up for it. We
saw him get bulldozed by the Forest Buckner and make
poor decisions in that way. Same deal for Tanner Connor.
They're gonna have to find a different plan. I would
hope it's a Greg Dulcich. Actually, I would hope it's
a practice squad elevation for Hayden Rucci is my hope.
That's what I hope to see. We'll see what the
Dolphins go with on Sunday. But Milton was a men
in the Raider game. He's got that squatty body with
(10:02):
tons of power and explosiveness, So I think you need
to find a way to take advantage of his aggressiveness
because he can win across the face he can back
door plays, but if you backdoor a play, you also
create opportunity for the offense. He wants to try to
one gap and get upfield and disrupt things in the
backfield before you can get your hands on him off
the football. And with some of our looks we can
offer with the full back run action, you know, lead
(10:25):
action from him, split action from him, some of the
tight end wrap stuff. Perhaps you can find a way
to wham that, to trap that take him out of
the game by using his own aggression against him and
quite frankly, the strengths of his game, you know, take
it away from him by letting him do that and
pull him into a trap. That way over to the
other side of the football and some of the matchups
there in some areas of vulnerability, I think you can attack.
(10:48):
It's the same as what we talked about on the
Dolphins right side of the offensive line the Patriots left
side of the offensive line. I think the lack of
traits at either tackle position is something you can attack.
But also the greenness of the left guard and Jared Wilson,
who was a center at Georgia and now is playing
left guard for the second time in his career, Will
or his life, I should say Will Campbell. The length
(11:08):
is an issue, and I think we saw that on Sunday,
and enough so that I would have ranked armand Membu,
I would have ranked Josh Simmons, who else I liked
Arianti Yesiri. There was a lot of players I liked
more than Will Campbell, and they took him fourth overall,
and that length is a big part of that. Now,
he's a very smart player. He's got really good grip strength,
he's a good people mover, he's good in space. But
(11:29):
I think if you can throw length at him, if
you can throw power at him and have good agility
across his face in two directions, then you can exploit
that lack of length, because at a certain point you
have to have the traits to hold up against guys
that can do that. And hopefully I think Bradley Chubb
can be that guy. And if you have different pass
rush moves, you can beat him in a variety of
ways inside or outside post. And I mean, you're not
(11:52):
going to slide protection his way the entire game, I
don't think, so I think there should be some one
on one matchups. He really struggled against that inside post,
which invites something this Dolphins defense can do very well.
I think they can get after that with Bradley Chubb
with stunts and games on the inside. Chubb has a
good power and length combination, and I would include Zach
Sealler on that with the ability to run those games
and put some onus on Jared Wilson and Will Campbell
(12:14):
on the inside post that b gap off their left
side of their offensive line to take advantage of those
shortcomings and test him and his first road game is
going to be loud, right, it was not loud for
him on Sunday, It'll be loud here. Sixty thousand Dolphins
fans can get pretty loud here. But I would also
make sure I'm hitting Morgan Moses, a heavy footed right
tackle with some speed and some more speed. He actually
(12:34):
did a good job against Max Crosby, but Chop Robinson
is got to get off. That's akin to Max Crosby.
So can Willy Gay. But we'll see if Willy gets
in these snaps this week. I think he also want
to do some of the combo stuff that you do
on Campbell over here as well. That's kind of where
you have to win win around the edge, condense May's pocket,
force him up before out. They pull your hair up,
but not out. The bones are their dollars, and then
(12:56):
trust Zach Seeler and Kenneth Grant to hold the point
and shed to get him to the turf. If you
got that reference, it's I think you should leave, just FYI.
They really struggled getting the Raiders backers blocked at the
second level, whether it was combinations or catching and coming
downhill at them, and that's Brooks's ultimate superpower. What I'm
getting at here is I think both these offenses might
(13:16):
struggle on Sunday with their wide receivers. I wonder if
this is the game we see a little bit more
rerouting at the line of scrimmage. And one of my
biggest points of contention with the lack of variety and
changing things up this week, that we didn't we thought
we were going to see all off season long, that you
heard this podcast talk about for nine freaking months, and
then come back out with the exact same plans and
look that you saw all in twenty twenty four. To
(13:37):
frustrate you, like reroute them, get in their face, challenge them,
move them off the spot. The Raiders did that and
it caused a bunch of Drake made wild and accurate throws.
We've talked about this offseason. We played mostly off against
the Colts. I think you know we'll get to the
quarterback here in a second, but Taylor talked about Drake
May and his mechanic deficient, mechanical deficiencyason causing off target throws.
(14:01):
You can dictate that by disrupting the timing of the
receivers and by getting a good rush on him that
confuses him the way Cam Biden I'm talked about, Tua
had no idea what rushers were coming from and where
they were coming from. And that gives me a little
bit of confidence in the ability to adjust to a
brand new defense in the week one aspect of it all.
Maybe tape will do you some good there. I'm not
holding my breath, but I think there's some hope with that.
(14:23):
The same thing applies here to Drake May. Get him confused.
Change it up. We've come after this guy, and you
can dictate that by disrupting the timing at the receiver
position and by their offensive line. Speaking of receivers, Kaisehan
Boody has become their number one receiver, he's primarily an
ex He's not He's a smart player, dogged worker, good
route runner, solid hands, but he's not electric. I think
that's a good matchup for Jack Jones, who can kind
(14:44):
of match those things with his tenacity. Stefan Diggs, you know,
he's their best route runner still, I think still got
some juice in the tank there. But I would try
to frustrate him early with multiple looks and brackets and
just make sure the ball does not get to him.
Maybe if they try to force feed target, you can
break those up and make him frustrated because he can
be that way in his career. And then I would
call on a bunch of Rasul Douglas because Rasoul has familiarity,
(15:06):
he's got the physicality, he's got kind of the the
pelts to deal with a receiver like Stefan Diggs. Then
Hunter Henry, I think is a matchup problem for most people.
I would probably think more about Minka Fitzpatrick here. I'm
really curious to see what the safety rotation looks like
because if e Mela Fan would not have a a
good game. Dante Trader I thought, did have a pretty
good game on Sunday rewatching that tape, you know, comparatively
(15:28):
to the rest of the squad. And then Minka's out
there as well. Ashton Davis got some snaps. They played
a lot of safeties in this game, and I think
that you could see some more Dante Trader. But Minca
for Hunter Henry makes the most sense to me. And
with ramondre Stevenson, you just have to bring. You have
to bring your shoulder pad, you have to bring your cleat,
you have to bring it all to the tackles. And
then Treveon Henderson is you know, the shotgun zone. Reid
(15:50):
was like his bread and butter. That doesn't really fit
the Patriots run style. So I'm curious to see how
long it takes for him to get that that down.
Where in the preseason it was more of vanilla for him,
but screen as well. Just make sure you've got eyes
on Travon Henderson. He can change the game in a flash.
Let's go ahead and take our no hang on, I
got an area of vulnerability with the weapons. I skipped
over that part again. I think Diggs is a good fit.
(16:11):
I thought Kyle Williams would be the receiver one, but
he's like stashed right now, I just think you can't
let this group give you issues. All the niceties aside.
This is a one of the worst group of eligibles
in the league. It still is. There are a work
in progress. It's not as bad as it was the
last couple of years, but they had a long way
to go and they still have a long way to go.
So I think that's an area. If you're gonna win
this game for Miami, you cannot let the eligibles outperform you.
(16:33):
No matter what you think of the cornerbacks in Miami,
the eligibles in New England cannot outperform you. If you're
gonna win this game on Sunday, let's take a break
right there, come back and talk about the scheme calling cards.
We'll do the what's at stake, the key to victory,
and predict this game all that. Next Draft Time Podcast
brought to you by Auto Nation. No, we're back. Scheme
(16:53):
calling cards, Dolphins offense versus Patriots defense Man coverage. Gonzales
is the straw that stirs that drink. But will he
play in the game. It's not looking likely at this point.
They dial up man coverage, and that has been the
case for years. Last year in single coverage, he allowed
a fifty eight point three passer rating that was six
amnth cornerbacks of one hundred and fifty snaps. They had
(17:15):
the third highest man cover rate last year, second highest
in Cover one. And it makes me think, because Tua
talked about this on Wednesday at his press conference, that
the mic Rabel system that has gotten the best of
the Dolphins in the past has been the tricky twos.
That's a you know, different versions of Cover two, right two,
man straight up zone, with Cover two inverted two, Tampa two,
(17:35):
shrimp stew, shrimp gravy. You can do a lot of
things with different twos. But I feel like I wrote
this down now I'm kind of disagreeing with myself. I
thought they wouldn't be in those man coverage rates against US,
and can you only do the man coverage stuff if
Gonzo is up because they signed Carlton Davis, who I
don't think is the player he used to be. But
(17:57):
watching more tape and looking at the Week one stats
without Christian Gonzalez, I'm pretty sure they're gonna run a
lot of Cover one and Cover three, which is a
single high safety on Cover one with man coverage underneath
Cover three is your safety plays in the post and
two corners or two players get into their depth positions
and you have zone umbrellas underneath that. I think, try
to find a way to mix that with two man
(18:19):
and confuse two of that way and some six and
some quarters. There was some quarters in the game, as
you heard Taylor talk about, but it was a lot
of Cover one and a lot of Cover three. In fact,
two thirty eight plus thirty one. Boo boo, sixty nine. Nice. Nice,
that's how much they ran Cover one and Cover three
on Sunday. More on this in the vulnerability section. Now,
(18:42):
I went back and looked at that twenty three Titans game,
and the big takeaway was the variety of coverages they
threw at us. Just a bunch of different stuff. But again,
Patriots thirty eight percent Cover one week one, second most
of football, and it tells me that with or without Gonzalez,
I think they're gonna do that, I think, but with
some variety as well. They specialize up front in their
(19:02):
diversity compared to last year. And first, the pass rush
was the bob in the league. Last year they were thirtieth,
and pass rush ring rate dropped backs with four man rushes.
They were thirty second in overall pressure rate and they
were tenth and sacks on four man rushes. So their
best of Billy deck Gay for the quarterback was those
four man looks playing coverage, which if you can get
to off the spot, you can get him to the ground.
(19:24):
With Milton Williams, with Christian Barmore, with Harold Landry, but
now Milton plays a lot of two to two I
three that's basically all the alignments over the guard. Barmore
plays a lot like Seeler in terms of playing anywhere
and everywhere. You can use both these guys on the nose.
I think it's not quite their biggest strong suits, but
you can play them in odd fronts as a nose
tackle and end combination, or even even front with a
(19:46):
one shade and a three technique combo matchup hunting. That's
kind of the name of their game. I am curious
how they'll attack us and can Barmore get more? Because
can he bar more to the table? He that's terrible.
He didn't play very well in Week one, but he
also was coming off of a year that he missed
most of the year because of blood clot so I like,
you know, I don't know. Maybe he does get conditioning
(20:08):
under him this week. My guess is you try to
get from a Patriots perspective as much power on brew
and that's Milton Williams and get the most skilled player
in Barmore on the rookie in Jonas ivit Naya, but
now without James Daniels. Probably do that off the right
side with Keon Smith or whoever that might be. If
it's my money, if I'm making the decision, that would
be Daniel Brunskill. As far as the data from Rabel's pass,
(20:30):
primarily a four down defense four to two five, which
is a transition from the typical three three five with
some of the bear and tight fronts the Patriots used
to run under Gerrod Mayo and Bill Belichick. Be Belichick
and their moves up front kind of tell you they
can be flexible across both of those to the point
of front diversity. One gap, shoot across your face, win
with penetration, a departure from previous two gap systems where
(20:53):
they would play that two gap. They would not play aggresive,
they would not reset the line of scrimmage, and they
would play two high safeties and you could run the
foot down their throats all day long. And the Dolphins
did that and a bunch of wins against this Patriots
team in the past. But that creates a typical creeper
slash rat in the hole, which used to be Kyle
Duggar coming from depth on the back end, and then
typically you peel somebody out of your pass brush plan
back into coverage. And that's how they got to in
(21:15):
the Colts game with Leat tou Latu creeper down defensive
end back dropping the hook zone, doesn't identify him, throws
it right to him. Now, one gapping can be great
when it's effective, but it also can lead to springing
leaks and explosives in the running game. We talked about
that with the Jets aggressive attack for years here when
Robert Sawa was in town against Mike McDaniel. Well, I
guess it's only like what three years, so you might
(21:35):
absorb a tackle for loss or two, but I would
trade that for a sixty yard touchdown run. Logan Ryan
said this notorious Dolphins hater, right, and he has some
not so nice comments about two at one point, I
don't know, it doesn't matter. But he said this about
the Rabel Titans defense when he was back there. Quote,
we did a lot of complicated secondary pressures, blitzes and
stuff to make it hard on the quarterback. Because we
(21:56):
have a really smart veteran secondary. We found a way
to similar pressure. We found a way to be multiple
and complicated. End. Quote. Now, if Christian Gonzalez is not
out there, it's a rookie in Austin, alex If. Well,
we know that Kyle Doug's not starting, we know ja
Bill Peppers has gone, we know it's Craig Woodson a rookie,
and Jalen Hawkins kind of a career practice squad guy.
(22:17):
I don't think they can get to all that stuff,
and that makes sense why they would run as much
Cover one and Cover three as they possibly can, because
they don't have the time on task. That's the phrase
I'm looking for to make that happen. Am I talking
myself into the Dolphins offense being competent on Sunday? I
feel like I am. They also love to do this
thing or they did in Tennessee where they would take
(22:39):
away a defender from the X receiver and insert them
into the run game because they could they can kind
of calculate when to a might not get to that
part of the progression, and maybe maybe you man up
the raiders because they're more a tight end or tight
end heavy than receivers. But I just don't think it's
going to be the case. I think that's I think
they're going to go. See. I've talked myself into this
cover one and Cover three with a lot of you know,
(23:01):
zone and man mixed with some four man pressures trying
to beat our offensive lines straight up. And I think
if you can protect two of that way, he can
carve him up, because I don't think they have the
corners to stay with Reak and Waddle no matter what
you think about those guys so far, you know, off
the last seventeen or so games. But we shall see.
They also want to overload the pressure in terms of
how they stack up three to one side versus one
or two to the backside and rob the back end.
(23:22):
This happened a bunch in the Titans game in twenty three.
Three down to one side, one to the other, no
extra rushers forced to to move his feet, and that
kind of comes into that one read and panic stuff
we heard from Xavier and Howard and then throw into
a seven man coverage window. That's what we have to prevent,
whether it's sliding protection or just finding a way to
win if Quite frankly, I don't think they have the
(23:43):
same guns up front the Titans did last year. Maybe
it's pretty close, but we cannot have two on the
move because the minute he moves off the top of
his drop, it's just not his best football. Rabel said
that they want to be timely with their blitzers. You
can't live in a blitz world. He said. They will
get after you, but it'll be about picking spots. And
I think it's gonna be paramount for TUA to recognize
(24:04):
when those tendencies show up and have answers for how
to beat them. You must must have more time at
the lad scrimmage this week. Let's go ahead and continue
on now. Let's take o last break right there, come
back and do the areas of vulnerability for the Patriots
offense and the scheme calling cards, the on's at stake,
and the prediction for this game. All of that next
Drivetime podcast brought to you by AutoNation. Let's get vulnerable
(24:30):
for a second. Areas of vulnerability. That is, for the Patriots,
the depth of their menu if they want to expand
it like the twenty twenty three Titans did. We're years
into the scheme and we were in our second year.
Now the shoe is on the other foot. They'll have
one game and we'll have three years in one game
of experience. Although I'm starting to back off of my
(24:51):
coverage of continuity because what does it mean. Apparently not much,
so the likelihood of a bust for them, to me
is greater. I don't think their edge rush is at
all good enough to get after the quarterback without having
to commit extra bodies. Now, I wrote that before I
knew that we were gonna have two new offensive line
stars in the game. But we'll see. But we have
to win when they rush for It's one of the
(25:12):
keys here. The safety play a lot of a lot
of youth back there. I still don't understand the Kyle
Duggert situation, even after Taylor described it to me yesterday.
More scheme calling cards Dolphins defense versus Patriots offense. They
want to power and pin and pull you. They want
to work double teams, create seams and try to get
the back to space That way. They were twelve on
power concepts last year, but everything else was not good
(25:33):
twenty second and yards per carrying man blocking twenty sixth
and outside zone twenty seventh on the inside zone. They
have to repair that, and as you heard from Taylor
Kyle's they didn't repair that in week one, and that
to me says you can hopefully, hopefully create some third
lungs in this game and let weaves pass rush menu
open up from there. Josh McDaniel's one of the originators
of those Dynasty power run game teams and in the
(25:55):
passing game, side adjustments, man and zone beat. There's lots
of trust me in the quarterback and the power catchers.
And again we heard Taylor talk yesterday about some of
the things that gave Jared Wilson and Will Campbell to
rookies off the left side some problems. That's what this
defense does well, get to multiple looks, overload stunts, test
their communication. All of that will be key. Let's see
the personnel groupings. They ran eleven personnel seventy percent of
(26:18):
the time on Sunday and twenty personnel or rather twelve
personnel twenty percent of the time. That's ninety percent of
it all and then the rest was sprinkled across various
packages and they had ten screens behind the line of scrimmage.
We'll tell you why that's important here in just one second.
The quarterbacks in the game, Drake may my book on him,
big strong, difficult to bring down with plenty of juice
in the arm and the legs from various platforms. For
(26:40):
him to take the next step, he needs to just
see more football. I think he doesn't see things that
fast right now. I think mechanically there can be moments
where if you move him and you heat them up,
he can kind of put the ball in harm's way
by not having the best accuracy because of bad mechanics.
And these guys with the big arms man they trust them
and they should, but you get that kind of confidence
without seeing a lot of NFL action and bad mechanics,
(27:00):
you can get some throws that wind up in places
of peril. Hopefully Miami can capitalize and turn that to
no rebattle back in our favor and get three of
our own against them and go in this football game.
So with Drake, I think changing the picture from pre
snap along with a good rush plan to move him
that's got to be your focus in week two again.
Accuracy issues. Take care of that our quarterback. This is
(27:21):
I think the most concerned I've been about our quarterback
when he's healthy since he got here. We talked about
May's accuracy too, was way off in Game one. I
thought there were some options he did not see and
passed up that could have been nice plays. I think
there was too much of an emphasis on feed and
Tyreek the ball because Watta was open a lot in
this game. And I just it's got a change, man.
(27:43):
It's got to change from what it was last year.
It's gotta change when it was on Sunday, and hopefully
we get some chances without Christian Gonzalez being out there.
But I also thought he was gonna car up the Colts.
And I told you guys this summer about some of
the regression in the middle of the camp, and I
was duped into believing that was a product of strain, right.
But if it shows up on this with the emphasis
of mastery of the same stuff, then we're in trouble.
(28:04):
I'm hitting the panic button a little bit already, but
I'm telling you, if it goes that way again on Sunday,
I am onto college quarterback tape. That's where I'm gonna
be at. And I know Kyle Krabs read this out
in his show, but I'm gonna do it for you
here too. Here's the biggest thing. Half of the Dolphin's
snaps on Sunday came with less than five seconds on
the play clock. It's one of the things we talked
about changing and simplifying the entire operation to get your
(28:25):
quarterback less stress before the snap, to give him more
time to identify things and to know what the hell's
gonna happen post snap, because he didn't know it on
Sunday because half the damn snaps got ran up against
the clock. Since the beginning of twenty twenty three, they
have the third highest passer rating on dropbacks when the
ball is snapped with more than five seconds left on
the play clock, but they have the fifth most dropbacks
(28:47):
with less than five seconds in the play clock, and
the passer rating dips twenty points lower when they snapped
the ball under five seconds compared to the third highest
passer rating when it's over five seconds. The proof is
in the pudding, right there, guys. Special teams and miscellaneousness.
Aside from the penalty, I thought they were fine on teams.
Bailey had a good punt. The return game was good.
Patriots have a very conservative approach. They punted the football
(29:08):
back to the Raiders with five minutes to go on
just their own side of the field, down by ten
with a twenty one yard punt. So hopefully we can
find a way to win this margin and take advantage
of their lack of aggression and some maybe bad special teams.
But we'll develop this area more as we go along,
because right now I don't have a lot to tell
you on this stuff. As far as the other stuff
our home opener, I think both teams are going to
(29:30):
do this as a backs against the wall type of situation.
The winner comes out of this game feeling probably okay
with the pressure, feeling that the loser fill in the
pressure of zero to two. To me, this is a
culture tester, and that's what the Dolphins need. And can
I can see how that would scare the hell out
of you if you're a Dolphins fan that still has
some faith here based on what we displayed versus a
(29:50):
Mike Rabel led team, right, but that team the team,
it's more desperate and wants it more. To me, will
win this game? What's at stake? It just gets really
ugly if you lose this one, right and you got
a game on the road in Buffalo, this is kind
of the season to me. I don't have a lot
of faith of resurrecting it. But if you're going to,
you have to win this one. The keys to victory
number one, unleash the zoo, the cheetah, and the penguin.
(30:12):
I feel like I say this every day and week
for the last year. But the Patriots played the second
highest rate of man free coverage and they also played
thirty six percent cover three, which is different than number
I had earlier. So it's what is it, sixty seventy
four percent. So it'll be imperative to decipher at the
snap which one you get of those two. And if
there's a single high safety on any given play, that
(30:32):
means you're gonna get a one on one shot to
one side of the field vertically. And nothing changes long
a game like a long touchdown, especially in a game
that could become a rock fight. And I think this
one will. Number two, bring your feet as a tackler
football one on one they have any electric runner and
Trevon Henderson. They have a freight train in Ramandre Stevenson.
But it goes further than that. New England dialed up
ten passes at or behind the last scrimmage in Week
(30:53):
one the screen game, Yeah, better tackle. That's going to
be fifteen runs and ten screens as twenty five plays
where there's saying you're not going to tackle us in
the first attempt. Do it and change them their game
plan Number three disrupt the timing of the Patriots passing game.
The Raiders were able to force off target throws in
the Week one game in New England. Stunts and twists
upfront to force May off of a spot, while hands
on wide receivers helped throw off the New England passing
(31:15):
game to a six point two yards per attempt, four
sack and one turnover performance. Miami has the pieces upfront
to execute a similar game plan. My prediction, I honestly
have no idea. The optimist in me who died on
Sunday says they can win a tight one because I
think the Patriots can struggle to score here too, But
I thought the same of the Colts. I just don't
(31:38):
think the Patriots are that good. I thought their off
season hype was way overblown. But I also think we
don't have the team we thought we did in terms
of just the team of it all. So I'll call
an ugly low scoring game, and I'll give the winner
to the team that performs better in a tight situation.
I'll go Patriots twenty Dolphin seventeen. We'll come back tomorrow
and we'll have some locker room audio, some assistant coach
(32:00):
which audio. Kyle Crabs joins the podcast. Until then, you
all please be sure to subscribe, rate, review the show,
follow me on social at Minkle NFL, the team at
Miami Dolphins, check out the YouTube channel for Dolphins HQ,
media availabilities, and so much more, and last, butt not least,
Miami Dolphins dot com. Until next time, Finz up, Caroline,
Cameron and Willow Daddy. He's coming home.
This is Drivetime with Travis Wingfield. What is up Dolphins
and Welcome to the Draft Time Podcast. I am your host,
Travis Wingfield. And on today's show, Week two kicks off
tonight at lambeau Field and that means it's a Dolphins
(00:22):
Patriots preview edition of the DT podcast. Matchup, schematics, keys, predictions,
what's at stake, and a whole heck of a lot
more from the Baptist Health Studios inside the Baptist Health
Training Complex. This is the Draft Time Podcast. I have
no idea this week, guys. I'll open with that, I
have no idea what I'm to expect come Sunday. I
(00:47):
feel like it's going to be one of two extremes,
one being the extreme you just saw. The other extreme
being the polished squad that I thought we were going
to see coming out of the gates in Week one. Personally,
I'm gonna to see two wins here. I think back
to back, maybe Patriots and Jets. I don't know. It
depends how it looks, I suppose, but it's gonna take
(01:09):
a lot to get your boy back to where I
was before Sunday. And it starts Sunday against the new
England Patriots. Just before we get into the intro here,
I gotta tell you, guys, and I'm there's a parallel
here to Week one in the NFL, and that's not
an excuse by any stretch, but Week one is a
tough podcast to do. In week two, you have an
(01:31):
actual game tape that makes the guests work so much less.
Not that this was a new revelation to me, because
we've been doing this for almost a decade now, going
back to the analysis podcast, but piecing together Colts concepts
from Bengals defense Daniel Jones is Giants tape with Colts
offense from last year it was a freaking short man,
and this one I feel a lot better about it,
just in terms of how I present the information to y'all.
(01:54):
And I also, you know, that was a new format
for me, So this one, I feel like I kind
of figured out exactly how it's supposed to look. So hopefully,
like me, the Dolphins have a better game plan here
for week number two. And I just I take a
lot of pride in being transparent about my process here
with the listener. So if you came off the Thursday
podcast thinking that wasn't Travis's best work. I agreed with that.
(02:15):
I actually felt bad about it when it published, So
I think this is better. Let's go ahead and get
into it, beginning with the Patriots intro here, and as
is tradition, of course, we don't spend a lot of
time on this portion of the show when it's a
divisional rival, right, and that'll be the case for the
next three weeks as well. With the Bills and Jets
on the docket. It's kind of an interesting schedule quirk
actually these three division games weeks two through four, then
(02:37):
we don't see these teams again until week ten, fourteen,
and eighteen. Now, this portion for the Patriots will be
longer than Buffalo because well, there's a lot of change
in New England. We know about the reign of Terror, right,
twenty years of dominance, which feels like we're kind of
entering or have entered that about a decade ago with
Josh Allen as well. But you know, twenty years of dominance,
(02:57):
ten years of advancing into the at least the A
title game, which is a record that I don't think
will ever be topped. That the Chiefs are heading for
that right now. But we'll see some success off the
Brady retirement in twenty twenty one, with a playoff berth
that year, with then fell on hard times, following up
that year with an eight win season, followed by consecutive
four win seasons. The first of those four win seasons
(03:18):
afforded them a chance to spend the third pick in
the draft on quarterback Drake May, which the Bears would
have taken Jayden Daniels and the Commanders had taken Drake
May and the Patriots had taken Kayleb Williams. But I digress.
Mike Vrabel is the new man in charge. You knew
that by now. Josh McDaniels back for his third stand
as OC. Terrell Williams is the DC, but Vrabel announced
this week that he will be away from the team
(03:39):
for a couple of days with a medical issue. So
we'll see what hopefully coaches. Okay, he's got Mike Smith,
Ben McAdoo, Doug Morone, Thomas Brown, Todd Downing on a
staff as names you've probably heard before. There's three X
head coaches in there. It's year two of Elliott Wolfe,
who I think a lot of folks that agreed this
year's draft was a lot better than last year's which
has pretty much only produced Drake May A lot of
(04:00):
players that got cut and are injured. Reminded me a
bit of twenty twenty for this Patriots team when they
just went ham and free agency and everybody was like,
that's not a very Patriots move. And this Hall was
more impressive than that one was to me. With Milton Williams,
Harold Landry, Robert Splane, Carlton Davis, Marcus Epps. That's a
total facelift to a defense that had sort of regressed
(04:20):
the last couple of seasons. On offense, they adds to
Von Diggs and Matt Collins and Morgan Moses and Garrett Bradberry.
Then they have a draft class that was pretty much
unanimously praised with Will Campbell, Traveon Henderson, Kyle Williams. I
thought all three of those guys would start Week one,
but Kyle Williams kind of got buried here and got
some good value on guys like Craig Woodson and Josh Farmer.
(04:42):
Craig Woodson is a starting safety for the Patriots. Their
depth chart, they're the way it lines up. Let's actually
just go ahead and talk about some of the matchups here.
I have the depth chart spelled out here, but I
want to just talk about the matchups that kind of
intrigue me off of this. So Harold Landry as the
top rusher. He had three sacks in the game on
Sunday and he was back to you know, pre injury
(05:05):
form with speed from wide alignments and array of two
way go moves. But Patrick, Paul, you guys see that
chart top right, Tua has become Paul Wall and you know,
sitting sideways boys in the day. But the way he
can jump set that was something he got really good
at this offseason that I saw on the tape on Sunday.
That was really impressive. The old tested specialty go get
(05:26):
the pass rusher, don't give them run, shorten that runway
and try to score some stealemates early in the rep.
That's one of the fun matchups of this game for
me to watch, and I imagine he'll get a lot
of one on one chances in that position, as we
are likely to see Larry Borum and Keon Smith off
the right side. McDaniel did say they're preparing to start
Larry Borum at right tackle. They will not rule Austin
Jackson out. He did not practice on Wednesday, and that
(05:48):
it should It could be Keon Smith at right guard,
but they're gonna evaluate all options there. I imagine you
slide your protection that way most of the time to
create one on ones for Patrick Paul and trust your
big left tackle to win those matchups against Harold Andry
their best against our best. First things first, though, I
think in this entire matchup is Christian Gonzalez. What is
the status of him? He did not practice last week,
(06:09):
He did not play last week, He missed pretty much
all of camp. He did not practice on Wednesday. Can
he go? If he does? Is a hamstring injury in
September in Miami where cramps are very prevalent. Against Tyrek
and Wattle, is that a matchup you want to run
him into? Do you risk having him go out for
a longer period of time. If he does, his athletic
(06:31):
ability stands out. But his movements are rare, like it's
poetry in motion, the way he moves. That's why he's
a good matchup against us from their perspective. Last year
we just avoided him altogether. He saw three targets, one
against each. Tyrek and Wattle Obj for one two for
fourteen on those targets. The one in completion was too
you guessed at Obj. But we went after Kyle Dugger
(06:53):
for seventy four yards, Marcus Jones for sixty eight yards,
and July to Vie for fifty one yards, and Tua
got his in that game. He picked that team apart
that year. So I'm curious to see how much different
that might look this year. Speaking of that Tyreek Hill
and Jalen Waddle against Alex Austin, this is in no
way a shot at Alex Austin. In fact, I don't
know much about his game outside of watching one tape
(07:15):
where I thought he played pretty well. And Greg Rosenthal
of NFL Media and an admitted lifelong Patriots fans, said that
Patriots found something in Alex Austin at cornerback. Great camp
off to an excellent start Sunday in place of Christian
Gonzalez end quote. And it's that last part of that
tweet that makes my point here. That's a guy you've
got to challenge, right because when Gonzalez is in there,
(07:35):
you don't want to throw the ball towards Christian Gonzalez
if you can avoid it, but Tyreek and Waddle on
a sixth round rookie in his second career game, first
game on the road, against two receivers that make you
declare decisions like that. It's the old Channing Crowder. You
might think you're bad, but when you're in a defense
with Zach Thomas Junior, sew Sam Madison and Patrick Surtain,
(07:56):
where do you think the balls going Crowder? It's you.
So I just think you've got to try Alex Austin
and if he performs, then you adjust and tip your
cap to the kid. I wouldn't even say Malik. I
would say Malik and really anybody, because I imagine the
Patriots want to find a way to get their experienced
cornerbacks on ten to seventeen and maybe find a way
to get Alex Austin on the leak Washington, Nick Westbrookakine.
(08:17):
But you can dictate matchups that way too, So I
would go after that player very, very aggressively. I wouldn't
continue this thought to the safety position test the communication
of Jalen Hawkins and Craig Woodson because Jalen Hawkins has
been with a few teams in his career. Craig Woodson
is a rookie. They haven't been proven themselves. What I'm
(08:38):
trying to say there were some deep ball shots from
the offense and the Colts game that we couldn't get to.
If we can get to those, the Patriots busted coverage
in their first drive of the game for a long touchdown.
You gotta find a way to hit one of these
and then just put them into binds with their coverage,
put them in positions to make tackles from depth. With
our running game, I think you can attack these two
Patriots safeties. This is a team that you can pick off.
(08:59):
I thought the exact same thing of the Colts. Miami
just has to be way more on their stuff on
Sunday than they were last Sunday. Milton Williams and Christian Barmore.
That's a good test for our interior offensive line, especially
at the right guard position, where if you go back
and look at pass rush win rates and effectiveness from
the defensive tackles to Forest Buckner and Grover Stewart, both
guys that talked about in the preview last week, they
(09:19):
were on there. But guess where it came against Bueller,
right guard Aaron Brewer and Jonas. Savit Andaya were fine.
Brewer was really good. I thought Savit Naya fine, but
Keon Smith really struggled. You're gonna have to find a
way to take care of these two guys at that position,
which is why I think you're gonna help off that
side a whole heck of a lot more. And you're
gonna have to get somebody else in there to help
pass pro from the backfield and the tight end position
(09:40):
because Devon a Chian is not up for it. We
saw him get bulldozed by the Forest Buckner and make
poor decisions in that way. Same deal for Tanner Connor.
They're gonna have to find a different plan. I would
hope it's a Greg Dulcich. Actually, I would hope it's
a practice squad elevation for Hayden Rucci is my hope.
That's what I hope to see. We'll see what the
Dolphins go with on Sunday. But Milton was a men
in the Raider game. He's got that squatty body with
(10:02):
tons of power and explosiveness, So I think you need
to find a way to take advantage of his aggressiveness
because he can win across the face he can back
door plays, but if you backdoor a play, you also
create opportunity for the offense. He wants to try to
one gap and get upfield and disrupt things in the
backfield before you can get your hands on him off
the football. And with some of our looks we can
offer with the full back run action, you know, lead
(10:25):
action from him, split action from him, some of the
tight end wrap stuff. Perhaps you can find a way
to wham that, to trap that take him out of
the game by using his own aggression against him and
quite frankly, the strengths of his game, you know, take
it away from him by letting him do that and
pull him into a trap. That way over to the
other side of the football and some of the matchups
there in some areas of vulnerability, I think you can attack.
(10:48):
It's the same as what we talked about on the
Dolphins right side of the offensive line the Patriots left
side of the offensive line. I think the lack of
traits at either tackle position is something you can attack.
But also the greenness of the left guard and Jared Wilson,
who was a center at Georgia and now is playing
left guard for the second time in his career, Will
or his life, I should say Will Campbell. The length
(11:08):
is an issue, and I think we saw that on Sunday,
and enough so that I would have ranked armand Membu,
I would have ranked Josh Simmons, who else I liked
Arianti Yesiri. There was a lot of players I liked
more than Will Campbell, and they took him fourth overall,
and that length is a big part of that. Now,
he's a very smart player. He's got really good grip strength,
he's a good people mover, he's good in space. But
(11:29):
I think if you can throw length at him, if
you can throw power at him and have good agility
across his face in two directions, then you can exploit
that lack of length, because at a certain point you
have to have the traits to hold up against guys
that can do that. And hopefully I think Bradley Chubb
can be that guy. And if you have different pass
rush moves, you can beat him in a variety of
ways inside or outside post. And I mean, you're not
(11:52):
going to slide protection his way the entire game, I
don't think, so I think there should be some one
on one matchups. He really struggled against that inside post,
which invites something this Dolphins defense can do very well.
I think they can get after that with Bradley Chubb
with stunts and games on the inside. Chubb has a
good power and length combination, and I would include Zach
Sealler on that with the ability to run those games
and put some onus on Jared Wilson and Will Campbell
(12:14):
on the inside post that b gap off their left
side of their offensive line to take advantage of those
shortcomings and test him and his first road game is
going to be loud, right, it was not loud for
him on Sunday, It'll be loud here. Sixty thousand Dolphins
fans can get pretty loud here. But I would also
make sure I'm hitting Morgan Moses, a heavy footed right
tackle with some speed and some more speed. He actually
(12:34):
did a good job against Max Crosby, but Chop Robinson
is got to get off. That's akin to Max Crosby.
So can Willy Gay. But we'll see if Willy gets
in these snaps this week. I think he also want
to do some of the combo stuff that you do
on Campbell over here as well. That's kind of where
you have to win win around the edge, condense May's pocket,
force him up before out. They pull your hair up,
but not out. The bones are their dollars, and then
(12:56):
trust Zach Seeler and Kenneth Grant to hold the point
and shed to get him to the turf. If you
got that reference, it's I think you should leave, just FYI.
They really struggled getting the Raiders backers blocked at the
second level, whether it was combinations or catching and coming
downhill at them, and that's Brooks's ultimate superpower. What I'm
getting at here is I think both these offenses might
(13:16):
struggle on Sunday with their wide receivers. I wonder if
this is the game we see a little bit more
rerouting at the line of scrimmage. And one of my
biggest points of contention with the lack of variety and
changing things up this week, that we didn't we thought
we were going to see all off season long, that you
heard this podcast talk about for nine freaking months, and
then come back out with the exact same plans and
look that you saw all in twenty twenty four. To
(13:37):
frustrate you, like reroute them, get in their face, challenge them,
move them off the spot. The Raiders did that and
it caused a bunch of Drake made wild and accurate throws.
We've talked about this offseason. We played mostly off against
the Colts. I think you know we'll get to the
quarterback here in a second, but Taylor talked about Drake
May and his mechanic deficient, mechanical deficiencyason causing off target throws.
(14:01):
You can dictate that by disrupting the timing of the
receivers and by getting a good rush on him that
confuses him the way Cam Biden I'm talked about, Tua
had no idea what rushers were coming from and where
they were coming from. And that gives me a little
bit of confidence in the ability to adjust to a
brand new defense in the week one aspect of it all.
Maybe tape will do you some good there. I'm not
holding my breath, but I think there's some hope with that.
(14:23):
The same thing applies here to Drake May. Get him confused.
Change it up. We've come after this guy, and you
can dictate that by disrupting the timing at the receiver
position and by their offensive line. Speaking of receivers, Kaisehan
Boody has become their number one receiver, he's primarily an
ex He's not He's a smart player, dogged worker, good
route runner, solid hands, but he's not electric. I think
that's a good matchup for Jack Jones, who can kind
(14:44):
of match those things with his tenacity. Stefan Diggs, you know,
he's their best route runner still, I think still got
some juice in the tank there. But I would try
to frustrate him early with multiple looks and brackets and
just make sure the ball does not get to him.
Maybe if they try to force feed target, you can
break those up and make him frustrated because he can
be that way in his career. And then I would
call on a bunch of Rasul Douglas because Rasoul has familiarity,
(15:06):
he's got the physicality, he's got kind of the the
pelts to deal with a receiver like Stefan Diggs. Then
Hunter Henry, I think is a matchup problem for most people.
I would probably think more about Minka Fitzpatrick here. I'm
really curious to see what the safety rotation looks like
because if e Mela Fan would not have a a
good game. Dante Trader I thought, did have a pretty
good game on Sunday rewatching that tape, you know, comparatively
(15:28):
to the rest of the squad. And then Minka's out
there as well. Ashton Davis got some snaps. They played
a lot of safeties in this game, and I think
that you could see some more Dante Trader. But Minca
for Hunter Henry makes the most sense to me. And
with ramondre Stevenson, you just have to bring. You have
to bring your shoulder pad, you have to bring your cleat,
you have to bring it all to the tackles. And
then Treveon Henderson is you know, the shotgun zone. Reid
(15:50):
was like his bread and butter. That doesn't really fit
the Patriots run style. So I'm curious to see how
long it takes for him to get that that down.
Where in the preseason it was more of vanilla for him,
but screen as well. Just make sure you've got eyes
on Travon Henderson. He can change the game in a flash.
Let's go ahead and take our no hang on, I
got an area of vulnerability with the weapons. I skipped
over that part again. I think Diggs is a good fit.
(16:11):
I thought Kyle Williams would be the receiver one, but
he's like stashed right now, I just think you can't
let this group give you issues. All the niceties aside.
This is a one of the worst group of eligibles
in the league. It still is. There are a work
in progress. It's not as bad as it was the
last couple of years, but they had a long way
to go and they still have a long way to go.
So I think that's an area. If you're gonna win
this game for Miami, you cannot let the eligibles outperform you.
(16:33):
No matter what you think of the cornerbacks in Miami,
the eligibles in New England cannot outperform you. If you're
gonna win this game on Sunday, let's take a break
right there, come back and talk about the scheme calling cards.
We'll do the what's at stake, the key to victory,
and predict this game all that. Next Draft Time Podcast
brought to you by Auto Nation. No, we're back. Scheme
(16:53):
calling cards, Dolphins offense versus Patriots defense Man coverage. Gonzales
is the straw that stirs that drink. But will he
play in the game. It's not looking likely at this point.
They dial up man coverage, and that has been the
case for years. Last year in single coverage, he allowed
a fifty eight point three passer rating that was six
amnth cornerbacks of one hundred and fifty snaps. They had
(17:15):
the third highest man cover rate last year, second highest
in Cover one. And it makes me think, because Tua
talked about this on Wednesday at his press conference, that
the mic Rabel system that has gotten the best of
the Dolphins in the past has been the tricky twos.
That's a you know, different versions of Cover two, right two,
man straight up zone, with Cover two inverted two, Tampa two,
(17:35):
shrimp stew, shrimp gravy. You can do a lot of
things with different twos. But I feel like I wrote
this down now I'm kind of disagreeing with myself. I
thought they wouldn't be in those man coverage rates against US,
and can you only do the man coverage stuff if
Gonzo is up because they signed Carlton Davis, who I
don't think is the player he used to be. But
(17:57):
watching more tape and looking at the Week one stats
without Christian Gonzalez, I'm pretty sure they're gonna run a
lot of Cover one and Cover three, which is a
single high safety on Cover one with man coverage underneath
Cover three is your safety plays in the post and
two corners or two players get into their depth positions
and you have zone umbrellas underneath that. I think, try
to find a way to mix that with two man
(18:19):
and confuse two of that way and some six and
some quarters. There was some quarters in the game, as
you heard Taylor talk about, but it was a lot
of Cover one and a lot of Cover three. In fact,
two thirty eight plus thirty one. Boo boo, sixty nine. Nice. Nice,
that's how much they ran Cover one and Cover three
on Sunday. More on this in the vulnerability section. Now,
(18:42):
I went back and looked at that twenty three Titans game,
and the big takeaway was the variety of coverages they
threw at us. Just a bunch of different stuff. But again,
Patriots thirty eight percent Cover one week one, second most
of football, and it tells me that with or without Gonzalez,
I think they're gonna do that, I think, but with
some variety as well. They specialize up front in their
(19:02):
diversity compared to last year. And first, the pass rush
was the bob in the league. Last year they were thirtieth,
and pass rush ring rate dropped backs with four man rushes.
They were thirty second in overall pressure rate and they
were tenth and sacks on four man rushes. So their
best of Billy deck Gay for the quarterback was those
four man looks playing coverage, which if you can get
to off the spot, you can get him to the ground.
(19:24):
With Milton Williams, with Christian Barmore, with Harold Landry, but
now Milton plays a lot of two to two I
three that's basically all the alignments over the guard. Barmore
plays a lot like Seeler in terms of playing anywhere
and everywhere. You can use both these guys on the nose.
I think it's not quite their biggest strong suits, but
you can play them in odd fronts as a nose
tackle and end combination, or even even front with a
(19:46):
one shade and a three technique combo matchup hunting. That's
kind of the name of their game. I am curious
how they'll attack us and can Barmore get more? Because
can he bar more to the table? He that's terrible.
He didn't play very well in Week one, but he
also was coming off of a year that he missed
most of the year because of blood clot so I like,
you know, I don't know. Maybe he does get conditioning
(20:08):
under him this week. My guess is you try to
get from a Patriots perspective as much power on brew
and that's Milton Williams and get the most skilled player
in Barmore on the rookie in Jonas ivit Naya, but
now without James Daniels. Probably do that off the right
side with Keon Smith or whoever that might be. If
it's my money, if I'm making the decision, that would
be Daniel Brunskill. As far as the data from Rabel's pass,
(20:30):
primarily a four down defense four to two five, which
is a transition from the typical three three five with
some of the bear and tight fronts the Patriots used
to run under Gerrod Mayo and Bill Belichick. Be Belichick
and their moves up front kind of tell you they
can be flexible across both of those to the point
of front diversity. One gap, shoot across your face, win
with penetration, a departure from previous two gap systems where
(20:53):
they would play that two gap. They would not play aggresive,
they would not reset the line of scrimmage, and they
would play two high safeties and you could run the
foot down their throats all day long. And the Dolphins
did that and a bunch of wins against this Patriots
team in the past. But that creates a typical creeper
slash rat in the hole, which used to be Kyle
Duggar coming from depth on the back end, and then
typically you peel somebody out of your pass brush plan
back into coverage. And that's how they got to in
(21:15):
the Colts game with Leat tou Latu creeper down defensive
end back dropping the hook zone, doesn't identify him, throws
it right to him. Now, one gapping can be great
when it's effective, but it also can lead to springing
leaks and explosives in the running game. We talked about
that with the Jets aggressive attack for years here when
Robert Sawa was in town against Mike McDaniel. Well, I
guess it's only like what three years, so you might
(21:35):
absorb a tackle for loss or two, but I would
trade that for a sixty yard touchdown run. Logan Ryan
said this notorious Dolphins hater, right, and he has some
not so nice comments about two at one point, I
don't know, it doesn't matter. But he said this about
the Rabel Titans defense when he was back there. Quote,
we did a lot of complicated secondary pressures, blitzes and
stuff to make it hard on the quarterback. Because we
(21:56):
have a really smart veteran secondary. We found a way
to similar pressure. We found a way to be multiple
and complicated. End. Quote. Now, if Christian Gonzalez is not
out there, it's a rookie in Austin, alex If. Well,
we know that Kyle Doug's not starting, we know ja
Bill Peppers has gone, we know it's Craig Woodson a rookie,
and Jalen Hawkins kind of a career practice squad guy.
(22:17):
I don't think they can get to all that stuff,
and that makes sense why they would run as much
Cover one and Cover three as they possibly can, because
they don't have the time on task. That's the phrase
I'm looking for to make that happen. Am I talking
myself into the Dolphins offense being competent on Sunday? I
feel like I am. They also love to do this
thing or they did in Tennessee where they would take
(22:39):
away a defender from the X receiver and insert them
into the run game because they could they can kind
of calculate when to a might not get to that
part of the progression, and maybe maybe you man up
the raiders because they're more a tight end or tight
end heavy than receivers. But I just don't think it's
going to be the case. I think that's I think
they're going to go. See. I've talked myself into this
cover one and Cover three with a lot of you know,
(23:01):
zone and man mixed with some four man pressures trying
to beat our offensive lines straight up. And I think
if you can protect two of that way, he can
carve him up, because I don't think they have the
corners to stay with Reak and Waddle no matter what
you think about those guys so far, you know, off
the last seventeen or so games. But we shall see.
They also want to overload the pressure in terms of
how they stack up three to one side versus one
or two to the backside and rob the back end.
(23:22):
This happened a bunch in the Titans game in twenty three.
Three down to one side, one to the other, no
extra rushers forced to to move his feet, and that
kind of comes into that one read and panic stuff
we heard from Xavier and Howard and then throw into
a seven man coverage window. That's what we have to prevent,
whether it's sliding protection or just finding a way to
win if Quite frankly, I don't think they have the
(23:43):
same guns up front the Titans did last year. Maybe
it's pretty close, but we cannot have two on the
move because the minute he moves off the top of
his drop, it's just not his best football. Rabel said
that they want to be timely with their blitzers. You
can't live in a blitz world. He said. They will
get after you, but it'll be about picking spots. And
I think it's gonna be paramount for TUA to recognize
(24:04):
when those tendencies show up and have answers for how
to beat them. You must must have more time at
the lad scrimmage this week. Let's go ahead and continue
on now. Let's take o last break right there, come
back and do the areas of vulnerability for the Patriots
offense and the scheme calling cards, the on's at stake,
and the prediction for this game. All of that next
Drivetime podcast brought to you by AutoNation. Let's get vulnerable
(24:30):
for a second. Areas of vulnerability. That is, for the Patriots,
the depth of their menu if they want to expand
it like the twenty twenty three Titans did. We're years
into the scheme and we were in our second year.
Now the shoe is on the other foot. They'll have
one game and we'll have three years in one game
of experience. Although I'm starting to back off of my
(24:51):
coverage of continuity because what does it mean. Apparently not much,
so the likelihood of a bust for them, to me
is greater. I don't think their edge rush is at
all good enough to get after the quarterback without having
to commit extra bodies. Now, I wrote that before I
knew that we were gonna have two new offensive line
stars in the game. But we'll see. But we have
to win when they rush for It's one of the
(25:12):
keys here. The safety play a lot of a lot
of youth back there. I still don't understand the Kyle
Duggert situation, even after Taylor described it to me yesterday.
More scheme calling cards Dolphins defense versus Patriots offense. They
want to power and pin and pull you. They want
to work double teams, create seams and try to get
the back to space That way. They were twelve on
power concepts last year, but everything else was not good
(25:33):
twenty second and yards per carrying man blocking twenty sixth
and outside zone twenty seventh on the inside zone. They
have to repair that, and as you heard from Taylor
Kyle's they didn't repair that in week one, and that
to me says you can hopefully, hopefully create some third
lungs in this game and let weaves pass rush menu
open up from there. Josh McDaniel's one of the originators
of those Dynasty power run game teams and in the
(25:55):
passing game, side adjustments, man and zone beat. There's lots
of trust me in the quarterback and the power catchers.
And again we heard Taylor talk yesterday about some of
the things that gave Jared Wilson and Will Campbell to
rookies off the left side some problems. That's what this
defense does well, get to multiple looks, overload stunts, test
their communication. All of that will be key. Let's see
the personnel groupings. They ran eleven personnel seventy percent of
(26:18):
the time on Sunday and twenty personnel or rather twelve
personnel twenty percent of the time. That's ninety percent of
it all and then the rest was sprinkled across various
packages and they had ten screens behind the line of scrimmage.
We'll tell you why that's important here in just one second.
The quarterbacks in the game, Drake may my book on him,
big strong, difficult to bring down with plenty of juice
in the arm and the legs from various platforms. For
(26:40):
him to take the next step, he needs to just
see more football. I think he doesn't see things that
fast right now. I think mechanically there can be moments
where if you move him and you heat them up,
he can kind of put the ball in harm's way
by not having the best accuracy because of bad mechanics.
And these guys with the big arms man they trust them
and they should, but you get that kind of confidence
without seeing a lot of NFL action and bad mechanics,
(27:00):
you can get some throws that wind up in places
of peril. Hopefully Miami can capitalize and turn that to
no rebattle back in our favor and get three of
our own against them and go in this football game.
So with Drake, I think changing the picture from pre
snap along with a good rush plan to move him
that's got to be your focus in week two again.
Accuracy issues. Take care of that our quarterback. This is
(27:21):
I think the most concerned I've been about our quarterback
when he's healthy since he got here. We talked about
May's accuracy too, was way off in Game one. I
thought there were some options he did not see and
passed up that could have been nice plays. I think
there was too much of an emphasis on feed and
Tyreek the ball because Watta was open a lot in
this game. And I just it's got a change, man.
(27:43):
It's got to change from what it was last year.
It's gotta change when it was on Sunday, and hopefully
we get some chances without Christian Gonzalez being out there.
But I also thought he was gonna car up the Colts.
And I told you guys this summer about some of
the regression in the middle of the camp, and I
was duped into believing that was a product of strain, right.
But if it shows up on this with the emphasis
of mastery of the same stuff, then we're in trouble.
(28:04):
I'm hitting the panic button a little bit already, but
I'm telling you, if it goes that way again on Sunday,
I am onto college quarterback tape. That's where I'm gonna
be at. And I know Kyle Krabs read this out
in his show, but I'm gonna do it for you
here too. Here's the biggest thing. Half of the Dolphin's
snaps on Sunday came with less than five seconds on
the play clock. It's one of the things we talked
about changing and simplifying the entire operation to get your
(28:25):
quarterback less stress before the snap, to give him more
time to identify things and to know what the hell's
gonna happen post snap, because he didn't know it on
Sunday because half the damn snaps got ran up against
the clock. Since the beginning of twenty twenty three, they
have the third highest passer rating on dropbacks when the
ball is snapped with more than five seconds left on
the play clock, but they have the fifth most dropbacks
(28:47):
with less than five seconds in the play clock, and
the passer rating dips twenty points lower when they snapped
the ball under five seconds compared to the third highest
passer rating when it's over five seconds. The proof is
in the pudding, right there, guys. Special teams and miscellaneousness.
Aside from the penalty, I thought they were fine on teams.
Bailey had a good punt. The return game was good.
Patriots have a very conservative approach. They punted the football
(29:08):
back to the Raiders with five minutes to go on
just their own side of the field, down by ten
with a twenty one yard punt. So hopefully we can
find a way to win this margin and take advantage
of their lack of aggression and some maybe bad special teams.
But we'll develop this area more as we go along,
because right now I don't have a lot to tell
you on this stuff. As far as the other stuff
our home opener, I think both teams are going to
(29:30):
do this as a backs against the wall type of situation.
The winner comes out of this game feeling probably okay
with the pressure, feeling that the loser fill in the
pressure of zero to two. To me, this is a
culture tester, and that's what the Dolphins need. And can
I can see how that would scare the hell out
of you if you're a Dolphins fan that still has
some faith here based on what we displayed versus a
(29:50):
Mike Rabel led team, right, but that team the team,
it's more desperate and wants it more. To me, will
win this game? What's at stake? It just gets really
ugly if you lose this one, right and you got
a game on the road in Buffalo, this is kind
of the season to me. I don't have a lot
of faith of resurrecting it. But if you're going to,
you have to win this one. The keys to victory
number one, unleash the zoo, the cheetah, and the penguin.
(30:12):
I feel like I say this every day and week
for the last year. But the Patriots played the second
highest rate of man free coverage and they also played
thirty six percent cover three, which is different than number
I had earlier. So it's what is it, sixty seventy
four percent. So it'll be imperative to decipher at the
snap which one you get of those two. And if
there's a single high safety on any given play, that
(30:32):
means you're gonna get a one on one shot to
one side of the field vertically. And nothing changes long
a game like a long touchdown, especially in a game
that could become a rock fight. And I think this
one will. Number two, bring your feet as a tackler
football one on one they have any electric runner and
Trevon Henderson. They have a freight train in Ramandre Stevenson.
But it goes further than that. New England dialed up
ten passes at or behind the last scrimmage in Week
(30:53):
one the screen game, Yeah, better tackle. That's going to
be fifteen runs and ten screens as twenty five plays
where there's saying you're not going to tackle us in
the first attempt. Do it and change them their game
plan Number three disrupt the timing of the Patriots passing game.
The Raiders were able to force off target throws in
the Week one game in New England. Stunts and twists
upfront to force May off of a spot, while hands
on wide receivers helped throw off the New England passing
(31:15):
game to a six point two yards per attempt, four
sack and one turnover performance. Miami has the pieces upfront
to execute a similar game plan. My prediction, I honestly
have no idea. The optimist in me who died on
Sunday says they can win a tight one because I
think the Patriots can struggle to score here too, But
I thought the same of the Colts. I just don't
(31:38):
think the Patriots are that good. I thought their off
season hype was way overblown. But I also think we
don't have the team we thought we did in terms
of just the team of it all. So I'll call
an ugly low scoring game, and I'll give the winner
to the team that performs better in a tight situation.
I'll go Patriots twenty Dolphin seventeen. We'll come back tomorrow
and we'll have some locker room audio, some assistant coach
(32:00):
which audio. Kyle Crabs joins the podcast. Until then, you
all please be sure to subscribe, rate, review the show,
follow me on social at Minkle NFL, the team at
Miami Dolphins, check out the YouTube channel for Dolphins HQ,
media availabilities, and so much more, and last, butt not least,
Miami Dolphins dot com. Until next time, Finz up, Caroline,
Cameron and Willow Daddy. He's coming home.
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. Clay Travis and Buck Sexton tackle the biggest stories in news, politics and current events with intelligence and humor. From the border crisis, to the madness of cancel culture and far-left missteps, Clay and Buck guide listeners through the latest headlines and hot topics with fun and entertaining conversations and opinions.