August 5, 2025 • 31 mins
The Dolphins were back on the field Tuesday for a long practice full of team periods. Travis has all the notes including a breakdown on how Miami’s cohesiveness on the backend forced a tough day for the Dolphins red zone offense. We’ll break down the big plays, top performers and hear from De’Von Achane, Jaelan Phillips and Patrick McMorris.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is Drivetime with Travis Wingfield.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
What is up Dolphins and welcome to the Draft Time Podcast.
I am your host, Travis Wingfield, and on today's show,
a heavy practice notes podcast, as we're taking a look
at a very busy day out on that grass here
at Dolphins Day eleven of training camp. We'll hear from
Jalen Phillips to von Ah Chan and Patrick mc morris
and talk about another bullet point being added to the
(00:34):
connectivity of the back seven of the defense with a
successful red zone period on Tuesday from the Baptist Health
Studios inside the Baptist Health Training Complex. This is the
Drive Time Podcast. One more practice before we ship out
to Chicago, and I cannot wait to get out there.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
I should check the weather. I bet it's not as
hot as it is here.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
That's tomorrow and then Thursday, I'm going to have a
bonus episode covering the distant coaches media, Zach Steeler's contract extension,
players to watch in Chicago, and I've got two big
picture takeaways from training camp I'm kind of working through
right now to put together on that podcast. As the
Thursday practice in Chicago is supposed to be a bit
more limited in terms of actual team reps. So I
(01:18):
probably won't have a practice update podcast for you Thursday,
but if there is anything of note, I will add
it to the Friday podcast, which will cover joint practices
with the Bears on that Friday.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Sound good.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
I do have a couple of broad topics to get
to today, but there were so many reps and I
have so many individual notes that I thought I would
flip the show and do that first seth Levitt the
Fish Tank Coast, you got your wish man, We're gonna
do practice notes first here today. And this was what
the most I've seen them dial up deep shots and
taking long throws down the field I think really since
(01:53):
probably twenty twenty three and to a connected on a
pair of fifty yards scoring strikes. I think one was
forty eight yards, but you know gold a green jacket.
One was to Tyreek Hill and one was to Malik Washington.
The Reek one, he was wide open coming across the field,
Like think about what was the one the Packers game
a couple of years ago when two ultimately was was
knocked out for the rest of the season, but he
(02:14):
had a deep shot to Tyreek Hill down to the
one yard line. It was kind of like that where
he's coming like from sideline to sideline after getting vertical.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
That was what the first one looked like.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
The second one was like Tyreek's touchdown against the Bills
in twenty twenty two. I feel like you better know
the Dolphins if listening to this podcast when he had
Trey White one on one coverage to the backside and
he just basically ran a vertical and stacked him and too,
it'll put the ball right on the money. That was
the deep shot to Malik Washington for a touchdown. Just
a perfect ball because Kendall Sheffield was he was in
(02:46):
good shape. Now he got stacked, but he was there.
He was in phase and just barely on the back.
I guess that's not in phase if you're stacked, but
he was like one step away from being in phase.
But hey, you give this quarterback a window like that,
he's usually gonna find it. And the ball was perfect,
right and stride and he's gone off to the races
for a fifty yard touchdown.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
And that was in a two minute period.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
And it came one play after two a ripped and
absolute piss missile to Jalen Waddle for fifteen yards and
again Kendall Sheffield was there in coverage on the back hit,
and I would say this time he was in phase,
but the ball was right on the upfield shoulder.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
And you just can't defend that.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
I felt like that was the body language we saw
from Sheffield after the play, was like, what the hell
am I supposed to do to that? Like, you know,
they say there's no defense for a perfect pass. It's
like when you see a picture, you know, dot up
the outside corner at the bottom of the zone with
one hundred mile prior heat, Like you tip the cap
and say, hopefully you make a mistake on my next bat.
The two misses were to Tyreek Hill. He went two
(03:40):
for four on these deep shots, and the two that
he missed were open plays to Tyreek Hill, who was
on a heater getting downfield today. One ball was long,
one was short. The underthrow I saw some of the
reporters typing away quickly. They love to talk about the
under throws of to a tongue of my low, and
this one was that Now I Reek was open, but
(04:01):
the it kind of was slow developing in the backfield,
and I think Reek's route was a little bit out
of rhythm, and this happens all the time across the
National Football League. Tua gets more crap for it because
he doesn't have the same arm as some of the
bigger arm quarterbacks in the league. But we've seen Tua's
like deep ball kind of max out between fifty five
sixty in terms of accurate downfield throws right that he
can step into and rip. That's kind of where Tyreek
(04:22):
was when this ball came down, and he was the
way Tyreek was running, he was going to be like
at seventy yards. So it's tough to hit a guy
that depth, and Tua just that's just a limitation of
his game. He's not gonna be go all, throw the
ball seventy yards and there's not many plays that do
happen in the league like that. So I will acknowledge
one and the other. Now, I saw a reply on Twitter,
and there's no way to do this without singling out
(04:43):
that individual. I'm not going to put his name on
blast here, but we are going to make an example
out of it because the reply was the secondary was
obviously getting cooked, and I'm just like, you know, I
get that we live in an age where You've got
to have a take on everything for some reason, even
though your name is like Steve and you are an accountant, sorry,
sorry to the accountant's name Steve out there, and you've
(05:03):
got a burner account with no profile picture like you
don't have to have a take. It doesn't really matter.
No one cares either way or the other, one way
or the other. But you have got to have a
take right on something you didn't even see. And that's
wild to me to try to extrapolate something like that
on something you didn't see based upon my notes where
I did see it and I can tell you exactly
what it was, and I'm gonna do it right now.
(05:25):
You showed your ass on that one. But the entire
deep ball period came against a coverage that we never
get single high safety. The league is all split safety
right now, right two high safeties. They're gonna put the
roof on the defense. And you better be sharp in
the short intermedia game to expose defenses and take advantage
of the space that is created because nobody wants to
give up explosive plays. It's a different time in a
(05:46):
different era, and the first one the Tyreek was on
a dead sprint against Elijah Campbell, who was basically flat footed.
He's never gonna win that matchup. And the other was
against Kendall Sheffield on the league Washington play without safety help,
and there's good and bad to that, right Good because
Tuas saw that matchup and even though Malik is not
his pop vertical option, if we can get that without
(06:07):
safety help and he can run a good route and
stack him, and Tua says, I can throw a perfect ball,
we can hit a touchdown, and that's that's a fun
thing to do. Long touchdowns are pretty fun, and you
know we'll we'll get those. We'll get some of those
in season because we've talked about some of the podcast.
Go ahead and look at other depth charts around the league.
At cornerback there it's the thinnest position in the NFL
(06:28):
right now. And and you know the three yards per carry,
guys love them. I think they're great. I think there's
a lot of negativity that's misplaced from a couple of
those guys right now.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
You know, Alf has been here with me.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
At practice and we've both kind of been in locks
up on some points. But I don't agree with the
doom and gloom of Chris, Chris and Simon there, and
I saw Simon talking about Jacry and Bennett being a
trade option, and I'm like, brother, Jackry and Bennett, like
the Raiders are super thin at cornerback if they're getting
rid of him, you know when he gets cut on
cut down day or whatever, like.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Just don't, I don't, I don't get it.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
I think if we traded for Jack Coryan Bennett would
see the same thing talking about how we don't have
good enough corners.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
But that's neither here nor there.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
And the converse of that is, you know, if you
the bad part about it is if you get beat
on a vertical by Malake Washington, that's not the strength
of his game. So what does it say about your
coverage ability? It's two edges of that sword, right, It's
good and bad. But quinn Ewers also got one deep
to theoiese for twenty five yards in a touchdown, an
I so little double move working against Isaiah Johnson. And
(07:27):
Isaiah Johnson was a guy that I was kind of
keeping an eye on coming into camp, and it hasn't
blossomed yet there. For me, I thought the defense made
Zach Wilson play very hesitant in his periods and Chop
went off against him. Chopp was getting some run against
that second team, and that's a mismatch. He shut down
the entire Zach Wilson led two minute attack with back
to back sacks.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
He just wins so quickly sometimes.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
And you guys were going to talk about to Ron
Armstead's podcast here a little bit. He said that he
puts Chop up there with Micah and Trey Hendrickson and
Von Miller in terms of the get off, and like
that's he's not wrong about that. He wins so quickly
sometimes that it looks like they've schemed up a free run.
And I kind of have to, you know, play the
play back in my mind a little bit to think
(08:11):
about where he came from, because it's most of the
time just him running around the tackle with lightning quick
get off and to kind of put evidence to the
coverage not being just busted all the time. I thought
that Patrick McMorris and Elijah Campbell both had really good
practices in those red zone periods and their zone drops
and playing the run and short passing game from depth
(08:33):
and getting downhill, because if you don't do that, if
you're gonna, you know, give the curl flat. You're gonna
give that option up and say, hey, if you want
to throw five three yard passes and if we can
rally and tackle and make it second and seven, or
if you slip a tackle, it's now second and four. Like,
we'll take our chances. They're opposed to giving you options
down the field. When you have safeties like mc morris
and Campbell coming up and tackling like they were today,
(08:53):
that can really help you play that coverage with confidence.
And I thought we saw that throughout the course of
the day. There was that red zone period, or a
couple of red zone periods, but one in particular where
all three quarterbacks had to throw away the football or
just eat it and basically wait till the whistle blew
and blew the play dead. And I think this was
indicative of the defensive staff's emphasis on playing on a
(09:14):
string on the back end and playing to their coverage rules.
Because the pockets were good, the coverage was just better.
Sometimes the coverage beat you, and I you know, you're
not going to see that in our social media posts
because we're not going to give away our you know,
show that Indianapolis colts are coverage structures. But I can
tell you from watching every single rep of practice, it's good.
It's it's mostly good, and you know, we're gonna post
(09:36):
the big plays and it's like, oh, the cornerbacks weren't
there for that one play out of the fifty.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Don't judge those for more than what they are for
that play.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Like it's it's such a small snapshot of what actually
happens out here at practice. And like, I get it,
there's some content creators that can only come down for
a day or two, and that's great that you get
a chance to do that, But to have a full
camp takeaway based on two days is so disingenuous to
the process and fly in the face of every single
thing McDaniel talks about about. You know, thinking about a
(10:04):
day ahead is short changing the process of the work
today and for us to come away with these grandeur,
you know, grand takes from two days of practice, Like,
I think that's disingenuous, and I think doing the same
thing off of a social media post from one rep
is like substantially worse than even that. So I don't know,
I've got a lot of takes today apparently, but these
guys were doing a good job of making these quarterbacks
(10:26):
think and have to process and get through multiple reads.
And the pockets were good and the coverage was better.
And if this defense can hold teams to red zone
field goals with the way, I think this offense is
going to score this year. And I've made no mistake
that I made no you know, if fans and butts
about it, I think that you know, thirty points per
game with the other team kicking field goals in the
red zone, you're gonna win a lot of football games
that way. I asked Patrick McMorris about this concept of
(10:49):
playing connected in that red zone period and how he
feels that is telling of what this coverage can be
in terms of playing together. Here is Patrick mc morris
after practice on those red zone covers were successful plays.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
You know, on the back end, we got to be communative,
especially in the red zone. A lot of moving pieces,
especially with our offense, a lot of motions, a lot
of crossers. Uh so, yeah, just being able to communicate
and just make sure we're on the right page, on
the same page.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Do you feel there's a better sense of connection and
second year under coach Weaver than there was last year.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
Yeah, most definitely. Yeah, like you said, second year, so
a lot of guys that have been here. We we
understand the defense a little more again, Coach Weaves a
little more comfortable. Uh, we got all the plays in
now and again just being able to communicate and talk
over just uh, just some stuff that maybe didn't work
(11:42):
last year or we had problems with last year, now
fixing that and uh again, just communicated with Weave and
the guys.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Devon Hien just keeps getting better to me as a
route runner. He had a couple of plays today where
I had to check to make sure it wasn't a
wide receiver out there making the making the catch and run.
He beat Willie Gay running across the field for one
reception and like Willie's one of the fastest linebackers in
the league right but chasing a Chan it's the old
longest yard line. Like when they get Nellie at running
(12:09):
back and that one guy says, you know, he makes
fast people look not fast. Let's hear from Devon ah
Chan and his ability as a receiver right now and
where he thinks his game is in that regard.
Speaker 4 (12:18):
I mean I feel like I'm down back, like I said,
I could be in first, second, third, fourth, I could
do a light as far as like ridding the ball,
also kiss the ball, so I can say I think
I was like they had like sending some recissions and
you know, like I've never received at this point, but
you know what I man, it's it's great to be
out throwing every.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
Down, so uh, he just he looks awesome.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
And then Galen Wright had a pair of touchdown runs
in that like mid red zone ten to twelve yard range.
Really nice vertical acceleration on some of those rips where
it's a one cut and wiggle through the secondary like
you know, just full speed making moves and it's tough
to keep up with that, like a you know, F
one car or I guess a rally car.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
More so going around the track.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
A nice bounce back after he appeared to trip at
the mesh point on a handoff from Tua earlier in
the day. And I've struggled with rights camp because it's
been puzzling to me. There's a lot of the stuff
that stood out for me last year where yeah, like
he's he's got the good rips that we see, but
there's also been some mistakes and friend of the show,
Eric Smith, who does a great job breaking down video
(13:19):
on his YouTube channel with five Reasons and his social
account as well. He talked about the negative runs that
you know Right had last year, and a chunk of
those being blocking breakdowns early on, but then as the
year progressed, the negative runs kind of became more of
the central blame around Right himself. And I tend to
agree with that take, and I think it's a sign
of him pressing in those looks, because you know, you
(13:41):
get a couple of line drives that don't fall and
they you know, they go right to defenders or to
the outfield, and you start being like, I gotta press
and make something happen here at the plate. You start
expanding the zone and chasing bad pitches. I think there
was something to that with Right's game last year, and
I think he's dealing with a little bit of that
right now, even though the blocking has been better. But
it's kind of the last thing he saw in games,
and I think that when he trusts it right now,
(14:01):
it's really pretty. But when he doesn't, it looked like
the fellat exchange he had was it last year? Yeah,
it had to have been last year because he was a
rookie against the Patriots when Tua came out of the
game and we had to put Tua back in because
we had a fumble six on the bad exchange there,
Tanner Connor caught another handful of passes, including a nice
rep from Tua up the sideline that went for about
fifteen yards. Could have been a twenty five yard touchdown
(14:23):
if he could make the safety miss an open space.
And everything that Taran does right now is looking smoother
and he looks healthy. So you know what a huge
win that has been and would be if he kept
it up for the entire season. I think that he
and Farow Brown's role increase from where it was in
the absence of alec Ingold. It was something to look
for and something to have, like a contingency plan because
Alex is going to be back sooner than later. But
(14:44):
I think you've got you know, between the tight ends
and alec Ingold, you've got a bunch of guys that
can do multiple things across like those two position groups.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
What else here should we take a break?
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Let's go ahead and take a quick break and come
back on the other side. Talk some more notes here
I've got like half my notes still to go. So
that's the next Draft Time podcast, brought to you by AutoNation.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
I think we left off on my Zach Sealer note.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Yeah, Zach signs a mega extension yesterday, gets the orange
jersey today, and just keeps on dominating. I had him
for a sack and an assist. On another one, I
did see Jonah Savit Naya jump set him and give
him a pretty good displacement strike that I think was
a little bit of a shock to Zach because like, hey,
we don't we haven't had guards that have done that
to me maybe since Robert Hunt. That's been a fun
(15:31):
battle to watch. The interior three, speaking of those guys
are getting pretty regular surge on the inside, and like
I just want to be clear about this. When I
tweet about like sacks, those are the ones that get
the tweets, right, But we also have like a bunch
of other plays that I'm not gonna tweet, like three
yard run by a chin, right, Like I'm not gonna
(15:51):
do a play by play, And on some of those runs,
you're getting this surge from Jonah, Aaron Brewer, and James Daniels.
On these downhill where it's a pivot to the scheme.
It's more inside downhill, in your face, we're coming at you.
And I just think there's such a better ability by
this football team because of those two guards and why
I've been on this freaking drum beat for months now,
(16:13):
months to just be able to line up and play
football and not have to motion our way to success
or confuse the defense. I'm just gonna say, hey, you've
got a three technique. I've got my guard. He's gonna
push you off the football. We're gonna combo that and
climb to the second level and our running back is
gonna burrow in behind that. We're gonna get five yards
and give ourselves a second and five and this fur
minute offensive attack. And I had a Q and A
(16:34):
with Frank Smith that I'm going to save until the
Thursday podcast to run for you guys that I think
verified the vision of the offseason and fixing what has
been a shortcoming for like three years now. And I'm
sure most you saw the press conference, but we'll talk
about that on Thursday with Frank Smith and the upgrade
at the guard position of what it means for the offense.
Grayson Murphy continues to make plays. He had sacks of
(16:57):
all three quarterbacks today. I'm not sure if anybody else
in has done that yet. One of those was on
Tua excuse me, in a low red zone period with
a speed move, just cutting the corner off on Larry Boram,
and that's kind of how Grayson has won. And he
was also in on Zach Wilson earlier with a couple
of pressures and I think I'm gonna give him a
sack in one of those plays on red zone work.
And he finished the day with a sack on quinn
(17:18):
Ewers to end his red zone period and an end
of game period. And then Mohammed Kamara had two nice plays.
He had a run, stuff and a sack in this practice.
I thought it was his best day so far. I
thought Jordan Phillips really kind of displayed his power in
a couple of sets where one he reset Daniel Brunskill
a couple of yards deep in the backfield. Every day
we see him do that where the technique is perfect
(17:39):
and he uncorks all that power. And I think I
was gonna stop right here. We already took the breaks.
Let's go ahead and just continue on the notes here
some additional notes. A lot of the passing plays reminded
me of that deep ball to Reek against the Jags
last year, the eighty yard touchdown. And I'm curious for
those of you listen to other content out there, let
me know if anybody else points this out, because it
(17:59):
was much much different of a day in terms of
the presentations of the defense, especially early on before the
pressure and sim pressures came.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
Back to life.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
But Tua was ability to influence the defense, and that
pairs with the fear that you have to play with.
You know, when you don't have a roof on top
of the house against these receivers, when you are playing
single safety, single high safety, it's like not having a
roof on your home here in South Florida in the summer.
You're gonna have a ton of water in your home
and you're gonna have to make a claim to your
(18:29):
home insurance company. But he was, you know, catch rock
and then reset and drive the ball down the field.
There's just a lot you kind of have to keep
up with in terms of how they they show you
things in the backfield from the quarterback and running back perspective.
One thing that I wasn't a fan of. In today's
practice was the end of half, end of game situation.
Stuff wasn't very sharp. There was a little more sloppiness
(18:50):
in general, I thought in today's practice. And you know,
I'm not gonna I've been so like upfront about how
good and crisp these practices have been. I thought today
was a little bit of a revert back to like sloppiness.
It was the first day back in shells after a
week of pads, after a day off, which I think
can sometimes, you know, let some some complacency creep in,
(19:12):
like you're gonna have to fight the dog days. You know,
we're coming up on the Chicago trip, So I'm curious
to see how they bounce back tomorrow. I think it's
a teaching moment for the entire staff. You'd be like, hey,
let's get back on our stuff here, because this is
not good enough right now. And you you heard t
Stead talking his podcast if you listen to it, about
the emphasis on how every rep matters and the payoff
of that, and I'm curious to kind of dig into
more of that with questions for guys as we go
(19:34):
forward here. I do continue to be a little bit
concerned about what I've seen from Zach Wilson against like
actual defensive structures against vanilla stuff. It's it's beautiful when
it's like against the vanilla stuff, but it's like against
game plan looks where there's like rotation and disguise and
pressure and sim pressure. I think when you Weres has
handled that better, which I suppose tracks because he does
(19:54):
come from an offense that is much more akin to
what you know we do here, where Zach Wilson never
played an offense like this and he's still getting his
feet wet. I guess that the Mike Lafleur offense with
the Jets was that way, but he wasn't very good
at running his brother's system. I know you guys love
the Bad Days report, so I thought it was a
challenge today for Keon Smith, where he's had a pretty
good camp so far.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
I mentioned Kendall Sheffield. You know, I talked about.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
Noah Igbinoghany in that way a lot, like he's close,
he's right there, but he keeps giving up these catches,
like so I have to kind of balance that, like
it's good coverage, but also let's make a play too, right,
I thought Ethan Bonner struggled today. He got mossed by
Tarik Black on one play. Julian Hill struggled both in
the blocking and the catching game today. Thought Ryan Hayes
was you could put a lot of those sacks on
his stat count today. And I don't think it was
(20:39):
Larry Borum's best day either. Some additional practice notes. Nick
Westbrook a Kine had a handful of catches, including the
one you saw in the back of the end zone
on Twitter where he taps the toes and a little
Layard touched pass from two about fifteen twenty yards out
give or take two. Was talked about the importance of
his chemistry and trust with wide receivers right He talked
about it with Odell Beckham last year. He's talked about
with Darren Waller this year, like, if you're not going
(21:00):
to be up and practicing, it's gonna be hard to
know where you're gonna be when you're gonna be there.
And it makes sense because he plays with, for my money,
the best anticipation in the entire league, and to maximize that,
you need receivers at least close to his level in
terms of how they process. And I'm not going to
compare to Tom Brady, right, Okay, so just please don't
clip this and put me on freaking callin Cowherd. But
(21:21):
like that's what Brady had. So many receivers came through
Brady's program and just couldn't get on his level. And again,
Two was not on Brady's level, not saying that at all,
but he is at a pretty high level when it
comes to like seeing the field and being a general
of like that leverage means this route and this coverage
and this rotation means this type of spot throw. You
better be on two level with that because if not,
the ball's not coming your way. And Westbrook Aakine didn't
(21:43):
catch a lot of balls early on in camp, and
I think that's no mystery as to why that happened.
But over the last week or so, he's come on
and made a bunch of plays in critical areas and
taking advantage of the space afford to him by the
coverage being lifted by Wreak and Waddell and wide receivers
coach Robert Prince called Nick a true professional at his
media availabilit on Monday, and I think that's that's how
he develops that, and I think we're seeing that chemistry
(22:05):
with Tua in the trust develop here in real time.
Speaker 5 (22:08):
D S.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
Gridge had a nice touchdown grab from Zach Wilson on
a ball on the end line. He did a good
job on selling the route one way and breaking it
off the other way. I mentioned the Elik Washington catch.
I thought he was sharp all day, both as a
blocker and with his routes. I mentioned Tarik Black having
that catch over the top of Ethan Bonner. That was
a really nice play. Zach also had a touchdown pass.
Excuse me, goodness, gracious, those chicken tacos are rumblin. He
(22:32):
had a touchdown pass to Eric Azukama with some pretty
good zip on and Ee caught it sliding to the
ground in the back of the end zone. Storm Duck
had a really nice rep and this was one of
the many red zone plays I talked about or I'm
gonna talk about on Waddle where he pinned him to
the perimeter and erased the window for two to a
throw two. I'm sure a lot of you guys saw
the toront Armstead podcast again. He said that he thinks
(22:52):
storm Duck is one of, if not the most competitive
players on the field when he straps it on and
how much he craves those matchups against Reek Waddle, and
you can argue that he won't see a two sum
of receivers like those guys until week sixteen Jamar Chas
and t Higgins totally different players, but like as good
as those guys, and then the next week against the
(23:13):
Bucks with with Mike Evans and Chris Godwin, but like
the Commanders, maybe I don't think they're at that level.
Like the point is, he's playing against one of the
top wide receiver duos in practice every single day. I
think Jack Jones has had a really good camp, and
I thought today was his best day. It's like repetitive
at this point. But the way he fires back down
the stem out of a backpedal or firing out of
(23:34):
his zone is just different. It He just moves different.
He had a rep where he took away a corner
route playing that cloud coverage that we see a lot
around the league and for the Dolphins, and then felt
a route coming underneath his coverage area and jumped it
for what would have been a big collision on Pharaoh Brown.
In a live setting, he also was all over Taje
Washington on a deep ball, good mirror technique at the
(23:55):
line of scrimmage. Good job staying in Faz got his
head back around to the football and wanted it away
at the catch point and did that strap thing that
cornerbacks always do. I think we've got something here in
Jack Jones, between Storm, Jack and Hilton. I have confidence
in those three players. I have questions about the rest
of the guys, which, if you stay healthy, I suppose
(24:16):
you're okay. Would love to have Cater Kohu back in
that mix, but I you know, I suspect there's another
domino to fall at some point. From now until the
thirty three days before opening day, Derek McClendon had two
sacks in one period. He's had a nice camp so far.
In fact, let's go ahead and hear from Jalen phillips
on the depth of that edge group. As we've been
shouting out Grayson Murphy, Quentin Bell, Cam Good, Mo Kamara,
(24:39):
Derek McLendon on various podcasts. Here is Jalen Phillips on
that edge group.
Speaker 5 (24:43):
Yeah, I'm glad you asked about that, because you know
they've been balling, and you know, I think a lot
of them kind of going to the radar. Obviously, you guys
talk about you know, us a lot, but I think
you know, Q Bell is an absolute dog. It's one
of my best friends, and you know, he's, you know,
an incredible player, works his ass off, does all the
right thing. D Mac is a savage, you know, freaking
Grayson probably the best pure password forer on the team
(25:06):
in my opinion. And then who else we got? Mo
is a beast. You know, he's a powerful guy. You know,
leverage is insane. So I think that's everybody. But you know,
we are our outside linebacker room is extremely competitive. We're
extremely close, and you know, every one of them deserves
their flowers because, like I said, they worked their ass
off and they're extremely talented, so you know, yeah, they're
great people.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
One name he forgot was Cam Good, who's had a
very nice camp as well, and t Stead talked about
Cam as well on the show that he did where
it's like he just got injured the wrong time when
there was opportunity with JP and and Bradley down and
of course Cam gets his leg taken out in that
Buffalo finale back in twenty three. Just bad timing there,
Let's go ahead though, and stay with Jalen to connect
our very last practice note. Because I talked about Patrick
(25:47):
Paul and his ability to recognize the rush where the
extra guys come from, in the athletic ability it requires
to squeeze and then expand against those outside rushes. There
was another one today where he's The best way I
can describe this within the report rules is that his
range is so vast, like he can get inside against
power and then shift his weight and get the width
(26:07):
back outside and go cut off that speed rusher off
the edge.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
It is. It's fun to watch.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
I I have to watch myself with this stuff sometimes,
but I think we're seeing like an elite left tackle
develop in front of our eyes.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
That's you know.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
In speaking of Toront's podcast, he talked about something I
noticed earlier in camp, and this was like the ultimate
affirmation for me. Was he talked about Pat's ability to
absorb a loss of a rep and then quickly apply
the correction on the next rep. So I asked Jalen
Phillips about that. Here's JP on Patrick Paul. We'll play
a couple of soundbites here because this was pretty damn
good from Jalen Phillips on Patrick Paul.
Speaker 5 (26:43):
Yeah, I mean I think that that Patrick has huge upside.
He's annoying as hell to go against, I'll tell you
that much, because he is a talker, and you know,
I I during practice I hate him, But afterwards, you know,
when you're I can just the only thing I can
do is admire him and admire his physical presence, Admire
his skill set, admire his athleticism, admire his work ethic
(27:06):
and like you said, his ability to make adjustments and corrections.
You know, I think he's going to be a fabulous player,
and he already has made a big step in this league.
So yeah, Patrick's badass. So he knows how I feel
against about him. So just like I tell you, I
hate going against him, he knows I hate going against him.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
And confidence is such an important trait for anybody in
any sport, right, But for Patrick Paul to be talking
his noise against Bradley Chubb and Jalien Phillips and Chop
Robinson like probably pretty confident. Right. Here's Jalen Phillips on
the confidence of the Dolphins second year left tackle.
Speaker 5 (27:37):
He's confident in himself, which I think is a really
admirable trait, because at the end of the day, there's
so many things that can kind of knock your confidence.
And one thing that I've noticed with him is I've
never seen his confidence shake no matter what, even if
he's losing reps, and all he does every day is
get our pass rushers better, get himself better, and bring
other guys along.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
Let's hit one more break and then I have a
quick segment to finish up the show with talking about
that red zone own connectivity. That's next Draft Time podcast,
brought to you by Auto Nation. So I have teased
the Thursday show a little bit and we'll cover this
more in depth then. But I thought there was a
period of practice today on Tuesday, or a few of
(28:17):
them rather where we saw something really come to life
that I've been covering on the show all training camp long.
Lots of red zone work today, some of the end
of half, some of that end of game stuff, but
also just some middle of the quarter clock is not
a concern type of rep. And I lost count of
how many reps there were where there was a a
good clean pocket for the quarterback, but b they wound
(28:37):
up eating a sack. Whether it was the coverage throwing
it away or the play just gets blown dead by
the coaching staff. And I think back to two comments
that we've has made it multiple months apart. Back in
OTA's it was the idea of playing connected on the
back end, and regardless of who winds up being back there,
as long as they play to their rules and play connected,
we will play good defense. And the way that they
(28:58):
can span the middle of the field from both the
safety and linebacker positions, and with safeties who have corner
and coverage backgrounds, right, I mean, Mika Fitzpatrick was a
college star, which is a souped up slot position in
Nick Saban's defense. If Imla fun was a cornerback in college,
Ashton Davis played probably more in the nickel and that's
why I loved his tape out of col Then he
(29:19):
did it safety, and Dante Trader and Patrick mc morris
and Elijah Campbell to me major as like you know,
sub package big Nichols or dime backer type of players
that can come down in the middle of the field
and play that intermediate range and play the run from
depth and play and coverage in those areas, and then
all the linebackers and the stuff they can do with
their drops. I mean the athletic ability and proof of
(29:40):
concept that we have with Jordan Brooks and coverage last
year and his Seahawks tape which was what really sold
me on him last March, or Willie gave and why
he was linebacker won for Travis and his you know,
Chiefs tape and not the Saints tape which was poorly
misusage in terms of that defense. But this is a
guy that basically has the record for dropped as I've
(30:00):
ever seen in practice, and he joked about that when
we last talked to him. But some hyperbole they're talking
about the record, But the point is he's always in
the curl flat and hook zones, jumping in front of passes.
I mean, here's how a handful of the reps that
were one down there win. I had Jordan Brooks covering
Devon a chan On like a little choice and he
was all over it like no one can cover that
but Jordan Brooks cam. There was two straight throwaways from
(30:21):
Zach Wilson where you got reroutes from Jack Jones and
Mike Hilton, and those led to brackets with the safety
group to clog up those pictures. Like you're gonna have
to throw in double coverage to beat this. You know
a defense that plays like that when you can win
with pressure up front with four down linemen. Mc morris
pins e Chan to the perimeter on the sideline throw
that goes incomplete. Tua has to move off of his spot,
(30:42):
and he'd a solid five seconds on this particular rat
before he throws the ball incomplete to d s Gridge
with Cornell Armstrong back there. So they're finding ways to
span the coverage to create pressure and try to marry
those two things together. And I cannot wait to watch
them throw this out there against somebody else, to see
it in a game setting too, but more so when
(31:03):
the games count for real come September. But first they're
gonna keep stacking days and working towards Indianapolis, which is
now just thirty three days away. All right, back at
it tomorrow. We'll have a special Thursday edition podcast for
you guys. Then joint practices on Friday in Chicago, off
Saturday game recap on Sunday. There's not chicken taco again.
It's just about go time. But for now that's gonna
(31:24):
be my time. You all please be sure to subscribe
to the show, leave us a rating, leave us a review,
Follow me on social at winkel NFL. Check out the
YouTube channel for media availabilities, drivetime content and the return
of Dolphins HQ on August thirtieth, I Think is our
debut back on CBS four and August twenty eighth on
the YouTube channel, so don't miss that. And last butt
not least Miami Dolphins dot com until next time. Foo's Up,
(31:46):
Caroline Cameron and Willow Daddy come it on
This is Drivetime with Travis Wingfield.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
What is up Dolphins and welcome to the Draft Time Podcast.
I am your host, Travis Wingfield, and on today's show,
a heavy practice notes podcast, as we're taking a look
at a very busy day out on that grass here
at Dolphins Day eleven of training camp. We'll hear from
Jalen Phillips to von Ah Chan and Patrick mc morris
and talk about another bullet point being added to the
(00:34):
connectivity of the back seven of the defense with a
successful red zone period on Tuesday from the Baptist Health
Studios inside the Baptist Health Training Complex. This is the
Drive Time Podcast. One more practice before we ship out
to Chicago, and I cannot wait to get out there.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
I should check the weather. I bet it's not as
hot as it is here.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
That's tomorrow and then Thursday, I'm going to have a
bonus episode covering the distant coaches media, Zach Steeler's contract extension,
players to watch in Chicago, and I've got two big
picture takeaways from training camp I'm kind of working through
right now to put together on that podcast. As the
Thursday practice in Chicago is supposed to be a bit
more limited in terms of actual team reps. So I
(01:18):
probably won't have a practice update podcast for you Thursday,
but if there is anything of note, I will add
it to the Friday podcast, which will cover joint practices
with the Bears on that Friday.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Sound good.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
I do have a couple of broad topics to get
to today, but there were so many reps and I
have so many individual notes that I thought I would
flip the show and do that first seth Levitt the
Fish Tank Coast, you got your wish man, We're gonna
do practice notes first here today. And this was what
the most I've seen them dial up deep shots and
taking long throws down the field I think really since
(01:53):
probably twenty twenty three and to a connected on a
pair of fifty yards scoring strikes. I think one was
forty eight yards, but you know gold a green jacket.
One was to Tyreek Hill and one was to Malik Washington.
The Reek one, he was wide open coming across the field,
Like think about what was the one the Packers game
a couple of years ago when two ultimately was was
knocked out for the rest of the season, but he
(02:14):
had a deep shot to Tyreek Hill down to the
one yard line. It was kind of like that where
he's coming like from sideline to sideline after getting vertical.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
That was what the first one looked like.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
The second one was like Tyreek's touchdown against the Bills
in twenty twenty two. I feel like you better know
the Dolphins if listening to this podcast when he had
Trey White one on one coverage to the backside and
he just basically ran a vertical and stacked him and too,
it'll put the ball right on the money. That was
the deep shot to Malik Washington for a touchdown. Just
a perfect ball because Kendall Sheffield was he was in
(02:46):
good shape. Now he got stacked, but he was there.
He was in phase and just barely on the back.
I guess that's not in phase if you're stacked, but
he was like one step away from being in phase.
But hey, you give this quarterback a window like that,
he's usually gonna find it. And the ball was perfect,
right and stride and he's gone off to the races
for a fifty yard touchdown.
Speaker 1 (03:03):
And that was in a two minute period.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
And it came one play after two a ripped and
absolute piss missile to Jalen Waddle for fifteen yards and
again Kendall Sheffield was there in coverage on the back hit,
and I would say this time he was in phase,
but the ball was right on the upfield shoulder.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
And you just can't defend that.
Speaker 2 (03:19):
I felt like that was the body language we saw
from Sheffield after the play, was like, what the hell
am I supposed to do to that? Like, you know,
they say there's no defense for a perfect pass. It's
like when you see a picture, you know, dot up
the outside corner at the bottom of the zone with
one hundred mile prior heat, Like you tip the cap
and say, hopefully you make a mistake on my next bat.
The two misses were to Tyreek Hill. He went two
(03:40):
for four on these deep shots, and the two that
he missed were open plays to Tyreek Hill, who was
on a heater getting downfield today. One ball was long,
one was short. The underthrow I saw some of the
reporters typing away quickly. They love to talk about the
under throws of to a tongue of my low, and
this one was that Now I Reek was open, but
(04:01):
the it kind of was slow developing in the backfield,
and I think Reek's route was a little bit out
of rhythm, and this happens all the time across the
National Football League. Tua gets more crap for it because
he doesn't have the same arm as some of the
bigger arm quarterbacks in the league. But we've seen Tua's
like deep ball kind of max out between fifty five
sixty in terms of accurate downfield throws right that he
can step into and rip. That's kind of where Tyreek
(04:22):
was when this ball came down, and he was the
way Tyreek was running, he was going to be like
at seventy yards. So it's tough to hit a guy
that depth, and Tua just that's just a limitation of
his game. He's not gonna be go all, throw the
ball seventy yards and there's not many plays that do
happen in the league like that. So I will acknowledge
one and the other. Now, I saw a reply on Twitter,
and there's no way to do this without singling out
(04:43):
that individual. I'm not going to put his name on
blast here, but we are going to make an example
out of it because the reply was the secondary was
obviously getting cooked, and I'm just like, you know, I
get that we live in an age where You've got
to have a take on everything for some reason, even
though your name is like Steve and you are an accountant, sorry,
sorry to the accountant's name Steve out there, and you've
(05:03):
got a burner account with no profile picture like you
don't have to have a take. It doesn't really matter.
No one cares either way or the other, one way
or the other. But you have got to have a
take right on something you didn't even see. And that's
wild to me to try to extrapolate something like that
on something you didn't see based upon my notes where
I did see it and I can tell you exactly
what it was, and I'm gonna do it right now.
(05:25):
You showed your ass on that one. But the entire
deep ball period came against a coverage that we never
get single high safety. The league is all split safety
right now, right two high safeties. They're gonna put the
roof on the defense. And you better be sharp in
the short intermedia game to expose defenses and take advantage
of the space that is created because nobody wants to
give up explosive plays. It's a different time in a
(05:46):
different era, and the first one the Tyreek was on
a dead sprint against Elijah Campbell, who was basically flat footed.
He's never gonna win that matchup. And the other was
against Kendall Sheffield on the league Washington play without safety help,
and there's good and bad to that, right Good because
Tuas saw that matchup and even though Malik is not
his pop vertical option, if we can get that without
(06:07):
safety help and he can run a good route and
stack him, and Tua says, I can throw a perfect ball,
we can hit a touchdown, and that's that's a fun
thing to do. Long touchdowns are pretty fun, and you
know we'll we'll get those. We'll get some of those
in season because we've talked about some of the podcast.
Go ahead and look at other depth charts around the league.
At cornerback there it's the thinnest position in the NFL
(06:28):
right now. And and you know the three yards per carry,
guys love them. I think they're great. I think there's
a lot of negativity that's misplaced from a couple of
those guys right now.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
You know, Alf has been here with me.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
At practice and we've both kind of been in locks
up on some points. But I don't agree with the
doom and gloom of Chris, Chris and Simon there, and
I saw Simon talking about Jacry and Bennett being a
trade option, and I'm like, brother, Jackry and Bennett, like
the Raiders are super thin at cornerback if they're getting
rid of him, you know when he gets cut on
cut down day or whatever, like.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Just don't, I don't, I don't get it.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
I think if we traded for Jack Coryan Bennett would
see the same thing talking about how we don't have
good enough corners.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
But that's neither here nor there.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
And the converse of that is, you know, if you
the bad part about it is if you get beat
on a vertical by Malake Washington, that's not the strength
of his game. So what does it say about your
coverage ability? It's two edges of that sword, right, It's
good and bad. But quinn Ewers also got one deep
to theoiese for twenty five yards in a touchdown, an
I so little double move working against Isaiah Johnson. And
(07:27):
Isaiah Johnson was a guy that I was kind of
keeping an eye on coming into camp, and it hasn't
blossomed yet there. For me, I thought the defense made
Zach Wilson play very hesitant in his periods and Chop
went off against him. Chopp was getting some run against
that second team, and that's a mismatch. He shut down
the entire Zach Wilson led two minute attack with back
to back sacks.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
He just wins so quickly sometimes.
Speaker 2 (07:50):
And you guys were going to talk about to Ron
Armstead's podcast here a little bit. He said that he
puts Chop up there with Micah and Trey Hendrickson and
Von Miller in terms of the get off, and like
that's he's not wrong about that. He wins so quickly
sometimes that it looks like they've schemed up a free run.
And I kind of have to, you know, play the
play back in my mind a little bit to think
(08:11):
about where he came from, because it's most of the
time just him running around the tackle with lightning quick
get off and to kind of put evidence to the
coverage not being just busted all the time. I thought
that Patrick McMorris and Elijah Campbell both had really good
practices in those red zone periods and their zone drops
and playing the run and short passing game from depth
(08:33):
and getting downhill, because if you don't do that, if
you're gonna, you know, give the curl flat. You're gonna
give that option up and say, hey, if you want
to throw five three yard passes and if we can
rally and tackle and make it second and seven, or
if you slip a tackle, it's now second and four. Like,
we'll take our chances. They're opposed to giving you options
down the field. When you have safeties like mc morris
and Campbell coming up and tackling like they were today,
(08:53):
that can really help you play that coverage with confidence.
And I thought we saw that throughout the course of
the day. There was that red zone period, or a
couple of red zone periods, but one in particular where
all three quarterbacks had to throw away the football or
just eat it and basically wait till the whistle blew
and blew the play dead. And I think this was
indicative of the defensive staff's emphasis on playing on a
(09:14):
string on the back end and playing to their coverage rules.
Because the pockets were good, the coverage was just better.
Sometimes the coverage beat you, and I you know, you're
not going to see that in our social media posts
because we're not going to give away our you know,
show that Indianapolis colts are coverage structures. But I can
tell you from watching every single rep of practice, it's good.
It's it's mostly good, and you know, we're gonna post
(09:36):
the big plays and it's like, oh, the cornerbacks weren't
there for that one play out of the fifty.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Don't judge those for more than what they are for
that play.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Like it's it's such a small snapshot of what actually
happens out here at practice. And like, I get it,
there's some content creators that can only come down for
a day or two, and that's great that you get
a chance to do that, But to have a full
camp takeaway based on two days is so disingenuous to
the process and fly in the face of every single
thing McDaniel talks about about. You know, thinking about a
(10:04):
day ahead is short changing the process of the work
today and for us to come away with these grandeur,
you know, grand takes from two days of practice, Like,
I think that's disingenuous, and I think doing the same
thing off of a social media post from one rep
is like substantially worse than even that. So I don't know,
I've got a lot of takes today apparently, but these
guys were doing a good job of making these quarterbacks
(10:26):
think and have to process and get through multiple reads.
And the pockets were good and the coverage was better.
And if this defense can hold teams to red zone
field goals with the way, I think this offense is
going to score this year. And I've made no mistake
that I made no you know, if fans and butts
about it, I think that you know, thirty points per
game with the other team kicking field goals in the
red zone, you're gonna win a lot of football games
that way. I asked Patrick McMorris about this concept of
(10:49):
playing connected in that red zone period and how he
feels that is telling of what this coverage can be
in terms of playing together. Here is Patrick mc morris
after practice on those red zone covers were successful plays.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
You know, on the back end, we got to be communative,
especially in the red zone. A lot of moving pieces,
especially with our offense, a lot of motions, a lot
of crossers. Uh so, yeah, just being able to communicate
and just make sure we're on the right page, on
the same page.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Do you feel there's a better sense of connection and
second year under coach Weaver than there was last year.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
Yeah, most definitely. Yeah, like you said, second year, so
a lot of guys that have been here. We we
understand the defense a little more again, Coach Weaves a
little more comfortable. Uh, we got all the plays in
now and again just being able to communicate and talk
over just uh, just some stuff that maybe didn't work
(11:42):
last year or we had problems with last year, now
fixing that and uh again, just communicated with Weave and
the guys.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Devon Hien just keeps getting better to me as a
route runner. He had a couple of plays today where
I had to check to make sure it wasn't a
wide receiver out there making the making the catch and run.
He beat Willie Gay running across the field for one
reception and like Willie's one of the fastest linebackers in
the league right but chasing a Chan it's the old
longest yard line. Like when they get Nellie at running
(12:09):
back and that one guy says, you know, he makes
fast people look not fast. Let's hear from Devon ah
Chan and his ability as a receiver right now and
where he thinks his game is in that regard.
Speaker 4 (12:18):
I mean I feel like I'm down back, like I said,
I could be in first, second, third, fourth, I could
do a light as far as like ridding the ball,
also kiss the ball, so I can say I think
I was like they had like sending some recissions and
you know, like I've never received at this point, but
you know what I man, it's it's great to be
out throwing every.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
Down, so uh, he just he looks awesome.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
And then Galen Wright had a pair of touchdown runs
in that like mid red zone ten to twelve yard range.
Really nice vertical acceleration on some of those rips where
it's a one cut and wiggle through the secondary like
you know, just full speed making moves and it's tough
to keep up with that, like a you know, F
one car or I guess a rally car.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
More so going around the track.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
A nice bounce back after he appeared to trip at
the mesh point on a handoff from Tua earlier in
the day. And I've struggled with rights camp because it's
been puzzling to me. There's a lot of the stuff
that stood out for me last year where yeah, like
he's he's got the good rips that we see, but
there's also been some mistakes and friend of the show,
Eric Smith, who does a great job breaking down video
(13:19):
on his YouTube channel with five Reasons and his social
account as well. He talked about the negative runs that
you know Right had last year, and a chunk of
those being blocking breakdowns early on, but then as the
year progressed, the negative runs kind of became more of
the central blame around Right himself. And I tend to
agree with that take, and I think it's a sign
of him pressing in those looks, because you know, you
(13:41):
get a couple of line drives that don't fall and
they you know, they go right to defenders or to
the outfield, and you start being like, I gotta press
and make something happen here at the plate. You start
expanding the zone and chasing bad pitches. I think there
was something to that with Right's game last year, and
I think he's dealing with a little bit of that
right now, even though the blocking has been better. But
it's kind of the last thing he saw in games,
and I think that when he trusts it right now,
(14:01):
it's really pretty. But when he doesn't, it looked like
the fellat exchange he had was it last year? Yeah,
it had to have been last year because he was a
rookie against the Patriots when Tua came out of the
game and we had to put Tua back in because
we had a fumble six on the bad exchange there,
Tanner Connor caught another handful of passes, including a nice
rep from Tua up the sideline that went for about
fifteen yards. Could have been a twenty five yard touchdown
(14:23):
if he could make the safety miss an open space.
And everything that Taran does right now is looking smoother
and he looks healthy. So you know what a huge
win that has been and would be if he kept
it up for the entire season. I think that he
and Farow Brown's role increase from where it was in
the absence of alec Ingold. It was something to look
for and something to have, like a contingency plan because
Alex is going to be back sooner than later. But
(14:44):
I think you've got you know, between the tight ends
and alec Ingold, you've got a bunch of guys that
can do multiple things across like those two position groups.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
What else here should we take a break?
Speaker 2 (14:53):
Let's go ahead and take a quick break and come
back on the other side. Talk some more notes here
I've got like half my notes still to go. So
that's the next Draft Time podcast, brought to you by AutoNation.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
I think we left off on my Zach Sealer note.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
Yeah, Zach signs a mega extension yesterday, gets the orange
jersey today, and just keeps on dominating. I had him
for a sack and an assist. On another one, I
did see Jonah Savit Naya jump set him and give
him a pretty good displacement strike that I think was
a little bit of a shock to Zach because like, hey,
we don't we haven't had guards that have done that
to me maybe since Robert Hunt. That's been a fun
(15:31):
battle to watch. The interior three, speaking of those guys
are getting pretty regular surge on the inside, and like
I just want to be clear about this. When I
tweet about like sacks, those are the ones that get
the tweets, right, But we also have like a bunch
of other plays that I'm not gonna tweet, like three
yard run by a chin, right, Like I'm not gonna
(15:51):
do a play by play, And on some of those runs,
you're getting this surge from Jonah, Aaron Brewer, and James Daniels.
On these downhill where it's a pivot to the scheme.
It's more inside downhill, in your face, we're coming at you.
And I just think there's such a better ability by
this football team because of those two guards and why
I've been on this freaking drum beat for months now,
(16:13):
months to just be able to line up and play
football and not have to motion our way to success
or confuse the defense. I'm just gonna say, hey, you've
got a three technique. I've got my guard. He's gonna
push you off the football. We're gonna combo that and
climb to the second level and our running back is
gonna burrow in behind that. We're gonna get five yards
and give ourselves a second and five and this fur
minute offensive attack. And I had a Q and A
(16:34):
with Frank Smith that I'm going to save until the
Thursday podcast to run for you guys that I think
verified the vision of the offseason and fixing what has
been a shortcoming for like three years now. And I'm
sure most you saw the press conference, but we'll talk
about that on Thursday with Frank Smith and the upgrade
at the guard position of what it means for the offense.
Grayson Murphy continues to make plays. He had sacks of
(16:57):
all three quarterbacks today. I'm not sure if anybody else
in has done that yet. One of those was on
Tua excuse me, in a low red zone period with
a speed move, just cutting the corner off on Larry Boram,
and that's kind of how Grayson has won. And he
was also in on Zach Wilson earlier with a couple
of pressures and I think I'm gonna give him a
sack in one of those plays on red zone work.
And he finished the day with a sack on quinn
(17:18):
Ewers to end his red zone period and an end
of game period. And then Mohammed Kamara had two nice plays.
He had a run, stuff and a sack in this practice.
I thought it was his best day so far. I
thought Jordan Phillips really kind of displayed his power in
a couple of sets where one he reset Daniel Brunskill
a couple of yards deep in the backfield. Every day
we see him do that where the technique is perfect
(17:39):
and he uncorks all that power. And I think I
was gonna stop right here. We already took the breaks.
Let's go ahead and just continue on the notes here
some additional notes. A lot of the passing plays reminded
me of that deep ball to Reek against the Jags
last year, the eighty yard touchdown. And I'm curious for
those of you listen to other content out there, let
me know if anybody else points this out, because it
(17:59):
was much much different of a day in terms of
the presentations of the defense, especially early on before the
pressure and sim pressures came.
Speaker 1 (18:08):
Back to life.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
But Tua was ability to influence the defense, and that
pairs with the fear that you have to play with.
You know, when you don't have a roof on top
of the house against these receivers, when you are playing
single safety, single high safety, it's like not having a
roof on your home here in South Florida in the summer.
You're gonna have a ton of water in your home
and you're gonna have to make a claim to your
(18:29):
home insurance company. But he was, you know, catch rock
and then reset and drive the ball down the field.
There's just a lot you kind of have to keep
up with in terms of how they they show you
things in the backfield from the quarterback and running back perspective.
One thing that I wasn't a fan of. In today's
practice was the end of half, end of game situation.
Stuff wasn't very sharp. There was a little more sloppiness
(18:50):
in general, I thought in today's practice. And you know,
I'm not gonna I've been so like upfront about how
good and crisp these practices have been. I thought today
was a little bit of a revert back to like sloppiness.
It was the first day back in shells after a
week of pads, after a day off, which I think
can sometimes, you know, let some some complacency creep in,
(19:12):
like you're gonna have to fight the dog days. You know,
we're coming up on the Chicago trip, So I'm curious
to see how they bounce back tomorrow. I think it's
a teaching moment for the entire staff. You'd be like, hey,
let's get back on our stuff here, because this is
not good enough right now. And you you heard t
Stead talking his podcast if you listen to it, about
the emphasis on how every rep matters and the payoff
of that, and I'm curious to kind of dig into
more of that with questions for guys as we go
(19:34):
forward here. I do continue to be a little bit
concerned about what I've seen from Zach Wilson against like
actual defensive structures against vanilla stuff. It's it's beautiful when
it's like against the vanilla stuff, but it's like against
game plan looks where there's like rotation and disguise and
pressure and sim pressure. I think when you Weres has
handled that better, which I suppose tracks because he does
(19:54):
come from an offense that is much more akin to
what you know we do here, where Zach Wilson never
played an offense like this and he's still getting his
feet wet. I guess that the Mike Lafleur offense with
the Jets was that way, but he wasn't very good
at running his brother's system. I know you guys love
the Bad Days report, so I thought it was a
challenge today for Keon Smith, where he's had a pretty
good camp so far.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
I mentioned Kendall Sheffield. You know, I talked about.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
Noah Igbinoghany in that way a lot, like he's close,
he's right there, but he keeps giving up these catches,
like so I have to kind of balance that, like
it's good coverage, but also let's make a play too, right,
I thought Ethan Bonner struggled today. He got mossed by
Tarik Black on one play. Julian Hill struggled both in
the blocking and the catching game today. Thought Ryan Hayes
was you could put a lot of those sacks on
his stat count today. And I don't think it was
(20:39):
Larry Borum's best day either. Some additional practice notes. Nick
Westbrook a Kine had a handful of catches, including the
one you saw in the back of the end zone
on Twitter where he taps the toes and a little
Layard touched pass from two about fifteen twenty yards out
give or take two. Was talked about the importance of
his chemistry and trust with wide receivers right He talked
about it with Odell Beckham last year. He's talked about
with Darren Waller this year, like, if you're not going
(21:00):
to be up and practicing, it's gonna be hard to
know where you're gonna be when you're gonna be there.
And it makes sense because he plays with, for my money,
the best anticipation in the entire league, and to maximize that,
you need receivers at least close to his level in
terms of how they process. And I'm not going to
compare to Tom Brady, right, Okay, so just please don't
clip this and put me on freaking callin Cowherd. But
(21:21):
like that's what Brady had. So many receivers came through
Brady's program and just couldn't get on his level. And again,
Two was not on Brady's level, not saying that at all,
but he is at a pretty high level when it
comes to like seeing the field and being a general
of like that leverage means this route and this coverage
and this rotation means this type of spot throw. You
better be on two level with that because if not,
the ball's not coming your way. And Westbrook Aakine didn't
(21:43):
catch a lot of balls early on in camp, and
I think that's no mystery as to why that happened.
But over the last week or so, he's come on
and made a bunch of plays in critical areas and
taking advantage of the space afford to him by the
coverage being lifted by Wreak and Waddell and wide receivers
coach Robert Prince called Nick a true professional at his
media availabilit on Monday, and I think that's that's how
he develops that, and I think we're seeing that chemistry
(22:05):
with Tua in the trust develop here in real time.
Speaker 5 (22:08):
D S.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
Gridge had a nice touchdown grab from Zach Wilson on
a ball on the end line. He did a good
job on selling the route one way and breaking it
off the other way. I mentioned the Elik Washington catch.
I thought he was sharp all day, both as a
blocker and with his routes. I mentioned Tarik Black having
that catch over the top of Ethan Bonner. That was
a really nice play. Zach also had a touchdown pass.
Excuse me, goodness, gracious, those chicken tacos are rumblin. He
(22:32):
had a touchdown pass to Eric Azukama with some pretty
good zip on and Ee caught it sliding to the
ground in the back of the end zone. Storm Duck
had a really nice rep and this was one of
the many red zone plays I talked about or I'm
gonna talk about on Waddle where he pinned him to
the perimeter and erased the window for two to a
throw two. I'm sure a lot of you guys saw
the toront Armstead podcast again. He said that he thinks
(22:52):
storm Duck is one of, if not the most competitive
players on the field when he straps it on and
how much he craves those matchups against Reek Waddle, and
you can argue that he won't see a two sum
of receivers like those guys until week sixteen Jamar Chas
and t Higgins totally different players, but like as good
as those guys, and then the next week against the
(23:13):
Bucks with with Mike Evans and Chris Godwin, but like
the Commanders, maybe I don't think they're at that level.
Like the point is, he's playing against one of the
top wide receiver duos in practice every single day. I
think Jack Jones has had a really good camp, and
I thought today was his best day. It's like repetitive
at this point. But the way he fires back down
the stem out of a backpedal or firing out of
(23:34):
his zone is just different. It He just moves different.
He had a rep where he took away a corner
route playing that cloud coverage that we see a lot
around the league and for the Dolphins, and then felt
a route coming underneath his coverage area and jumped it
for what would have been a big collision on Pharaoh Brown.
In a live setting, he also was all over Taje
Washington on a deep ball, good mirror technique at the
(23:55):
line of scrimmage. Good job staying in Faz got his
head back around to the football and wanted it away
at the catch point and did that strap thing that
cornerbacks always do. I think we've got something here in
Jack Jones, between Storm, Jack and Hilton. I have confidence
in those three players. I have questions about the rest
of the guys, which, if you stay healthy, I suppose
(24:16):
you're okay. Would love to have Cater Kohu back in
that mix, but I you know, I suspect there's another
domino to fall at some point. From now until the
thirty three days before opening day, Derek McClendon had two
sacks in one period. He's had a nice camp so far.
In fact, let's go ahead and hear from Jalen phillips
on the depth of that edge group. As we've been
shouting out Grayson Murphy, Quentin Bell, Cam Good, Mo Kamara,
(24:39):
Derek McLendon on various podcasts. Here is Jalen Phillips on
that edge group.
Speaker 5 (24:43):
Yeah, I'm glad you asked about that, because you know
they've been balling, and you know, I think a lot
of them kind of going to the radar. Obviously, you guys
talk about you know, us a lot, but I think
you know, Q Bell is an absolute dog. It's one
of my best friends, and you know, he's, you know,
an incredible player, works his ass off, does all the
right thing. D Mac is a savage, you know, freaking
Grayson probably the best pure password forer on the team
(25:06):
in my opinion. And then who else we got? Mo
is a beast. You know, he's a powerful guy. You know,
leverage is insane. So I think that's everybody. But you know,
we are our outside linebacker room is extremely competitive. We're
extremely close, and you know, every one of them deserves
their flowers because, like I said, they worked their ass
off and they're extremely talented, so you know, yeah, they're
great people.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
One name he forgot was Cam Good, who's had a
very nice camp as well, and t Stead talked about
Cam as well on the show that he did where
it's like he just got injured the wrong time when
there was opportunity with JP and and Bradley down and
of course Cam gets his leg taken out in that
Buffalo finale back in twenty three. Just bad timing there,
Let's go ahead though, and stay with Jalen to connect
our very last practice note. Because I talked about Patrick
(25:47):
Paul and his ability to recognize the rush where the
extra guys come from, in the athletic ability it requires
to squeeze and then expand against those outside rushes. There
was another one today where he's The best way I
can describe this within the report rules is that his
range is so vast, like he can get inside against
power and then shift his weight and get the width
(26:07):
back outside and go cut off that speed rusher off
the edge.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
It is. It's fun to watch.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
I I have to watch myself with this stuff sometimes,
but I think we're seeing like an elite left tackle
develop in front of our eyes.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
That's you know.
Speaker 2 (26:23):
In speaking of Toront's podcast, he talked about something I
noticed earlier in camp, and this was like the ultimate
affirmation for me. Was he talked about Pat's ability to
absorb a loss of a rep and then quickly apply
the correction on the next rep. So I asked Jalen
Phillips about that. Here's JP on Patrick Paul. We'll play
a couple of soundbites here because this was pretty damn
good from Jalen Phillips on Patrick Paul.
Speaker 5 (26:43):
Yeah, I mean I think that that Patrick has huge upside.
He's annoying as hell to go against, I'll tell you
that much, because he is a talker, and you know,
I I during practice I hate him, But afterwards, you know,
when you're I can just the only thing I can
do is admire him and admire his physical presence, Admire
his skill set, admire his athleticism, admire his work ethic
(27:06):
and like you said, his ability to make adjustments and corrections.
You know, I think he's going to be a fabulous player,
and he already has made a big step in this league.
So yeah, Patrick's badass. So he knows how I feel
against about him. So just like I tell you, I
hate going against him, he knows I hate going against him.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
And confidence is such an important trait for anybody in
any sport, right, But for Patrick Paul to be talking
his noise against Bradley Chubb and Jalien Phillips and Chop
Robinson like probably pretty confident. Right. Here's Jalen Phillips on
the confidence of the Dolphins second year left tackle.
Speaker 5 (27:37):
He's confident in himself, which I think is a really
admirable trait, because at the end of the day, there's
so many things that can kind of knock your confidence.
And one thing that I've noticed with him is I've
never seen his confidence shake no matter what, even if
he's losing reps, and all he does every day is
get our pass rushers better, get himself better, and bring
other guys along.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
Let's hit one more break and then I have a
quick segment to finish up the show with talking about
that red zone own connectivity. That's next Draft Time podcast,
brought to you by Auto Nation. So I have teased
the Thursday show a little bit and we'll cover this
more in depth then. But I thought there was a
period of practice today on Tuesday, or a few of
(28:17):
them rather where we saw something really come to life
that I've been covering on the show all training camp long.
Lots of red zone work today, some of the end
of half, some of that end of game stuff, but
also just some middle of the quarter clock is not
a concern type of rep. And I lost count of
how many reps there were where there was a a
good clean pocket for the quarterback, but b they wound
(28:37):
up eating a sack. Whether it was the coverage throwing
it away or the play just gets blown dead by
the coaching staff. And I think back to two comments
that we've has made it multiple months apart. Back in
OTA's it was the idea of playing connected on the
back end, and regardless of who winds up being back there,
as long as they play to their rules and play connected,
we will play good defense. And the way that they
(28:58):
can span the middle of the field from both the
safety and linebacker positions, and with safeties who have corner
and coverage backgrounds, right, I mean, Mika Fitzpatrick was a
college star, which is a souped up slot position in
Nick Saban's defense. If Imla fun was a cornerback in college,
Ashton Davis played probably more in the nickel and that's
why I loved his tape out of col Then he
(29:19):
did it safety, and Dante Trader and Patrick mc morris
and Elijah Campbell to me major as like you know,
sub package big Nichols or dime backer type of players
that can come down in the middle of the field
and play that intermediate range and play the run from
depth and play and coverage in those areas, and then
all the linebackers and the stuff they can do with
their drops. I mean the athletic ability and proof of
(29:40):
concept that we have with Jordan Brooks and coverage last
year and his Seahawks tape which was what really sold
me on him last March, or Willie gave and why
he was linebacker won for Travis and his you know,
Chiefs tape and not the Saints tape which was poorly
misusage in terms of that defense. But this is a
guy that basically has the record for dropped as I've
(30:00):
ever seen in practice, and he joked about that when
we last talked to him. But some hyperbole they're talking
about the record, But the point is he's always in
the curl flat and hook zones, jumping in front of passes.
I mean, here's how a handful of the reps that
were one down there win. I had Jordan Brooks covering
Devon a chan On like a little choice and he
was all over it like no one can cover that
but Jordan Brooks cam. There was two straight throwaways from
(30:21):
Zach Wilson where you got reroutes from Jack Jones and
Mike Hilton, and those led to brackets with the safety
group to clog up those pictures. Like you're gonna have
to throw in double coverage to beat this. You know
a defense that plays like that when you can win
with pressure up front with four down linemen. Mc morris
pins e Chan to the perimeter on the sideline throw
that goes incomplete. Tua has to move off of his spot,
(30:42):
and he'd a solid five seconds on this particular rat
before he throws the ball incomplete to d s Gridge
with Cornell Armstrong back there. So they're finding ways to
span the coverage to create pressure and try to marry
those two things together. And I cannot wait to watch
them throw this out there against somebody else, to see
it in a game setting too, but more so when
(31:03):
the games count for real come September. But first they're
gonna keep stacking days and working towards Indianapolis, which is
now just thirty three days away. All right, back at
it tomorrow. We'll have a special Thursday edition podcast for
you guys. Then joint practices on Friday in Chicago, off
Saturday game recap on Sunday. There's not chicken taco again.
It's just about go time. But for now that's gonna
(31:24):
be my time. You all please be sure to subscribe
to the show, leave us a rating, leave us a review,
Follow me on social at winkel NFL. Check out the
YouTube channel for media availabilities, drivetime content and the return
of Dolphins HQ on August thirtieth, I Think is our
debut back on CBS four and August twenty eighth on
the YouTube channel, so don't miss that. And last butt
not least Miami Dolphins dot com until next time. Foo's Up,
(31:46):
Caroline Cameron and Willow Daddy come it on
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