October 3, 2025 • 38 mins
Dolphins captain linebacker Jordyn Brooks joins the podcast to talk about last week’s win and the mindset of the team heading to Carolina. Plus, Travis picks the Week 5 games, discusses the offense absent Tyreek Hill and welcomes Kyle Crabbs for the weekend in college football.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is Drivetime with Travis Wingfield.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
What is Up Dolphins? And welcome to the Draft Time Podcast.
I am your host, Travis Wingfield, And on today's show,
it is a Football Friday, a variety show. Dolphins linebacker
Jordan Brooks joins me on the podcast, will also pick
the week five games. I'm gonna take a look at
the Dolphins offense and the potential pivot and shift that
you started to see on Monday night that could be
(00:29):
informative going down the stretch the rest of the way.
I'll pose that question and the entire college football weekend
landscape to my guest on the Friday show, Kyle Krabs
all of that in a heck of a lot more
from the Baptist Hill Studios inside the Baptist Hill Training Complex.
This is the Draft Time Podcast. Ye, What's Up Dolphins?
Welcome back into the Baptist Hill Studios. Another episode of
(00:49):
Dolphins HQ. My guest today is Dolphins linebacker Jordan Brooks
and Jordan Big Dub on Monday Night.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
How did it feel to get that one?
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Oh good, It's kind of like a relief monkey of ours, uh,
to finally get a win this season?
Speaker 4 (01:01):
So that was an exciting win for us to get.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Do you feel like you can kind of build off
of the energy and the result of that game going
forward here.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Yeah, you want to hold on to that momentum and uh,
just that feeling of winning putting them putting the work
all week and getting the results that we wanted as
a team.
Speaker 4 (01:18):
So we want to hold on to that for sure.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
It seemed like in the pregame, and you know, ESPN
does a good job of giving us all the looks
of the pregame huddles and things like that, like there
was an immense amount of energy that translated into a
pretty spirited effort by you guys. Is that accurate to say?
And do you think that the energy pregame kind of
let into how the game went out played out on
Monday Night?
Speaker 4 (01:38):
I don't know. I feel like we always had an
energy every.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Game, and you know, sometimes you lose, sometimes you win.
I think everybody's always ready and excited to play, So
I wouldn't say that was the reason why we won.
And maybe it was a little bit added. You know,
this game, we're in the Black Jerseys Monday night prime time.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
So maybe you're a fan of the jersey. The new kids.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
Yeah, I like them.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
I like them a lot, a little bit.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
I always think the Dolphins color really pops against a
dark background, like the dark gray or black. Absolutely my
favorite color for the scheme here. So what do you
feel like you learned? Not just from that game, because
obviously the one and three start wasn't what this team
envision coming out of the gates, but you're in this
position now to kind of turn things back around after
the big win. What do you think this first month
of the season with adversity and then the big win
on Monday, what do you think you've learned from the
(02:21):
first four games so far.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
I'd say to just keep going. You can't predict what's
going to happen. You don't know what's gonna happen. You
have a good feeling about how a game is going
to turn out. But I say to just keep going,
keep apparing, and keep working the way that we do.
And that's the biggest thing that I'm learning for myself
and for us as a team, is that you have
(02:47):
to keep going.
Speaker 4 (02:48):
It's a long season.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Each game is different, different challenges present themselves, So you
got to keep going, got to keep believing in state.
Speaker 4 (02:55):
Even Keel through the highest end and lows.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Do you feel it's kind of a response ability of
yours among the other captains as a captain to kind
of portray that message and make sure the guys are
following that lead. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
Absolutely, Just as a man, I feel that way that
you have to be right there in the middle. Somehow,
some way got to be there in the middle. So
though we won the last game, that's over with now,
you know.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
What I mean. Got to get back to work and prepare.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
For this next team coming up, and so stay somewhere
in the middle, Stay calm, stay poised, continue to work.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
I know that you've always viewed yourself as, you know,
a leader of men and a person that can kind
of rally the troops. But this is your first year
as a captain in the NFL. What have you learned
about that type of leadership and being a person that
has to see on your chest the guys can come
to and ask your questions.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
Yeah, it comes with a lot of responsibility. You know,
everybody wants to be a captain til you start zering three,
you know what I mean. So it's good and bad
with it. You know, you carry that weight to lead
your team and you have to be the example how
you go about business through losing and through the winning,
and so uh for me, I accept and embrace that
(04:02):
role and base and embrace that challenge.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
It's kind of interesting because to me, a lot of
the capes in the defense yourself, you know, Zach Seeler,
I know Mink is not a captain, but he's a
big voice in this in this defensive, you know, part
of the team. You guys all kind of have this
measured approach where you're you're quiet leaders, right, And I
get the same sense from coach Weaver that he kind
of has that as well. But in his last press
conference we had Coach Weaver for he was spirited, man,
(04:24):
he was impassioned. He was you know, talking about the
like the urgency and just a kind of a different
tone from him. Did you guys get that in meetings
throughout the course of last week from Weave? And how
was that different from you know, previous Anthony Weaver meeting sessions.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
Yeah, I feel like coach Weave is the same. I
mean maybe it was a little bit different to you
guys and seeing him on in the press conference, but
whenever he gets fired up, he's fired up. You know,
he's also even killed God at the same time. So
meetings all week, the emphasis was turning the ball over.
I think we did a good job of that. It's
some other things that we still got to uh continue
(04:59):
to improve then. But he was on fire all week.
But I think that's how he always is, you know,
for us as a defense.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
You mentioned the turnovers. Three fumbles is obviously, you know,
a great thing to get for a defense. But I
think some fans sometimes think that fumbles can be maybe
a little bit like fluky. But I'm curious to hear
from someone whose job it is to, you know, put
a hand on the football. Just how intentional can you
be when it comes to trying to put hands on
ball and create takeaways that you know, create the chaos yourself.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
Yeah, it's kind of like a science to it, because
nobody's going to just hold the ball out like a
loaf of bread and let you take it out of
their hands. So it's opportunities in a game. The one
that Jack had is one we call like a like
a stumble fumble. Is when they're falling to the ground,
that ball is kind of exposed and that's the perfect
time to punch and he got the opportunity and seize
(05:45):
the moment right there for us. And then we had
another one thing on special teams and then the one
t that t Do got on the on the strip sack.
Anytime we we're talking to meetings about for the turnovers,
the strip sack is always the one that.
Speaker 4 (06:00):
We feel like is the easiest to get.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
You know, quarterbacks, I don't think they have great, you know,
ball protection skills, and so those are the ones you
really want to try to get out when you make
the sacks. So those are the things we emphasize and
ended up working out for us.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
On Jacks, I noticed that before the snap he wound
up like a mugged up backer like yourself, in that
a gap because of that unique formation the Jets ran.
Was that a unique situation for a cornerback to wind
up in that spot And just tell me about how
he was able to kind of, you know, wheel out
of there and make a big play in the game
like that.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
Jack was just playing football. We were in man coverage,
his man was in the backfield. He wasn't supposed to
be in a gap, but he was just playing football.
Ended up spinning out and making a great play for us.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
I was gonna say, I don't think I've seen a
cornerback or a player of that size in the egg
gap before.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
It was kind of unique to see.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
So something we talked with with you about on the
Under the Sun episode and just throughout the course of
the offseason was the bond of this team. And I'm curious,
you know, I know you've spoken highly about the way
you guys get together outside of you know, football and
meetings and things like that. How do you think that
contributes to where this team and you know they've already
shown it with one game and the win over the Jets,
but going forward to kind of you know, take on
this this oher and three start and then turn things around,
(07:07):
how much do you think the bond can help you
guys do that?
Speaker 3 (07:09):
Yeah, I mean, I think that's what the bond is about.
I mean, it's easy to be close when everything is good,
you know what I mean. But you build that bond
for moments that we've had early already, you know what
I mean. You build that bond for those moments, so
nobody goes scattering all over the place, pointing the fingers,
slandering gossipin about each other.
Speaker 4 (07:30):
He he got to play better, He's got to do this.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
You know, we're all in it together, and so that's
why the bond is built for adversity. You know, the
Bible says a brother is born in adversity, and I
really I'm living it, you know what I mean. And so,
like I said, first three weeks didn't go our way,
but the bond that we built over the summer OTA's
training camp has allowed us to stay together, and so
(07:53):
we just want to continue to keep that going.
Speaker 4 (07:56):
Winning.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
To kind of finish that thought and finish the interview
here with Jordan Brooks off linebacker. You know, last year,
a lot of the conversation was about how you guys
kind of clicked throun the mid season point with the
defense and kind of took off from there. Is there
maybe something similar you could hang your hat on terms
of the start defensively where you kind of feel, you know,
Buffalo game, second half, you guys got three consecutive stops,
Jets game, You get the takeaways and you get plenty
of stops and hold them to you know, I guess
(08:18):
it was thirteen points before that last you know, kind
of garbage time touchdown they scored do you feel like
you can kind of take from last year in terms
of how you guys built off of the early season
part of your success and continue to make it even
more so in the second half of the year.
Speaker 4 (08:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
Just I think defensively is just about finding our stride
and catching a rhythm. You know, the thing about last year,
it was last year, and last year was a total
different number of guys. I think it's only me and
Sealer were really returning from last year's defense, and so
we have a new group this year, and so it's about,
(08:54):
you know, the growing pains and learning and working through that.
But I think I think we're catching our stride. You know,
those turnovers help, man, It boosts the morale and the
energy of the defense and getting those three and outs
and getting stopped, and so we just want to continue
to get that going and you know, really turn the
page for us.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Great stuff.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Dolphins linebacker Jordan Brooks appreciate time today, man, thanks for
making your HU debut, and good luck on Sunday and
away he goes. If you want to watch the video
version of that interview, please do it. Please give us
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(09:35):
is free for you. So if you're a fan of
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how you can give back. All right, let's go ahead
and take a break right there, come back on the
other side. I did a bit of a deep dive
on the Dolphins offense and how it might change going forward.
That and the Week five picks coming up next Drive
Time podcast, brought to you by AutoNation. Week number five
(09:57):
in the National Football League is upawn a, or rather
already underway. We picked the Rams in the game last night.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
Did we win? Probably?
Speaker 2 (10:06):
The Niners are incredibly banged up. Niners over Rams was
the pick for Thursday night football. We've got Sunday Morning
football early once again, the first England game I believe, right,
Vikings and Browns, and then a full slate on Sunday
Sunday Night football and a Monday game in Kansas City
or maybe JACKSONVILLEM not sure which one.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
Let's go ahead and get into the week.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Five picks right now, forty seven, sixteen and one, possibly
forty eight and sixteen or possibly forty seven and seventeen,
maybe the second tie of the season. We'll see what happens.
Come tnf Rams over Niners. In that one, I'm taking
the Vikings over the Browns. Even with the change at
quarterback for the Browns, I think that's gonna be a
bit of a learning curve for them. I think Joe
Flacco was kind of holding things together and it wasn't
(10:48):
like it was that good to begin with. I don't
think it'll get better there with the rookie quarterback and
Carson Wentz and the Vikings defense will do enough to
make Carson Wentz a winner in their second game in Europe.
Back to back Dolphins over Panther. You knew about that
from the Thursday show. Feel pretty confident in that one.
I'll take the Colts over the Raiders. Part of me
wanted to take the Colts to have like their first
real letdown of the season, and that's kind of like
(11:11):
a lesson I suppose I need to figure out here
because sometimes I'll do this thing where I'll be down
on a team or maybe two up on a team
and not pivot off of it quicker, which I you know,
I guess there's some there's some honor in that, right
and being staying true to your predictions and being true
to what you saw all summer long. But sometimes teams
(11:32):
show up and they put up a different product and
you kind of have to adjust early. And for the Colts,
I think that might be the case here. As far
as the Raiders go, they lost Colt Miller, They're they're
one productive offensive lineman, and so I think between the Colts'
ability to put pressure on Gino Smith, who has not
played well this year, and Daniel Jones and all the
weapons they have in Indianapolis, I think they can stave
(11:52):
off the upset in this one. I'm taking the Saints
to get their first win of the season, maybe their
only win of the season. Quite frankly, with Spencer Ytler
under center, would be his first win as a starting quarterback.
I just don't think the Jackson Dark Giants, who kind
of got by the skin of their teeth last week
over the Chargers and a Chargers team that did not
play well, and a lot of that was because the Giants'
(12:13):
strength is their pass rush and the Chargers offensive line
was down obviously Joe alt Rashaun Slater as well as
Makai Beckton, and I don't think the Saints have the
same issues on the offensive line, so I think they
can find a way to stop Jackson Dart and just
scratch out enough points to get their one win right
here of the season over the Giants. I'm taking the
Cowboys over the Jets. I thought about a letdown here
(12:33):
for the Cowboys, but watching that Jets game against the Dolphins,
but also the preview content, the Jets.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
Are very, very bad.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
It's going to be a while before they find a
win in my opinion. Eagles over the Broncos. I think
the Broncos are the faultiest two to two in the
league right now. They basically have beaten two bad teams
and have not looked good and two losses. Will go
ahead and take the Eagles to get to five and
zero there. Depending on what happens with Lamar Jackson and
even if he is banged up and plays, I will
take the Ravens over the Texans, but if he doesn't play,
(13:03):
I reserve the right to switch that pick over to
the Houston Texans. I'm taking the Cardinals over the Titans.
Speaking about being wrong on a team, I thought the Titans.
I thought cam Ward would like rise all ships with
that team. They're really bad and he said so himself,
right keeping it a buck. They are not a good
football team. And the Cardinals, who have struggled as well,
get a third win here. They will have beaten what
(13:24):
the Saints? Who do they beat in Week two? I
forget it wasn't a good team, and and the Titans.
So there's lots of wins to be had out throw
on NFL schedules if you played enough bad teams.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
I'm taking the Bucks over the Seahawks.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
And this one makes me a little bit because the
Seahawks are pretty damn good and the Bucks are too.
But the Bucks have an injury list that would make
Dolphins fans like shiver like it is. Their entire roster
is banged up right now, and that's across the offensive line,
at the receiver position. On defense, they are I think
Baker Mayfield missed Wednesday's practice. I reserve the right in
that game if Baker doesn't play to change it to
the Seahawks. I'll take the Bucks over Seattle in Seattle
(13:56):
Lions over the Bengals. The Bengals are really, really, really
really bad. It's Joe Burrow held that entire operation together.
That might be a team that winds up with a
top three pick this year and can cash in because
you already have your quarterback. Maybe it's a trade option
there for the Bengals in a high draft pick this season.
Lines over Bengals. I'll take the Chargers over the Commanders.
I don't feel good about this one either way. I
(14:18):
think Jayden Daniels coming back might not be at one
hundred percent health, but if he does play, obviously gives
the Commanders a much better chance to win this game.
But I think the Chargers can find a way to
bounce back at home before coming out here to face
the Dolphins next week. I'll take the Bills over the
Patriots on Sunday Night Football. You know, I was so
apathetic to the loss to the Patriots back in Week
two because I kind of saw like certain riding on
(14:40):
the wall. But here I am looking back and find
them myself, like, well, if they beat the Panthers and
find a way to beat the Chargers, like we're gonna
look back at that Patriots game is like, damn it,
if Devon Achien just did not step out of bounds,
we could be back in this thing.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
But I digress.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
I think the whole point of that spiel there is
that the Bills are a vastly superior team to the Patriots,
and I think we'll see that on Sunday Night.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
Give me the Bills over the Patriots.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
And the Chiefs seem to have found their footing finally,
and the Jaguars you're not going to get three takeaways
every single game like they have so far. And good
for coach Campanelli. I'm excited for him. One of the
best dudes I've met as far as people in football.
And I think that run comes to an end rate
here and the Chiefs get a big win up. Three
primetime blowouts this week is my prediction here with the
(15:23):
Rams that's already in the books, the Bills and the
Chiefs blowing out their opponents on primetime is my prediction.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
Go ahead and cut the music.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Let just go ahead and talk about this deep dive
study I did on the Dolphins offense and how they
adjusted after the Tyreek Kill injury on Monday night, and
how it might inform us going forward into these upcoming
games that the final I mean the entire season, thirteen
games ahead of us, and I've sort of been soft
launching this idea here on the show. I have, I
should say, of the potential offensive pivot. And it goes
(15:52):
back to, you know, when Tyreek Hill was healthy and
part of this football team, but now without him, and
you know, the question all season was would he still
be with the Miami Dolphins. So you kind of had
to think about what that might look like if you,
you know, weren't part of the organization that knew he
was going to be around. And the question is what
does life look like after Tyreek Hill? You always had
to ask that question, right, And I can't tell you
(16:14):
how many national guys that I'm close with text me
throughout the summer and said they should just, you know,
when the some of the legal proceedings came up and
just all the various things surrounding Ten that seemed to
be part of the entire deal there, that they should
just wash their hands of Ten and do this the
potential pivot we're going to talk about from jump, and
we're about to find out if that was the right move.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
So I pulled the data here.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
I looked up all the plays from twelve, thirteen, twenty
one and twenty two personnel and balance it against the
eleven personnel packaging, which is the most pre eminent offensive
grouping in the National Football League.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
What do those numbers mean? Again?
Speaker 2 (16:49):
The first number is the number of running backs, the
second number is the number of tight ends, and then
the remainder is how many receivers you have on the field.
So twelve personnel is one back, two tight ends, two receivers.
You have five. That's the number you have for eligibles.
Eleven personnel, one back, one tight end, three receivers. So
be good on that, all right. Twenty one is difficult
(17:11):
because that was their base package, their bread and butter
with Tyreek because of alec Ingold, right, and they would
get to some fast twenty one which is two tailbacks,
not a full back, which which is a chan and
all of your a channgalen.
Speaker 4 (17:22):
Right.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
They have that in their groupings as well. But we've
also been a pretty heavy eleven personnel team this year
compared to previous years. I think the elevation of Malik
Washington certainly coincides with that, and that's where I think
you will start to borrow more from and exactly what
happened on Monday night football less receivers, more tight ends
and backs. So Week four, the Dolphins ran twenty one
(17:44):
plays from those four groupings, and quite frankly, they only
ran sorry twenty five plays. They ran one play from
twelve personnel. That was their only play of the entire season.
And it's essentially the idea behind this is getting two
receivers in the field, right, so it's two receivers versus
three receivers.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
Again, more and tight ends.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
And the split after Tyreek got hurt was twenty one
plays and sixteen of those were twenty one personnel, two backs,
one tight end. Five of those, which was at zero
prior to this game, was twenty two personnel, two backs
and two tight ends and one wide receiver. Now they
(18:21):
ran fifteen plays from eleven personnel prior to Tyreek's injury.
After it was eight, so that injury happened right after
the halftime break. That number gets cut in half, and
that leads to five more plays in a package you
haven't ran all season long, and five of those eight
plays in the second half were third and longs third
and six plus which is expected, right, because it's an
(18:42):
obvious passing situation, there's less opportunity for play action Prior
to that, they called eleven personnel on first, and ten
on third, and five on third, and four on second
and two. The point is sometimes down in distance necessitates
a certain grouping, but you can see the adjustment following
the loss of Tyreek Hill in this game. Immediately following
his injury, the next nine plays checked. That ten plays,
(19:05):
Nine of them were in either twenty one or twenty two.
The first play was twenty one, and then you had
four consecutive plays of twenty two personnel and then four
more of twenty one personnel. So there was always either
two backs or two tight ends on the field, and
in four instances there was two backs and two tight
ends on the field and those nine plays. The tenth
(19:25):
was an eleven personnel call. Those nine plays produced ten touchdowns.
I mean, that's literally your best ten play run of
the season, right. This team usually takes ten to twelve
plays to get down the field these days, and at
no other point in the season have you scored fourteen
points on nine plays. So they've called eighty six plays
this year from eleven personnel this season. Eight of those
were in the post Tyreek Hill world, which makes up
(19:45):
one eighth of the season one half of four games.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
There's eight halfs math.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
Seventy eight plays of eleven personnel were called prior to
that with Tyreek Hill on the field. From eleven personnel groupings,
we saw the only two twelve personnel play off the
season after the injury, but the biggest increase came from
that twenty one personnel grouping, and a lot of that
was with alec Ingold, who functions as an extra tight
end a lot of the times. So it's kind of
(20:11):
flexible in the sense of twelve personnel, Like rather than call,
you know, twelve and take alec Ingold off the field,
they just call twenty one and use alec in a
variety of those roles. Because I'm looking at his PFF
snap designation pre snap alignment chart here, and I think
these are a little bit skewed because some of these
snaps are like as an upman and kind of closer
to the line of scrimmage, but he's technically in the backfield.
(20:32):
But fifty three of his snaps of one hundred and
twenty snaps this year have come in the backfield, So
that gives you, you know, I've got twenty four snaps
as inline or a slot player where he's basically a
tight end, right, So he gets used in that way
as well. And a bunch of those snaps are in
special teams too. So if the net math that is
not mathing, the whole point is he spends about two
(20:52):
thirds of his time in the backfield, one third of
his time as an attached tight end.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
I think you're going to see a big increase in
that as well.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
So the best part about this though, and you might
be asking yourself, Travis, that's not a crazy difference Like
these are not earth shattering difference numbers. What I really
want to drill in on here is the four plays
from twenty two personnel, the exact alignment and the exact
showcase of what happened on those snaps. And look, this
maybe was part of the plan with Darren Waller and
the fold the entire time. We really can't know that
(21:21):
because we saw one half of football with Reek and Waller,
and quite frankly, Waller didn't play a whole lot in
that first half of that game. But guess what all
four of the plays from twenty two personnel came after
Tyreek Hill got hurt.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
Why is this important? Why would Denver do that?
Speaker 2 (21:35):
Why are we looking at four plays out of a
two hundred and forty play sample size this season? Whatever
the Dolphins number of plays ran this year is because
the way you can dictate the box count from that
grouping is it's apparent. The very first play is a
twenty two personnel grouping, but its Wattle and Waller are
aligned as receivers, they are detached from the formation, they
(21:58):
are out wide in the eligible receiving position, and the
Jets come out in a split safety.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
Look. That's two backs and two tight ends.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
That's what necessitates a eight man box, right, So they
have to respect though, from this grouping, not only Jalen
Waddle's ability to get vertical from one side of the formation,
but Darren Wallers too, because we haven't had that in
a tight end. Mike Gasicki was the closest thing. But
you know, damn right, You'll know damn right that Mike
(22:27):
Gasicki was never a vertical threat. He caught a couple
of thirty yard seam shots, but it was always contested.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
He had to take a great catch to get that.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
He's not separating from anybody, he's not pulling away from anybody,
he's not running backside fades.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
He just wasn't his game.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
I don't know what his game is, quite frankly, but
he wasn't gonna outrun anybody, and he's sure his hell
wasn't going to block anybody at the point of attack.
Whiler can do both and he's really good vertically. He's
enough of a blocker. He's a better blocker than Mike
Gasicki ever was. I can tell you that much. And
I think this is exactly why the pet project that
has been tan er'connor for three four years is a thing,
(23:00):
because the concept of a fast, vertical threat tight end
that can do anything in the blocking scheme is a
very tantalizing option from Mike McDaniel.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
That's what George Kittle is.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
I mean, we don't have George Kittle here, we don't
have anywhere near the blocker of that caliber, but it's
better than it has been with a vertical threat. You
didn't have either of those things in Durham Smyth. You
don't have it in Julian Hill. He's a good blocker.
John Oui Smith. As much as I loved him, he
wasn't that guy pal vertical or blocking. He got beat
across his face in the short yards blocking game every
damn time you called upon him to do it, and
his vertical passing prowess it was non existent. He was
(23:33):
a screen guy, check release and run people over. I
loved it, but it wasn't his game, So perhaps my
hypothesop My hypothesis wasn't proved entirely correct here. But the
result is that there's a new element of the offense,
an element that I think can reduce the number of
high stress snaps for TUA. Just go hand the ball
off in twelve personnel and twenty two personnel and then
(23:54):
run play action boots off of that, where it's a
layers and a flood concept where your reads are half
field and it's easy, no real decision making on those plays.
You can also improve your running game because duh, extra
hats in the box. Eight Chan's first run came from
twenty two personnel and we had a hat advantage in
the box and he outran the one man that was
kept cleaning the blocking scheme because that's what devon ah
Chan does and number three improves your ability to get
(24:18):
to looks if they want to bring that post safety
down and play at single high middlefield closed, it improves
your ability to get looks to take shots again. So
that's kind of everything you want, right And this might
just be a Darren Waller rant here, but in the
post Tyreek Hill world, they don't have an option to
go away from it, and I think that ultimately could
be a good thing. Last break right here, come back
(24:39):
on the other side, discuss this exact topic with Kyle Krabs,
as well as the weekend in college football. All that
next Drift Time podcast brought to you by AutoNation. Before
we get to my guest today, the Great Kyle Krabs,
I asked Matthew Arujo, Dolphins cornerbacks coach, a question about
Jalen Waddell. And I've tried to explain this myself on
(25:00):
the podcast for years and I feel like it works.
But I think that the way coach Rujo answered this
was better than I could ever do, so I wanted
to run this audio. I asked him, when you guys
practice against waddle back in the spring and training camp,
not so much in season, because that's not much of
an evaluation process. But in training camp, when you're going
up against Jalen Waddle and you watch that practice film
(25:20):
with the guys, what do you noticing and what do
you tell them the guys about how to defend Jalen
Waddle And what are the guys coming to you saying, like, man,
this guy is good at X y Z and it
makes my job of ABC difficult. Here's Matthew Rugo on
the expertise of Dolphins wide receiver Jalen Wattle.
Speaker 5 (25:35):
He has every level.
Speaker 6 (25:39):
Of separation possible, line of scrimmage, break area, of fade area,
like on the line of scrimmage is hip shift. He
does a great job before like, our whole goal is
to not kick open and not turn and run as
long as we can. We're just essentially trying to stay
in front of you as long as we can, and
he does an amazing job of forcing you to feel like, oh,
I got to turn a run.
Speaker 5 (25:58):
So he gets guys off their spot.
Speaker 6 (26:00):
And that's how for us we were able to get
so efficient at playing on the line of scrimmage because
you're playing against that every day, so he can win
there and create separation off the line.
Speaker 5 (26:08):
Then when he's in the break area.
Speaker 6 (26:10):
He does a great job being able to drop his weight,
get in and out of breaks, gets his eyes around,
can high point the football.
Speaker 5 (26:15):
He goes and he takes the ball out of the
air and then down the field.
Speaker 6 (26:18):
He's got great patience, late hands separation, so he has
every facet that you want a receiver to have.
Speaker 5 (26:25):
So for us going against that every day, you can't
beat it.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
Man, really enjoying this podcast, I will listen to this podcast.
Let's go ahead and get to my last part of
this episode, the last segment of the week.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
Kyle Crabs. It's a football.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Friday, and that means we have our weekly guest on
the show here from the Lockdown Dolphins podcast, Touchdown Miami
and so many other avenues of Dolphins draft and football content,
the great Kyle Crabs.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
Kyle, how are we feeling, man?
Speaker 2 (26:50):
How are we feeling about our first dub of the
season against the New York Jets.
Speaker 7 (26:53):
Wins are always nice, and they're even sweeter when they
come against the New York Jets.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
That is apt, my friend. All right, we'll see you
next time. Now, I'm just kidding. Let's go ahead, and
I want to start here with you with the thing
that led you, that led into your segment here where
I kind of did a deep dive on personnel groupings
and the reduction potentially of eleven personnel groupings and possibly
the increase in even more twenty one personnel groupings, but
(27:20):
also two tight end sets and the emergence of one
Julian Hill, and also Darren Waller with sixteen plays on
Monday Night making his presence known in the end zone,
but also just in various ways they were able to
line him up on those sixteen snaps. And you have
been telling me for a while now that there was
a way to change this offense absent of number ten,
(27:44):
in a beneficial way to the Miami Dolphins overall. And
some folks are going to say that Tyreek Hill's injury
ends the Dolphins season offensively in terms of any hope
for success, But I feel like you don't feel that way,
and I would like to hear your entire take on
the change in personnel groupings, how this offense can and
has to pivot in a post Tyreek Hill world.
Speaker 7 (28:04):
Yeah, I think it when you go back to kind
of the roots of this offense and what it is
initially branched off of and every iteration of it across
the NFL has a little different flavor of the stereotypical
Shanahan wide zone offense, but at its core and at
its root, the original versions of it had success because
(28:27):
there was the ability to run the ball with wide zone.
You had athleticism up front, You had a diverse group
of the f's in this playbook, which is your formation adjuster.
Sometimes it's a third receiver, sometimes it's a second tight end,
sometimes it's a second back, whether it's a running back
or fullback. Right, and you get under center and you
(28:48):
run wide zone, and you boot action off of that,
and you do your play action passing in that regard.
And you know, when Mike McDaniel first gets to Miami,
Tyreek Hill wasn't here. It was like this opportunistic trade
of one of the best players in football that becomes
available that you jump at, and you could feel kind
(29:09):
of the first year that Mike was here, it was
a Shanahannish style, like forty two forty four percent play action,
but a bunch of under center. And then in twenty three,
in twenty four, and in the first three weeks of
twenty twenty five, you're in the top six in the
NFL and shotgun rate as compared to being under center.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
So this is a.
Speaker 7 (29:34):
Change that's being forced upon you now because of Tyreek's injury,
and I think going back to the roots of what
it's designed to be, especially when you consider what you
felt like some of the personnel changes were for more
physical skill players that are ancillary players.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
And you have.
Speaker 7 (29:51):
Julian Hill who's been very good in the first month
of the season. That was like everybody's favorite pinata last
year and he's been very good in the first four
weeks of the season and consistent. So those kinds of developments,
I think you go back to your roots, and it's
gonna look and feel different than what it has because
(30:12):
it has to, because if you just try to do
the same stuff and say, well, Dods Washington's gonna take
some reps and Malik Washington's gonna take all of Tyreek
Hill's motions and maybe on our earlier neutral downs, we'll
put Nick Westbrookakina in for Tyrek and everything else will
stay the same. Yeah, that that plan is going to fail,
or it's very likely to fail. If you don't want
(30:32):
to speak in absolutes. So I think that's for me
where there's a blueprint for how you can make this happen.
And I do think you still have enough in the
way of skill players if you take the right schematic
approach and you have the right frame of mind and
the guys go out and execute it.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
One thing I wish we had seen just a little
bit more of a sample size of was the Waller
offense with Tyreek on the field, because I feel like
there was elements of that shift happening with Waller and
you know, for got to show up and score three
touchdowns on the game, like now he's on everybody's radar,
and throughout the course of that game, I just felt
his presence in the way teams defended us because of
the addition that he brings in terms of different, you know,
(31:09):
a unique skill set across this receiver's room, and maybe
we get to see that Cedric Wilson, you know, plan
play out here as he's been added back to the roster.
And that was something McDaniel spoke about when they added
Tyreek Hill, how Cedric was the first signing and then
Tyreek became available, so that kind of pivots their plan
from that original plan. So I'm just really curious see
what that looks like going forward here for this Dolphins offense.
Let's go ahead and pivot to the college game, and
(31:30):
I want to ask about the weekend slate. But first, Kyle,
I watched the last two games of Lenora's Sellers on tape.
And we've kind of done this every week here on
the show because to me, this this quarterback class is
a fun one if we get enough declarations.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
But with Lenora's Sellers watching him.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
On tape, I think I asked you this either last
week or a couple weeks ago about the idea of
traits versus like process and Sellers. Is he's everything you
want from a traits aspect. He's fast, he's big, he's physical,
he can run through defenders, he can throw the ball
from any platform with zip and velocity. He's got everything
you want from a quarterback traits perspective. And I'm seeing
(32:06):
this guy get more and more reps and starting to
play a little bit more on time and in rhythm.
And I'm curious where you come down on him and
the trajectory of his I guess you know, pro prospects.
Is he the clear cut number one quarterback in the
class for you, And what does he have to do
if not to put himself in that position.
Speaker 7 (32:22):
I wouldn't say that I put him in that stratosphere
yet I think from a traits perspective, he is absolutely
the best combination of physical abilities from a passing and
athleticism and size perspective of any of the quarterbacks that
are eligible for this year's class. It's body of work. Now,
(32:45):
I will say this for Sellers. He has over a
thousand career snaps offensively already at South Carolina, and he's
got probably eight more games, right Like, I don't want
to write South Carolina into the College Football playoff for
the SEC Championship game and start stacking a bunch of
extra games, but they played five regular season games. They'll
(33:07):
have presumably the other seven for Sellers if he's available
and on the field, and then a bowl game, and
that is a good opportunity for him to kind of
stack up the kind of reps where he I mean,
he he could very easily finish this season with sixteen
hundred snaps and it's not super robust, but it's enough
(33:32):
relative to some of the other guys that have been
super young and come out. I mean that that'd be
more than fifty percent more than Anthony Richardson had across
three full seats. He's already played more seasons on October
third of it as a red shirt sophomore than Anthony
Richardson played in his three seasons at four.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
And that's like the makeup profile too, right as far
as like physical traits, big physical, like strong arm, all
that stuff.
Speaker 7 (33:53):
That's exactly why I go to him as the name,
because he's got some of the same stuff to him
as a traits player. But Richardson had less than a
thousand career snaps at Florida in three seasons.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
I'll never forget texting you when he did like that
backflip coming out of the tunnel and like that's number
one pick in the draft down the road. That was
like his freshman season and he was the fourth pick
in the draft. But like to your point, didn't have
the reps to develop at the proper rate. Let's go
ahead and talk about this weekend, Kylie on college football,
and the Mariners play a Divisional round playoff game on Saturday,
So I am out on the college weekend. I'm going
(34:27):
to be watching all nine innings of Cal Rawley and
Julio Rodriguez, hopefully bringing down the either Cleveland Guardians or
Detroit Tigers. But I know you'll be locked down some
college football and solid most of my audience here. Tell
us what there is to look forward to in the
college football weekend with an eye on Dolphins potential draft
prospects in twenty six.
Speaker 7 (34:43):
Yeah, I'm going to go to a familiar program for
the Dolphins, the University of Alabama. We have a few
guys from that squad. It just a handful right to
get and they play. They play a Vanderbilt team that
has become an upstart program and actually upset Alabama last year.
So there's a little bit of a get back frame
of mind that probably exists here for for Alabama. And
(35:06):
you look up and down the roster and it's it's
a mix of potential with pedigree, and that's an impressive combination.
Whether you're looking for off ball linebacker like Deontay Lawson
who's been there for a while red shirt senior, or
you're looking for a cornerback as a big body guy
like Demani Jackson who transferred from USC and played at
(35:28):
matter Day one of the heavyweight high schools out there
in California. That's a six foot one, two hundred pound corner,
right That's that's a big body player to play out
in the perimeter. LT Overton is a senior transfer from
Texas A and M. Seems like every guy that goes
and plays defensive line of Texas A and M, they
transfer somewhere else and magically they're a lot more productive.
(35:48):
And Overton's kind of cut from that same cloth. Hes't
doesn't have big time numbers, but if you're looking for
like a base end type player, he's like six five
eight two eighty five, and you to have a guy
who could play outside shoulder and offensive tack to the
formational strength and attack double teams with the tight end
and really collapse and set the edge and turn runs
(36:10):
back inside. This is the kind of guy that's bred
to do that. So that's just on the defensive side
for album. And then you get to the offensive side
of the ball, and is Parker Brailsford is an interier
offensive lineman who's got a good looking future ahead of him.
I think Caden Proctor hasn't had the best season, but
he's the latest tackle from Alabama that's the supersized six
(36:32):
seven three forty three to fifty type of build. Ty Simpson,
their quarterback, obviously, doesn't have a lot of experience because
they just made the quarterback change this past year with
the transition in the draft, but he's a player who
had a strong performance last week for Alabama and they're
going up against Vanderbilt, and Vanderbilt with their draft prospects,
(36:56):
has a tight end that is going to be in
a conversation for a lot of people for tight end one.
His name's Eli Stowers. He's a fifth year player New
Mexico State and Texas A and M six four two
thirty five. So it was a nice receiving predigree. Last
year he had almost six hundred and fifty yards and
five touchdowns for Vanderbilt.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
So that's something.
Speaker 7 (37:17):
A little something on the trenches, a little something on defense,
a little something in the secondary, a little something at
a tight end position that's been really under the microscope
for Dolphins with questions about long term solutions, and that's
all in one game.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
So that's where my eyes would start. YEA.
Speaker 2 (37:31):
We discussed doing Miami Florida State going into the show
before I hit record, and we were like, we've covered
Miami and Florida State a couple of times already this season.
I think the Alabama Florida State game got coverage from
us on our first episode this year with Kyle. So, Kyle,
appreciate you giving us a probably secondary screen here for
the folks in South Florida alongside that Miami and Florida
State game. But yeah, there's always always things to watch.
(37:52):
And again go Maher's in the playoffs. Hopefully they bring
this thing home for us. Kyle, we appreciate your time.
He's at Kyle crabs on Social host and the Locked
On Dolphins podcast, Locked on NFL Scouting, author of Touchdown
Miami and does a bunch of great work NFL analysts
for a to Z Sports. Kyle, I know you're gonna say, man,
thank you for your time.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
Appreciate you.
Speaker 7 (38:08):
Thanks Travis.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
All Right, there we go long Friday episode here of
the Drive Time podcast. We'll see you guys on Sunday
for the Panthers recap. In the meantime, checkout Dolphins HQ,
check out the YouTube channel in general, follow me on
social at Wingfold NFL the team at Miami Dolphins. Go
ahead and check out Miami Dolphins dot Com as well.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
Until next time, Finn's Up.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
Meet the Panthers, Caroline Cameron Willow, Daddy's Coming Home.
This is Drivetime with Travis Wingfield.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
What is Up Dolphins? And welcome to the Draft Time Podcast.
I am your host, Travis Wingfield, And on today's show,
it is a Football Friday, a variety show. Dolphins linebacker
Jordan Brooks joins me on the podcast, will also pick
the week five games. I'm gonna take a look at
the Dolphins offense and the potential pivot and shift that
you started to see on Monday night that could be
(00:29):
informative going down the stretch the rest of the way.
I'll pose that question and the entire college football weekend
landscape to my guest on the Friday show, Kyle Krabs
all of that in a heck of a lot more
from the Baptist Hill Studios inside the Baptist Hill Training Complex.
This is the Draft Time Podcast. Ye, What's Up Dolphins?
Welcome back into the Baptist Hill Studios. Another episode of
(00:49):
Dolphins HQ. My guest today is Dolphins linebacker Jordan Brooks
and Jordan Big Dub on Monday Night.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
How did it feel to get that one?
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Oh good, It's kind of like a relief monkey of ours, uh,
to finally get a win this season?
Speaker 4 (01:01):
So that was an exciting win for us to get.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Do you feel like you can kind of build off
of the energy and the result of that game going
forward here.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
Yeah, you want to hold on to that momentum and uh,
just that feeling of winning putting them putting the work
all week and getting the results that we wanted as
a team.
Speaker 4 (01:18):
So we want to hold on to that for sure.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
It seemed like in the pregame, and you know, ESPN
does a good job of giving us all the looks
of the pregame huddles and things like that, like there
was an immense amount of energy that translated into a
pretty spirited effort by you guys. Is that accurate to say?
And do you think that the energy pregame kind of
let into how the game went out played out on
Monday Night?
Speaker 4 (01:38):
I don't know. I feel like we always had an
energy every.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Game, and you know, sometimes you lose, sometimes you win.
I think everybody's always ready and excited to play, So
I wouldn't say that was the reason why we won.
And maybe it was a little bit added. You know,
this game, we're in the Black Jerseys Monday night prime time.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
So maybe you're a fan of the jersey. The new kids.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
Yeah, I like them.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
I like them a lot, a little bit.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
I always think the Dolphins color really pops against a
dark background, like the dark gray or black. Absolutely my
favorite color for the scheme here. So what do you
feel like you learned? Not just from that game, because
obviously the one and three start wasn't what this team
envision coming out of the gates, but you're in this
position now to kind of turn things back around after
the big win. What do you think this first month
of the season with adversity and then the big win
on Monday, what do you think you've learned from the
(02:21):
first four games so far.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
I'd say to just keep going. You can't predict what's
going to happen. You don't know what's gonna happen. You
have a good feeling about how a game is going
to turn out. But I say to just keep going,
keep apparing, and keep working the way that we do.
And that's the biggest thing that I'm learning for myself
and for us as a team, is that you have
(02:47):
to keep going.
Speaker 4 (02:48):
It's a long season.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Each game is different, different challenges present themselves, So you
got to keep going, got to keep believing in state.
Speaker 4 (02:55):
Even Keel through the highest end and lows.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Do you feel it's kind of a response ability of
yours among the other captains as a captain to kind
of portray that message and make sure the guys are
following that lead. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
Absolutely, Just as a man, I feel that way that
you have to be right there in the middle. Somehow,
some way got to be there in the middle. So
though we won the last game, that's over with now,
you know.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
What I mean. Got to get back to work and prepare.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
For this next team coming up, and so stay somewhere
in the middle, Stay calm, stay poised, continue to work.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
I know that you've always viewed yourself as, you know,
a leader of men and a person that can kind
of rally the troops. But this is your first year
as a captain in the NFL. What have you learned
about that type of leadership and being a person that
has to see on your chest the guys can come
to and ask your questions.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
Yeah, it comes with a lot of responsibility. You know,
everybody wants to be a captain til you start zering three,
you know what I mean. So it's good and bad
with it. You know, you carry that weight to lead
your team and you have to be the example how
you go about business through losing and through the winning,
and so uh for me, I accept and embrace that
(04:02):
role and base and embrace that challenge.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
It's kind of interesting because to me, a lot of
the capes in the defense yourself, you know, Zach Seeler,
I know Mink is not a captain, but he's a
big voice in this in this defensive, you know, part
of the team. You guys all kind of have this
measured approach where you're you're quiet leaders, right, And I
get the same sense from coach Weaver that he kind
of has that as well. But in his last press
conference we had Coach Weaver for he was spirited, man,
(04:24):
he was impassioned. He was you know, talking about the
like the urgency and just a kind of a different
tone from him. Did you guys get that in meetings
throughout the course of last week from Weave? And how
was that different from you know, previous Anthony Weaver meeting sessions.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
Yeah, I feel like coach Weave is the same. I
mean maybe it was a little bit different to you
guys and seeing him on in the press conference, but
whenever he gets fired up, he's fired up. You know,
he's also even killed God at the same time. So
meetings all week, the emphasis was turning the ball over.
I think we did a good job of that. It's
some other things that we still got to uh continue
(04:59):
to improve then. But he was on fire all week.
But I think that's how he always is, you know,
for us as a defense.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
You mentioned the turnovers. Three fumbles is obviously, you know,
a great thing to get for a defense. But I
think some fans sometimes think that fumbles can be maybe
a little bit like fluky. But I'm curious to hear
from someone whose job it is to, you know, put
a hand on the football. Just how intentional can you
be when it comes to trying to put hands on
ball and create takeaways that you know, create the chaos yourself.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
Yeah, it's kind of like a science to it, because
nobody's going to just hold the ball out like a
loaf of bread and let you take it out of
their hands. So it's opportunities in a game. The one
that Jack had is one we call like a like
a stumble fumble. Is when they're falling to the ground,
that ball is kind of exposed and that's the perfect
time to punch and he got the opportunity and seize
(05:45):
the moment right there for us. And then we had
another one thing on special teams and then the one
t that t Do got on the on the strip sack.
Anytime we we're talking to meetings about for the turnovers,
the strip sack is always the one that.
Speaker 4 (06:00):
We feel like is the easiest to get.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
You know, quarterbacks, I don't think they have great, you know,
ball protection skills, and so those are the ones you
really want to try to get out when you make
the sacks. So those are the things we emphasize and
ended up working out for us.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
On Jacks, I noticed that before the snap he wound
up like a mugged up backer like yourself, in that
a gap because of that unique formation the Jets ran.
Was that a unique situation for a cornerback to wind
up in that spot And just tell me about how
he was able to kind of, you know, wheel out
of there and make a big play in the game
like that.
Speaker 3 (06:29):
Jack was just playing football. We were in man coverage,
his man was in the backfield. He wasn't supposed to
be in a gap, but he was just playing football.
Ended up spinning out and making a great play for us.
Speaker 2 (06:41):
I was gonna say, I don't think I've seen a
cornerback or a player of that size in the egg
gap before.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
It was kind of unique to see.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
So something we talked with with you about on the
Under the Sun episode and just throughout the course of
the offseason was the bond of this team. And I'm curious,
you know, I know you've spoken highly about the way
you guys get together outside of you know, football and
meetings and things like that. How do you think that
contributes to where this team and you know they've already
shown it with one game and the win over the Jets,
but going forward to kind of you know, take on
this this oher and three start and then turn things around,
(07:07):
how much do you think the bond can help you
guys do that?
Speaker 3 (07:09):
Yeah, I mean, I think that's what the bond is about.
I mean, it's easy to be close when everything is good,
you know what I mean. But you build that bond
for moments that we've had early already, you know what
I mean. You build that bond for those moments, so
nobody goes scattering all over the place, pointing the fingers,
slandering gossipin about each other.
Speaker 4 (07:30):
He he got to play better, He's got to do this.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
You know, we're all in it together, and so that's
why the bond is built for adversity. You know, the
Bible says a brother is born in adversity, and I
really I'm living it, you know what I mean. And so,
like I said, first three weeks didn't go our way,
but the bond that we built over the summer OTA's
training camp has allowed us to stay together, and so
(07:53):
we just want to continue to keep that going.
Speaker 4 (07:56):
Winning.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
To kind of finish that thought and finish the interview
here with Jordan Brooks off linebacker. You know, last year,
a lot of the conversation was about how you guys
kind of clicked throun the mid season point with the
defense and kind of took off from there. Is there
maybe something similar you could hang your hat on terms
of the start defensively where you kind of feel, you know,
Buffalo game, second half, you guys got three consecutive stops,
Jets game, You get the takeaways and you get plenty
of stops and hold them to you know, I guess
(08:18):
it was thirteen points before that last you know, kind
of garbage time touchdown they scored do you feel like
you can kind of take from last year in terms
of how you guys built off of the early season
part of your success and continue to make it even
more so in the second half of the year.
Speaker 4 (08:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:32):
Just I think defensively is just about finding our stride
and catching a rhythm. You know, the thing about last year,
it was last year, and last year was a total
different number of guys. I think it's only me and
Sealer were really returning from last year's defense, and so
we have a new group this year, and so it's about,
(08:54):
you know, the growing pains and learning and working through that.
But I think I think we're catching our stride. You know,
those turnovers help, man, It boosts the morale and the
energy of the defense and getting those three and outs
and getting stopped, and so we just want to continue
to get that going and you know, really turn the
page for us.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
Great stuff.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Dolphins linebacker Jordan Brooks appreciate time today, man, thanks for
making your HU debut, and good luck on Sunday and
away he goes. If you want to watch the video
version of that interview, please do it. Please give us
the eyeballs on Dolphins HQ. We like the numbers to
go pumped up. So if you're a diehard fan, we
don't ask for much, right, watch the content, leave us
a five star rating and leave us a comment. That's
all we need from you. That's all we ask. Everything
(09:35):
is free for you. So if you're a fan of
the show on YouTube or here on the podcast, that's
how you can give back. All right, let's go ahead
and take a break right there, come back on the
other side. I did a bit of a deep dive
on the Dolphins offense and how it might change going forward.
That and the Week five picks coming up next Drive
Time podcast, brought to you by AutoNation. Week number five
(09:57):
in the National Football League is upawn a, or rather
already underway. We picked the Rams in the game last night.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
Did we win? Probably?
Speaker 2 (10:06):
The Niners are incredibly banged up. Niners over Rams was
the pick for Thursday night football. We've got Sunday Morning
football early once again, the first England game I believe, right,
Vikings and Browns, and then a full slate on Sunday
Sunday Night football and a Monday game in Kansas City
or maybe JACKSONVILLEM not sure which one.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
Let's go ahead and get into the week.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Five picks right now, forty seven, sixteen and one, possibly
forty eight and sixteen or possibly forty seven and seventeen,
maybe the second tie of the season. We'll see what happens.
Come tnf Rams over Niners. In that one, I'm taking
the Vikings over the Browns. Even with the change at
quarterback for the Browns, I think that's gonna be a
bit of a learning curve for them. I think Joe
Flacco was kind of holding things together and it wasn't
(10:48):
like it was that good to begin with. I don't
think it'll get better there with the rookie quarterback and
Carson Wentz and the Vikings defense will do enough to
make Carson Wentz a winner in their second game in Europe.
Back to back Dolphins over Panther. You knew about that
from the Thursday show. Feel pretty confident in that one.
I'll take the Colts over the Raiders. Part of me
wanted to take the Colts to have like their first
real letdown of the season, and that's kind of like
(11:11):
a lesson I suppose I need to figure out here
because sometimes I'll do this thing where I'll be down
on a team or maybe two up on a team
and not pivot off of it quicker, which I you know,
I guess there's some there's some honor in that, right
and being staying true to your predictions and being true
to what you saw all summer long. But sometimes teams
(11:32):
show up and they put up a different product and
you kind of have to adjust early. And for the Colts,
I think that might be the case here. As far
as the Raiders go, they lost Colt Miller, They're they're
one productive offensive lineman, and so I think between the Colts'
ability to put pressure on Gino Smith, who has not
played well this year, and Daniel Jones and all the
weapons they have in Indianapolis, I think they can stave
(11:52):
off the upset in this one. I'm taking the Saints
to get their first win of the season, maybe their
only win of the season. Quite frankly, with Spencer Ytler
under center, would be his first win as a starting quarterback.
I just don't think the Jackson Dark Giants, who kind
of got by the skin of their teeth last week
over the Chargers and a Chargers team that did not
play well, and a lot of that was because the Giants'
(12:13):
strength is their pass rush and the Chargers offensive line
was down obviously Joe alt Rashaun Slater as well as
Makai Beckton, and I don't think the Saints have the
same issues on the offensive line, so I think they
can find a way to stop Jackson Dart and just
scratch out enough points to get their one win right
here of the season over the Giants. I'm taking the
Cowboys over the Jets. I thought about a letdown here
(12:33):
for the Cowboys, but watching that Jets game against the Dolphins,
but also the preview content, the Jets.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
Are very, very bad.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
It's going to be a while before they find a
win in my opinion. Eagles over the Broncos. I think
the Broncos are the faultiest two to two in the
league right now. They basically have beaten two bad teams
and have not looked good and two losses. Will go
ahead and take the Eagles to get to five and
zero there. Depending on what happens with Lamar Jackson and
even if he is banged up and plays, I will
take the Ravens over the Texans, but if he doesn't play,
(13:03):
I reserve the right to switch that pick over to
the Houston Texans. I'm taking the Cardinals over the Titans.
Speaking about being wrong on a team, I thought the Titans.
I thought cam Ward would like rise all ships with
that team. They're really bad and he said so himself,
right keeping it a buck. They are not a good
football team. And the Cardinals, who have struggled as well,
get a third win here. They will have beaten what
(13:24):
the Saints? Who do they beat in Week two? I
forget it wasn't a good team, and and the Titans.
So there's lots of wins to be had out throw
on NFL schedules if you played enough bad teams.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
I'm taking the Bucks over the Seahawks.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
And this one makes me a little bit because the
Seahawks are pretty damn good and the Bucks are too.
But the Bucks have an injury list that would make
Dolphins fans like shiver like it is. Their entire roster
is banged up right now, and that's across the offensive line,
at the receiver position. On defense, they are I think
Baker Mayfield missed Wednesday's practice. I reserve the right in
that game if Baker doesn't play to change it to
the Seahawks. I'll take the Bucks over Seattle in Seattle
(13:56):
Lions over the Bengals. The Bengals are really, really, really
really bad. It's Joe Burrow held that entire operation together.
That might be a team that winds up with a
top three pick this year and can cash in because
you already have your quarterback. Maybe it's a trade option
there for the Bengals in a high draft pick this season.
Lines over Bengals. I'll take the Chargers over the Commanders.
I don't feel good about this one either way. I
(14:18):
think Jayden Daniels coming back might not be at one
hundred percent health, but if he does play, obviously gives
the Commanders a much better chance to win this game.
But I think the Chargers can find a way to
bounce back at home before coming out here to face
the Dolphins next week. I'll take the Bills over the
Patriots on Sunday Night Football. You know, I was so
apathetic to the loss to the Patriots back in Week
two because I kind of saw like certain riding on
(14:40):
the wall. But here I am looking back and find
them myself, like, well, if they beat the Panthers and
find a way to beat the Chargers, like we're gonna
look back at that Patriots game is like, damn it,
if Devon Achien just did not step out of bounds,
we could be back in this thing.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
But I digress.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
I think the whole point of that spiel there is
that the Bills are a vastly superior team to the Patriots,
and I think we'll see that on Sunday Night.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
Give me the Bills over the Patriots.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
And the Chiefs seem to have found their footing finally,
and the Jaguars you're not going to get three takeaways
every single game like they have so far. And good
for coach Campanelli. I'm excited for him. One of the
best dudes I've met as far as people in football.
And I think that run comes to an end rate
here and the Chiefs get a big win up. Three
primetime blowouts this week is my prediction here with the
(15:23):
Rams that's already in the books, the Bills and the
Chiefs blowing out their opponents on primetime is my prediction.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
Go ahead and cut the music.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Let just go ahead and talk about this deep dive
study I did on the Dolphins offense and how they
adjusted after the Tyreek Kill injury on Monday night, and
how it might inform us going forward into these upcoming
games that the final I mean the entire season, thirteen
games ahead of us, and I've sort of been soft
launching this idea here on the show. I have, I
should say, of the potential offensive pivot. And it goes
(15:52):
back to, you know, when Tyreek Hill was healthy and
part of this football team, but now without him, and
you know, the question all season was would he still
be with the Miami Dolphins. So you kind of had
to think about what that might look like if you,
you know, weren't part of the organization that knew he
was going to be around. And the question is what
does life look like after Tyreek Hill? You always had
to ask that question, right, And I can't tell you
(16:14):
how many national guys that I'm close with text me
throughout the summer and said they should just, you know,
when the some of the legal proceedings came up and
just all the various things surrounding Ten that seemed to
be part of the entire deal there, that they should
just wash their hands of Ten and do this the
potential pivot we're going to talk about from jump, and
we're about to find out if that was the right move.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
So I pulled the data here.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
I looked up all the plays from twelve, thirteen, twenty
one and twenty two personnel and balance it against the
eleven personnel packaging, which is the most pre eminent offensive
grouping in the National Football League.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
What do those numbers mean? Again?
Speaker 2 (16:49):
The first number is the number of running backs, the
second number is the number of tight ends, and then
the remainder is how many receivers you have on the field.
So twelve personnel is one back, two tight ends, two receivers.
You have five. That's the number you have for eligibles.
Eleven personnel, one back, one tight end, three receivers. So
be good on that, all right. Twenty one is difficult
(17:11):
because that was their base package, their bread and butter
with Tyreek because of alec Ingold, right, and they would
get to some fast twenty one which is two tailbacks,
not a full back, which which is a chan and
all of your a channgalen.
Speaker 4 (17:22):
Right.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
They have that in their groupings as well. But we've
also been a pretty heavy eleven personnel team this year
compared to previous years. I think the elevation of Malik
Washington certainly coincides with that, and that's where I think
you will start to borrow more from and exactly what
happened on Monday night football less receivers, more tight ends
and backs. So Week four, the Dolphins ran twenty one
(17:44):
plays from those four groupings, and quite frankly, they only
ran sorry twenty five plays. They ran one play from
twelve personnel. That was their only play of the entire season.
And it's essentially the idea behind this is getting two
receivers in the field, right, so it's two receivers versus
three receivers.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
Again, more and tight ends.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
And the split after Tyreek got hurt was twenty one
plays and sixteen of those were twenty one personnel, two backs,
one tight end. Five of those, which was at zero
prior to this game, was twenty two personnel, two backs
and two tight ends and one wide receiver. Now they
(18:21):
ran fifteen plays from eleven personnel prior to Tyreek's injury.
After it was eight, so that injury happened right after
the halftime break. That number gets cut in half, and
that leads to five more plays in a package you
haven't ran all season long, and five of those eight
plays in the second half were third and longs third
and six plus which is expected, right, because it's an
(18:42):
obvious passing situation, there's less opportunity for play action Prior
to that, they called eleven personnel on first, and ten
on third, and five on third, and four on second
and two. The point is sometimes down in distance necessitates
a certain grouping, but you can see the adjustment following
the loss of Tyreek Hill in this game. Immediately following
his injury, the next nine plays checked. That ten plays,
(19:05):
Nine of them were in either twenty one or twenty two.
The first play was twenty one, and then you had
four consecutive plays of twenty two personnel and then four
more of twenty one personnel. So there was always either
two backs or two tight ends on the field, and
in four instances there was two backs and two tight
ends on the field and those nine plays. The tenth
(19:25):
was an eleven personnel call. Those nine plays produced ten touchdowns.
I mean, that's literally your best ten play run of
the season, right. This team usually takes ten to twelve
plays to get down the field these days, and at
no other point in the season have you scored fourteen
points on nine plays. So they've called eighty six plays
this year from eleven personnel this season. Eight of those
were in the post Tyreek Hill world, which makes up
(19:45):
one eighth of the season one half of four games.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
There's eight halfs math.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
Seventy eight plays of eleven personnel were called prior to
that with Tyreek Hill on the field. From eleven personnel groupings,
we saw the only two twelve personnel play off the
season after the injury, but the biggest increase came from
that twenty one personnel grouping, and a lot of that
was with alec Ingold, who functions as an extra tight
end a lot of the times. So it's kind of
(20:11):
flexible in the sense of twelve personnel, Like rather than call,
you know, twelve and take alec Ingold off the field,
they just call twenty one and use alec in a
variety of those roles. Because I'm looking at his PFF
snap designation pre snap alignment chart here, and I think
these are a little bit skewed because some of these
snaps are like as an upman and kind of closer
to the line of scrimmage, but he's technically in the backfield.
(20:32):
But fifty three of his snaps of one hundred and
twenty snaps this year have come in the backfield, So
that gives you, you know, I've got twenty four snaps
as inline or a slot player where he's basically a
tight end, right, So he gets used in that way
as well. And a bunch of those snaps are in
special teams too. So if the net math that is
not mathing, the whole point is he spends about two
(20:52):
thirds of his time in the backfield, one third of
his time as an attached tight end.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
I think you're going to see a big increase in
that as well.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
So the best part about this though, and you might
be asking yourself, Travis, that's not a crazy difference Like
these are not earth shattering difference numbers. What I really
want to drill in on here is the four plays
from twenty two personnel, the exact alignment and the exact
showcase of what happened on those snaps. And look, this
maybe was part of the plan with Darren Waller and
the fold the entire time. We really can't know that
(21:21):
because we saw one half of football with Reek and Waller,
and quite frankly, Waller didn't play a whole lot in
that first half of that game. But guess what all
four of the plays from twenty two personnel came after
Tyreek Hill got hurt.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
Why is this important? Why would Denver do that?
Speaker 2 (21:35):
Why are we looking at four plays out of a
two hundred and forty play sample size this season? Whatever
the Dolphins number of plays ran this year is because
the way you can dictate the box count from that
grouping is it's apparent. The very first play is a
twenty two personnel grouping, but its Wattle and Waller are
aligned as receivers, they are detached from the formation, they
(21:58):
are out wide in the eligible receiving position, and the
Jets come out in a split safety.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
Look. That's two backs and two tight ends.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
That's what necessitates a eight man box, right, So they
have to respect though, from this grouping, not only Jalen
Waddle's ability to get vertical from one side of the formation,
but Darren Wallers too, because we haven't had that in
a tight end. Mike Gasicki was the closest thing. But
you know, damn right, You'll know damn right that Mike
(22:27):
Gasicki was never a vertical threat. He caught a couple
of thirty yard seam shots, but it was always contested.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
He had to take a great catch to get that.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
He's not separating from anybody, he's not pulling away from anybody,
he's not running backside fades.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
He just wasn't his game.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
I don't know what his game is, quite frankly, but
he wasn't gonna outrun anybody, and he's sure his hell
wasn't going to block anybody at the point of attack.
Whiler can do both and he's really good vertically. He's
enough of a blocker. He's a better blocker than Mike
Gasicki ever was. I can tell you that much. And
I think this is exactly why the pet project that
has been tan er'connor for three four years is a thing,
(23:00):
because the concept of a fast, vertical threat tight end
that can do anything in the blocking scheme is a
very tantalizing option from Mike McDaniel.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
That's what George Kittle is.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
I mean, we don't have George Kittle here, we don't
have anywhere near the blocker of that caliber, but it's
better than it has been with a vertical threat. You
didn't have either of those things in Durham Smyth. You
don't have it in Julian Hill. He's a good blocker.
John Oui Smith. As much as I loved him, he
wasn't that guy pal vertical or blocking. He got beat
across his face in the short yards blocking game every
damn time you called upon him to do it, and
his vertical passing prowess it was non existent. He was
(23:33):
a screen guy, check release and run people over. I
loved it, but it wasn't his game, So perhaps my
hypothesop My hypothesis wasn't proved entirely correct here. But the
result is that there's a new element of the offense,
an element that I think can reduce the number of
high stress snaps for TUA. Just go hand the ball
off in twelve personnel and twenty two personnel and then
(23:54):
run play action boots off of that, where it's a
layers and a flood concept where your reads are half
field and it's easy, no real decision making on those plays.
You can also improve your running game because duh, extra
hats in the box. Eight Chan's first run came from
twenty two personnel and we had a hat advantage in
the box and he outran the one man that was
kept cleaning the blocking scheme because that's what devon ah
Chan does and number three improves your ability to get
(24:18):
to looks if they want to bring that post safety
down and play at single high middlefield closed, it improves
your ability to get looks to take shots again. So
that's kind of everything you want, right And this might
just be a Darren Waller rant here, but in the
post Tyreek Hill world, they don't have an option to
go away from it, and I think that ultimately could
be a good thing. Last break right here, come back
(24:39):
on the other side, discuss this exact topic with Kyle Krabs,
as well as the weekend in college football. All that
next Drift Time podcast brought to you by AutoNation. Before
we get to my guest today, the Great Kyle Krabs,
I asked Matthew Arujo, Dolphins cornerbacks coach, a question about
Jalen Waddell. And I've tried to explain this myself on
(25:00):
the podcast for years and I feel like it works.
But I think that the way coach Rujo answered this
was better than I could ever do, so I wanted
to run this audio. I asked him, when you guys
practice against waddle back in the spring and training camp,
not so much in season, because that's not much of
an evaluation process. But in training camp, when you're going
up against Jalen Waddle and you watch that practice film
(25:20):
with the guys, what do you noticing and what do
you tell them the guys about how to defend Jalen
Waddle And what are the guys coming to you saying, like, man,
this guy is good at X y Z and it
makes my job of ABC difficult. Here's Matthew Rugo on
the expertise of Dolphins wide receiver Jalen Wattle.
Speaker 5 (25:35):
He has every level.
Speaker 6 (25:39):
Of separation possible, line of scrimmage, break area, of fade area,
like on the line of scrimmage is hip shift. He
does a great job before like, our whole goal is
to not kick open and not turn and run as
long as we can. We're just essentially trying to stay
in front of you as long as we can, and
he does an amazing job of forcing you to feel like, oh,
I got to turn a run.
Speaker 5 (25:58):
So he gets guys off their spot.
Speaker 6 (26:00):
And that's how for us we were able to get
so efficient at playing on the line of scrimmage because
you're playing against that every day, so he can win
there and create separation off the line.
Speaker 5 (26:08):
Then when he's in the break area.
Speaker 6 (26:10):
He does a great job being able to drop his weight,
get in and out of breaks, gets his eyes around,
can high point the football.
Speaker 5 (26:15):
He goes and he takes the ball out of the
air and then down the field.
Speaker 6 (26:18):
He's got great patience, late hands separation, so he has
every facet that you want a receiver to have.
Speaker 5 (26:25):
So for us going against that every day, you can't
beat it.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
Man, really enjoying this podcast, I will listen to this podcast.
Let's go ahead and get to my last part of
this episode, the last segment of the week.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
Kyle Crabs. It's a football.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
Friday, and that means we have our weekly guest on
the show here from the Lockdown Dolphins podcast, Touchdown Miami
and so many other avenues of Dolphins draft and football content,
the great Kyle Crabs.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
Kyle, how are we feeling, man?
Speaker 2 (26:50):
How are we feeling about our first dub of the
season against the New York Jets.
Speaker 7 (26:53):
Wins are always nice, and they're even sweeter when they
come against the New York Jets.
Speaker 2 (26:57):
That is apt, my friend. All right, we'll see you
next time. Now, I'm just kidding. Let's go ahead, and
I want to start here with you with the thing
that led you, that led into your segment here where
I kind of did a deep dive on personnel groupings
and the reduction potentially of eleven personnel groupings and possibly
the increase in even more twenty one personnel groupings, but
(27:20):
also two tight end sets and the emergence of one
Julian Hill, and also Darren Waller with sixteen plays on
Monday Night making his presence known in the end zone,
but also just in various ways they were able to
line him up on those sixteen snaps. And you have
been telling me for a while now that there was
a way to change this offense absent of number ten,
(27:44):
in a beneficial way to the Miami Dolphins overall. And
some folks are going to say that Tyreek Hill's injury
ends the Dolphins season offensively in terms of any hope
for success, But I feel like you don't feel that way,
and I would like to hear your entire take on
the change in personnel groupings, how this offense can and
has to pivot in a post Tyreek Hill world.
Speaker 7 (28:04):
Yeah, I think it when you go back to kind
of the roots of this offense and what it is
initially branched off of and every iteration of it across
the NFL has a little different flavor of the stereotypical
Shanahan wide zone offense, but at its core and at
its root, the original versions of it had success because
(28:27):
there was the ability to run the ball with wide zone.
You had athleticism up front, You had a diverse group
of the f's in this playbook, which is your formation adjuster.
Sometimes it's a third receiver, sometimes it's a second tight end,
sometimes it's a second back, whether it's a running back
or fullback. Right, and you get under center and you
(28:48):
run wide zone, and you boot action off of that,
and you do your play action passing in that regard.
And you know, when Mike McDaniel first gets to Miami,
Tyreek Hill wasn't here. It was like this opportunistic trade
of one of the best players in football that becomes
available that you jump at, and you could feel kind
(29:09):
of the first year that Mike was here, it was
a Shanahannish style, like forty two forty four percent play action,
but a bunch of under center. And then in twenty three,
in twenty four, and in the first three weeks of
twenty twenty five, you're in the top six in the
NFL and shotgun rate as compared to being under center.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
So this is a.
Speaker 7 (29:34):
Change that's being forced upon you now because of Tyreek's injury,
and I think going back to the roots of what
it's designed to be, especially when you consider what you
felt like some of the personnel changes were for more
physical skill players that are ancillary players.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
And you have.
Speaker 7 (29:51):
Julian Hill who's been very good in the first month
of the season. That was like everybody's favorite pinata last
year and he's been very good in the first four
weeks of the season and consistent. So those kinds of developments,
I think you go back to your roots, and it's
gonna look and feel different than what it has because
(30:12):
it has to, because if you just try to do
the same stuff and say, well, Dods Washington's gonna take
some reps and Malik Washington's gonna take all of Tyreek
Hill's motions and maybe on our earlier neutral downs, we'll
put Nick Westbrookakina in for Tyrek and everything else will
stay the same. Yeah, that that plan is going to fail,
or it's very likely to fail. If you don't want
(30:32):
to speak in absolutes. So I think that's for me
where there's a blueprint for how you can make this happen.
And I do think you still have enough in the
way of skill players if you take the right schematic
approach and you have the right frame of mind and
the guys go out and execute it.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
One thing I wish we had seen just a little
bit more of a sample size of was the Waller
offense with Tyreek on the field, because I feel like
there was elements of that shift happening with Waller and
you know, for got to show up and score three
touchdowns on the game, like now he's on everybody's radar,
and throughout the course of that game, I just felt
his presence in the way teams defended us because of
the addition that he brings in terms of different, you know,
(31:09):
a unique skill set across this receiver's room, and maybe
we get to see that Cedric Wilson, you know, plan
play out here as he's been added back to the roster.
And that was something McDaniel spoke about when they added
Tyreek Hill, how Cedric was the first signing and then
Tyreek became available, so that kind of pivots their plan
from that original plan. So I'm just really curious see
what that looks like going forward here for this Dolphins offense.
Let's go ahead and pivot to the college game, and
(31:30):
I want to ask about the weekend slate. But first, Kyle,
I watched the last two games of Lenora's Sellers on tape.
And we've kind of done this every week here on
the show because to me, this this quarterback class is
a fun one if we get enough declarations.
Speaker 1 (31:44):
But with Lenora's Sellers watching him.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
On tape, I think I asked you this either last
week or a couple weeks ago about the idea of
traits versus like process and Sellers. Is he's everything you
want from a traits aspect. He's fast, he's big, he's physical,
he can run through defenders, he can throw the ball
from any platform with zip and velocity. He's got everything
you want from a quarterback traits perspective. And I'm seeing
(32:06):
this guy get more and more reps and starting to
play a little bit more on time and in rhythm.
And I'm curious where you come down on him and
the trajectory of his I guess you know, pro prospects.
Is he the clear cut number one quarterback in the
class for you, And what does he have to do
if not to put himself in that position.
Speaker 7 (32:22):
I wouldn't say that I put him in that stratosphere
yet I think from a traits perspective, he is absolutely
the best combination of physical abilities from a passing and
athleticism and size perspective of any of the quarterbacks that
are eligible for this year's class. It's body of work. Now,
(32:45):
I will say this for Sellers. He has over a
thousand career snaps offensively already at South Carolina, and he's
got probably eight more games, right Like, I don't want
to write South Carolina into the College Football playoff for
the SEC Championship game and start stacking a bunch of
extra games, but they played five regular season games. They'll
(33:07):
have presumably the other seven for Sellers if he's available
and on the field, and then a bowl game, and
that is a good opportunity for him to kind of
stack up the kind of reps where he I mean,
he he could very easily finish this season with sixteen
hundred snaps and it's not super robust, but it's enough
(33:32):
relative to some of the other guys that have been
super young and come out. I mean that that'd be
more than fifty percent more than Anthony Richardson had across
three full seats. He's already played more seasons on October
third of it as a red shirt sophomore than Anthony
Richardson played in his three seasons at four.
Speaker 2 (33:48):
And that's like the makeup profile too, right as far
as like physical traits, big physical, like strong arm, all
that stuff.
Speaker 7 (33:53):
That's exactly why I go to him as the name,
because he's got some of the same stuff to him
as a traits player. But Richardson had less than a
thousand career snaps at Florida in three seasons.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
I'll never forget texting you when he did like that
backflip coming out of the tunnel and like that's number
one pick in the draft down the road. That was
like his freshman season and he was the fourth pick
in the draft. But like to your point, didn't have
the reps to develop at the proper rate. Let's go
ahead and talk about this weekend, Kylie on college football,
and the Mariners play a Divisional round playoff game on Saturday,
So I am out on the college weekend. I'm going
(34:27):
to be watching all nine innings of Cal Rawley and
Julio Rodriguez, hopefully bringing down the either Cleveland Guardians or
Detroit Tigers. But I know you'll be locked down some
college football and solid most of my audience here. Tell
us what there is to look forward to in the
college football weekend with an eye on Dolphins potential draft
prospects in twenty six.
Speaker 7 (34:43):
Yeah, I'm going to go to a familiar program for
the Dolphins, the University of Alabama. We have a few
guys from that squad. It just a handful right to
get and they play. They play a Vanderbilt team that
has become an upstart program and actually upset Alabama last year.
So there's a little bit of a get back frame
of mind that probably exists here for for Alabama. And
(35:06):
you look up and down the roster and it's it's
a mix of potential with pedigree, and that's an impressive combination.
Whether you're looking for off ball linebacker like Deontay Lawson
who's been there for a while red shirt senior, or
you're looking for a cornerback as a big body guy
like Demani Jackson who transferred from USC and played at
(35:28):
matter Day one of the heavyweight high schools out there
in California. That's a six foot one, two hundred pound corner,
right That's that's a big body player to play out
in the perimeter. LT Overton is a senior transfer from
Texas A and M. Seems like every guy that goes
and plays defensive line of Texas A and M, they
transfer somewhere else and magically they're a lot more productive.
(35:48):
And Overton's kind of cut from that same cloth. Hes't
doesn't have big time numbers, but if you're looking for
like a base end type player, he's like six five
eight two eighty five, and you to have a guy
who could play outside shoulder and offensive tack to the
formational strength and attack double teams with the tight end
and really collapse and set the edge and turn runs
(36:10):
back inside. This is the kind of guy that's bred
to do that. So that's just on the defensive side
for album. And then you get to the offensive side
of the ball, and is Parker Brailsford is an interier
offensive lineman who's got a good looking future ahead of him.
I think Caden Proctor hasn't had the best season, but
he's the latest tackle from Alabama that's the supersized six
(36:32):
seven three forty three to fifty type of build. Ty Simpson,
their quarterback, obviously, doesn't have a lot of experience because
they just made the quarterback change this past year with
the transition in the draft, but he's a player who
had a strong performance last week for Alabama and they're
going up against Vanderbilt, and Vanderbilt with their draft prospects,
(36:56):
has a tight end that is going to be in
a conversation for a lot of people for tight end one.
His name's Eli Stowers. He's a fifth year player New
Mexico State and Texas A and M six four two
thirty five. So it was a nice receiving predigree. Last
year he had almost six hundred and fifty yards and
five touchdowns for Vanderbilt.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
So that's something.
Speaker 7 (37:17):
A little something on the trenches, a little something on defense,
a little something in the secondary, a little something at
a tight end position that's been really under the microscope
for Dolphins with questions about long term solutions, and that's
all in one game.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
So that's where my eyes would start. YEA.
Speaker 2 (37:31):
We discussed doing Miami Florida State going into the show
before I hit record, and we were like, we've covered
Miami and Florida State a couple of times already this season.
I think the Alabama Florida State game got coverage from
us on our first episode this year with Kyle. So, Kyle,
appreciate you giving us a probably secondary screen here for
the folks in South Florida alongside that Miami and Florida
State game. But yeah, there's always always things to watch.
(37:52):
And again go Maher's in the playoffs. Hopefully they bring
this thing home for us. Kyle, we appreciate your time.
He's at Kyle crabs on Social host and the Locked
On Dolphins podcast, Locked on NFL Scouting, author of Touchdown
Miami and does a bunch of great work NFL analysts
for a to Z Sports. Kyle, I know you're gonna say, man,
thank you for your time.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
Appreciate you.
Speaker 7 (38:08):
Thanks Travis.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
All Right, there we go long Friday episode here of
the Drive Time podcast. We'll see you guys on Sunday
for the Panthers recap. In the meantime, checkout Dolphins HQ,
check out the YouTube channel in general, follow me on
social at Wingfold NFL the team at Miami Dolphins. Go
ahead and check out Miami Dolphins dot Com as well.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
Until next time, Finn's Up.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
Meet the Panthers, Caroline Cameron Willow, Daddy's Coming Home.
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