Coaches Talk Motor, Versatility, Edge Play, Improved Run Game, Tua Wins a Fun Award

you your daily dose of Miami Dolphins football. And on today's show, it's a deep dive Wednesday, as we'll hear from the Dolphins coordinators Josh Boyer, Eric Studisville, and Danny Croftsman on some of the biggest storylines, including Nick Needham's versatility, winning in the trenches, and flying to the football. Plus we'll talk about the offensive line, the players off the edge, and tell you what's going on around the web in Dolphins world. All of that and much more from somewhere

in South Florida. This is the Drive Time Podcast. So I began my Tuesday morning, as I do each week, taking a look around the web trying to see what type of Dolphins related content is out there. And here's what I found today. Number One, I'm sure you guys are familiar with Good Morning Football, right and Angry Runs. And we saw our quarterback drop his shoulder and run through a defender in the game on Sunday, And so

guess what he got. That's right, he got the scepter from Kyle Brandt on Good Morning Football the week fifteen Angry Runs winner goes to quarterback to a tongue vyloa, so he gets the scepter. I'm sure we'll talk to me about that later today in his media availability and find out where that thing is gonna be kept, where it's gonna be held for the rest of the season, for the rest of time. As he does get the

scepter for the week fifteen Angry Run. Also on Good Morning Football on Tuesday morning, Christian Wilkins made an appearance talking to Kay Adams and the breakfast club there at the table. If you guys have not checked out Good Morning Football every single morning on NFL Network, one of the best shows out there for my money, obviously the best talk show because well it's about football and they have a great cast as well. But here's Christian Wilkins

talking about the entirety of that play, that touchdown. The celebration. All of it here on NFL Network. Coach Flora's calls your number. I'm first in Gold from the one. What was the play call? It looked like you were ready to go. Yeah, I was ready. Um, you know, Coach Flora's kind of you know, we drew it up in the sand on the on the sideline. Um, you know, he just we just needed to spark. You know what I'm saying. He's needing the athlete out there on the field.

He's a Christian. You're in, go take care of business, do what you do. And I was like, Coach, I got you. Don't worry about it. You know, I'm gonna take care of business. And you know, had a nice, nice simple route to the flat. I saw my defender. I get he had inside leverage on me. I jabbed him inside. You know what I'm saying. I went outside wild before a touchdown, crowd goes wild. Talk to me about this, what what was this something you planned before?

Talk to me about the worm. Well, it was kind of just a spur of the moment um. You know, I just kind of, I don't know, I just got excited. I actually had a planned celebration. I was going to give a shout out to Jail waddle and do the waddle dance. Um, but you know, because he wasn't playing in the game Sunday, but I kind of went rogue. I kind of went rogue and forgot about him. Um,

you know he's a rookie anyway, we don't care about him. No, So that I just went rogue, got excited, jumped in the crowd, came out, still still felt good, still wanted to celebrate. So then, uh, you know, just just did the worm, did the spinner rooney. You know, they did all that. So I had a good time doing that, a little throwback breakdance action, going rogue. What else is more Christian Wilkins than going rogue on your own touchdown celebration.

You love to see it, You love to have this guy in your locker room, on your team, and all of the above. So that's why I found around the web. I want to get nowt to my top news story up on Miami Dolphins dot com and take a look

at a few things that really piqued my interest. With finding out more about those things that piqued my interests through the Dolphins coordinators as we spoke to Josh Boyer, Danny Craftsman, and Eric Studisville on Tuesday for this Wednesday podcast, and just looking back over how the Dolphins got back to seven and seven, and we do want to turn the page here, but I think, you know, history can

be instructive for future results. And I've talked about this so many times on this podcast, on my previous podcast that I used to host, or whether it's written word on on dot COM's or Twitter, that the best NFL teams find multiple ways to win games. Like we've had instances where even this week's opponent, for instance, the Saints with Drew Brees, a Hall of Fame top ten all time quarterback, had three consecutives seven and nine seasons because they did not have that changeup to Drew Brees and

the passing game. They didn't have the running game to compliment the passing game, they didn't have the defense to help them close out games and have the special teams to get them to find margins to win games, and they relied on their Hall of Fame all time great quarterback, which is obviously a great way to win games, but it's not a great way to get deep into the season.

And with the Saints said after that, after those three seven win seasons in a row, was they found Alvin Camaro, They found Ryan Ramcheck and built up the offensive line around a great draft class in a free agency period, and they went out and found a defense to get pressure on opposing quarterbacks and play lockdown coverage with Marcus Lattimore and eventually C. J. Johnson, Gardner Johnson and the

back end there. And you know about the names and the way they piled up eleven and twelve and thirteen win seasons and division championships and deep postseason runs with Drew Brees because they had multiple ways to win games, and over Miami's winning streak, they've won in several different ways. They turned the Texans over four times. There was a quarterback switch in the Baltimore game. They threw the ball forty one times in the victory over the Giants, and

then Sunday over the Jets. You come back with a dominant rushing performance, topping your previous season high by fifty yards by rushing for a buck eight three in that game, by getting your first individual up over a hundred yards, by having Miles Gaskon hit his longest run of the season, for thirty yards, and so I look, you know, to the rest of the schedule and think, obviously this week

is the one you look at. But can Miami go to multiple ways to win games and just kind of go back to the running game here they had success really running to a variety of gaps, and again I think instructive the past can be instructive for future success. And this offensive line is building some momentum. We talked about Leam Eichenberg's run with one pressure allowed and three

straight games. We've talked about Austin Jackson really throughout the course of the podcast this season about some of the grueling type of reps he has in the running game where he can get out in space and and square guys up and move guys off the football and create space that way. We talked about Robert Hunt all of time, about Michael Dieter stabilization upfront as well the tight ends, the receiver's contributing in the running game. It's been a

full team effort. But just to look at some of the numbers here, and it was only two carries, but Miami did go for an average of fifteen and a half yards running behind Robert Hunt, that's a great pro football focused stat for you there. He's also on the top ten run block win rate numbers for ESPN this season among offensive guards, so obviously Rob having a good year there, but also looking at some of the numbers here. When the Dolphins went left, the results were consistently positive.

Taking runs into the C gap, which is between your tight end and the left tackle, or just outside the left tackle when there is no tight end out there, the B gap between your tackle and your guard, your a gap between your guard and your center. Miami ran fourteen times on such runs for eighty three yards and an average of five point three nine yards per rush.

And again some backside pulling guards Robert Hunt had a big block on this, Michael Dieter is there to anchor at all, and of course the tight ends and receivers on the outside. The Dolphins also picked up six first downs on such runs and four runs of ten plus yards. And again on that left side, his first round draft pick in Austin Jackson at left guard second rounder Liam Eichenberg, and that duo teamed up for a number of big blocks off that side, including some double team looks, some

duo some single blocks as well. But those combination blocks where they chipped the first level climbed to the second level. That was a good job on the Dolphins offensive getting some space, creating some push there for the Dolphins running backs. But according to co offensive coordinator Eric Stuisville, it's really more of a team effort in that running game. I think you know, there's a lot of different runs in there, and they hit different places where, Um, it's not always

depending on um, you know, a certain tandem. I mean, we need everybody, you know, everybody's got to do that. We had. There was a lot of line movement that happened um in the game against the Jets, and so we had to shut line movement off. We did. Obviously we did run good behind some double teams. We had a number of of double teams where we move people off the ball. But but those big runs and things that happened, those are involved in a lot of different things.

It starts with the offensive line. Certainly, the back gets all the credit for the yards, but it starts with the offensive line and starts with the wide receivers coming in and blocking force and pushing people by to get extra yards downfield. Um, it's a it's a group effort with everybody involved in it. So, um, you know, there was some good double teams in there, but there's a lot of good things that happened in there too, with with everybody on the offense trying to contribute to a

good run. So there you have coach Studentsville breaking down the running game. There. He's he's been doing this for a long time. Run game coordinator, offensive coordinator, play caller, all that fun stuff throughout the course of his pro career, in college career, and just coaching career in general. So good stuff there from coach. You can find the entirety of his media availability up on the YouTube channel. And we'll come back to some more stuff with coach here

in just one second. But I want to pivot now to the defensive side of the football and the edge position because I continue to watch the work of Emmanuel Ogba, Jalen Phillips, and Andrew Van Ginkl and the surge they've shown in recent weeks and how to kind of extrapolate that into Sundy or Monday's game rather against the New Orleans Saints, when the Dolphins are gonna have to bring all kinds of bodies to the party to get Taysom Hill and Alan Kamara stopped up and and get some

pass rush, and they do have to go through the air. But I find the construction of this room interesting and how it was put together because obviously pretty much every position group, actually all of them, really have been remade since Brian Flora's arrival back in nineteen with Chris Greer being at the head of the front office and his scouting staff he put together in the pro personnel and

everything they've done to rebuild this entire roster. Since they've kind of become a tandem here in Flora's and Greer. I look at the edge position and think, man, they really knocked out of the park and so many different avenues to get this collection of players. I mean free agent and Emmanuel Ogba, one first round draft pick in Jalen Phillips, one of the first draft picks of the Flora as Greer pairing and Andrew Van Ginkle back in

the fifth round in twenty nineteen. And you know, he plays with his hand in the dirt, standing up in a two point stance, he drops into coverage. He recognizes stick combos as well as anybody in the National Football League where you're on the stick route, the little hook route, and the flat route. I love watching him defend that as well as rush the passer as well as retrace

the quarterback because he scrambles across the backfield. Jalen Phillips just a pure pass rusher off the edge, tough to deal with the amount of attention he commands and double teams and chips and help. And then Emmanuel Ogba and his ability to do a little bit of everything, to condense inside, to rush from that interior position, to set strong edges in the running game. And really this is true of all these guys and the multiple capacities they

play and the past rush ability. And again, one thing I love seeing more than anything else we talked about in the podcast yesterday is just how they fly to the football. They're all over the place. You can see it on runs away from their particular gap. They chase that thing down from the backside and really show that effort in that motor and I think that that helps with obviously their skill set to this particular stat where they all rank inside the top thirty on Pro Football

Focus in terms of edge players and quarterback pressures. Ogbas fifty seven now after one more day of games, is tenth among all edge defenders. Andre Vanne giggles forty quarterback pressures are tied for in the National Football League among edge defenders, and in that same grouping, Jalen Phillips has

thirty seven that's tied forty in the NFL. So the sack production, swatting balls down at the line of scrimmage, setting up other guys for chances to make plays, it's all part of the job description for this group and for the entire defense. Well, I think, you know, any any time that you look at individuals stats, there's there's obviously a lot that goes into um, you know, all

eleven guys being on the same page. But at the same time, you know, guys doing their jobs well uh sets you know, somebody up on defense for production and um, you know, and we've been you know, like like we've said all year, our guys they work extremely hard. Uh They've they've put a lot of work in and I believe we're still improving and we've still got room to improve. And uh, you know, it's really a credit to them

for the execution, the communication, the understanding of what goes on. Uh, and in each given play and uh, you know, the ability to get some production and pressure. Uh you know, and a lot of times are our guys are very unselfish. You'll see you'll see other guys actually open up stuff for other players, and uh they're just as happy. Uh

you know that that we're succeeding as a team. And again I mentioned it there as you heard Coach talk about some of the things we've covered the podcast about guys being unself or being selfless, I should say to set other guys up for chances to make plays and celebrate it all together. But as I talk about the way they down the backside on running plays or Christian Wilkins retracing a screen, whatever the case may be, the hustle effort we have seen from so many players. I

think it's the most entertaining part of this defense. How they all play with their hair on fire that way, and the effort is always going to lead to takeaways. And you know, we've heard the term or the the idea before the takeaways you're not sustainable. I kind of call bs on that because the Dolphins are proving that. I mean, they've they're putting together another streak here of takeaways in terms of getting the football away from the

opposing offense. After having that twentysomething game streak earlier in the season, snapped, picking it right back up and their top ten in the NFL and takeaways this season once again. And I think that's set up a lot of the time by just running to the football and playing aggressively. Here's coach Boyer on the coaching point or the mentality

on that defense to fly to the football. Well, I think you know, ultimately, you know when you're when you're playing team defense, I mean, you definitely want to get everybody with a relentless pursuit to the football. Um. And I don't know who said it or what quote it was, but you know, a long time ago somebody said, you know, you can measure the love of your teammate by your distance to the ball. And you know, and I think you see our guys, you know, they play hard. Uh,

they play for one another. Uh, there's a joy out there, and they know that people are counting on them, So you know, their effort to the ball is very important. And obviously we highlight that when it's when it's done well and when it's not to the standard. That we believe it should be. Then you know we get on that too. So but you know, we got a lot of guys that fly around to the football out there. And again, like I said, we're gonna need our best

football this week. We got we got a great opponent coming up. Um, you know, coach Peyton, coach car Michael, phenomenal offensive coaches and make it really hard for you defensively. Uh, they got great Uh you know, they got a good offensive line, they got great skill players. Um, you know, they got really good running backs. Uh, they got a

dynamic quarterback that can run, he could throw. Um, you know, this is gonna be a big challenge for us, and we're gonna need everybody, all eleven guys on defense to be on the same page, to communicate well, to play with good fundamentals and good techniques for sixty minutes, one play at a time. That's what we're gonna need this week. And you know, but we're excited about the challenge. Definitely a challenge coming up on Monday night in New Orleans.

Just go ahead and finish that point. Their coach Flora's touched on the Saints as well, calling them a tough, physical team across the board offense, defense, and special teams. They've got a lot of great players. Obviously, they're well coached really across the board. He too mentioned Sean Payton and Pete Carmichael. Dennis Allen has been one of the top d season the game for a while now. Rizz Darren, Rizzy, we all know who he is. Special teams coach, he says,

I think they do a great job. They've got a lot of really good players. They played well last night. That was on Monday. Talking about Sunday night, they've been playing really well. Like I said, we have our hands full. So there you go, two coaches there, Flora's and boy, you're talking about the job coming up on Monday night

in New Orleans. But I want to go back to what coach talked about there about being selfless and celebrating place for one another, because I think few guys embody that the way that Nick Needham does and being a selfless teammate who since arriving in Miami as an undrafted free agent back in twenty nineteen, whatever is asked of him, he's done it at a high level. He was a lockdown corner at you Tep University, of Texas El Paso

on the perimeter almost exclusively. He played five snaps in the slot and one at free safety, according to Pro Football Focus his final year there at UTEP, you go back to his freshman season, he did play a little bit more inside, but beyond that it was like a total of ten snaps between safety and inside cornerback. So

he was basically a perimeter cornerback exclusively. And you know, like all dbs that come through Miami under Flores, m Boyer, Needham took some immediate cross training in that rookies he Eason played a hundred and fifty seven snaps on the inside compared to five thirty one on the perimeter. But then after landing one of the game's top cornerbacks, you know, a perimeter cornerback and Byron Jones last year, Needham had to find a new position to get that playing time again.

Because we know they've you know, Charles Burke's, Josh Boyer, Joel Alexander, Brian Flores have all talked about this. It's hard to crack the lineup when Xavien Howard and Byron Jones are on the outside, and those are the two positions you get a chance at and those guys don't miss games. They haven't missed games over the last two years, and that's what they're gonna play. So Needham had to move inside to find some more work and he did that.

And he's been targeted sixty times. Last year, I should say he was targeted sixty times by opposing quarterbacks of the pass writing of just nine point six on such throws. And this year and even an even larger role, his pass writing against us right at nine point eight below league average. So it's the type of career arc to me that exemplifies what it means to play for the

Miami Dolphins. And again Tuesday, Josh all Your showed his appreciation for what Nick has been able to do in his three years, culminating on Sunday with forty five or forty four rather of his fifty seven defensive snaps coming in the high post, that free safety position where he was not targeted a single time in the passing game on thirty four coverage snaps. Well, Nick's a hard worker, he's very intelligent. Um, you know he's played inside and outside.

Uh you know, uh from a corner position, which you know he's involved in a lot of communication, especially when he's on the inside. And um, you know, he's he's a strong communicator. He understands where guys fit and where they're supposed to be and um, you know, and obviously he has a skill set that allows him to do multiple things. And you know, he put a lot of a lot of time and effort in it into it, and you know it was credit to him to be able to kind of a smooth transition for him even

though it was a foreign position. Um. But you know, he's just his ability to understand concepts and handle conceptual learning at a at a fast and high rate. And I would say this is something that he's improved, you know, each year that he's been here, and he works very hard at it, uh to kind of know and understand, you know, how everybody fits. And uh, like I said, he's a strong communicator, he's confident what he's saying. Um, and uh, you know, he's just a good, good all

around football player that can play multiple spots. And Flora's echoed those sentiments talking about Nick being a smart player, how he understands the defense kind of conceptually, who was supposed to be in what spot. He hasn't had a ton of reps there, he said, obviously throughout the course of the year, but he was able to step in on Sunday and take some practice reps and then really set up up for us in the game. So good

stuff there from the coaches. I want to go ahead and keep it here with the coaches and talk about Byron Jones as a coach. Bowyer was asked about his performance and his production, and he had some good insight on the Dolphins outside corner Byron. You know, he he had some production for us, uh last week. Um, you know, and um, you know, I thought he had a very solid game. I think he's doing a lot of good things.

There's a lot of things that he does on the field that I think, you know, even when the ball doesn't go away, a lot of people don't see, um, so you know, and again he worked. He's one of those guys that works in his craft. Uh, you know, on a daily basis. Um, he's very good at film study. Uh and uh you know, he seems to be playing some of his best ball and we're gonna need that this week. Uh, you know, with the Saints coming up.

You know, again, this is a big game for us and you know, and I'm sure Byron will come in here, work hard and continue to do some of the things that he's been doing. But yeah, we've been getting, um, you know, a lot of production out of Byron for sure. Now you have coach boy Let's go ahead and finish up one more here from Josh Boyer talking about Christian Wilkins. Touchdown.

Some interesting perspectives here from the Dolphins defensive coordinator. You know, the funny thing about that is, uh, I have not seen it, um, because a lot of times when we're on offense, you know, obviously we're we're always preparing on what what situations could be coming up defensively, I haven't watched any of the offensive film. I'm happy for Christian. I know, you know, Christian will probably tell you how athletic he is, which he is athletic, um, But I'm

happy for him. I'm happy for a team. I don't care who scores, you know, obviously, Uh, you know, anytime we score that, that's that's a good deal for us. UM. But I have not seen the play. Let's play a few more sound bites here. Let's go ahead and transition to Dolphins the special team's corner Danny Crossman, who was asked about the snap to the up back in the game on Sunday, and just what happened there the old

adage failure to communicate. Again, just as much as we have about communication, we have missed communication there on exactly the process of what we're trying to get done in that situation. And uh, and up with the bad play and let's go ahead and been afar here to coach talking about Michael Pollardy, I asked him, you know, Pollardi's average has gone up over the last few weeks, and Coach gave us an interesting perspective about the style of

punch you asked for in certain situations. Again, I think like we've talked about on several occasions, you know, in this particular game especially, you know, based on the field position and where we're punting from. And we've had several games this year where you know, all the puns for fifty yard nine plus fifty. This happening to be a game where a lot of our puns were backed up. So more over an opportunity to flip the field and more an opportunity to get the ball down the field.

In terms of looking at gross I want to go back to the offensive side of the football now and go back to coach Studentsville, who was asked about Austin Jackson's moved to left guard and what he's seen from him over the last couple of months of his new position. I think he's continuing to work and develop at that position. It's obviously new experience going from tackle to guard, but he's uh, he's he's committed to it. He's working at it all the time, constantly and working to get better.

And I think we're seeing, um, you know, improvement in in all areas. With that, we just all of us have to do in every position, We've got to keep getting better and keep working to improve all the time. So going from the trenches, inside out to the perimeter.

And I wanted to ask coach about the process of losing a player midweek when you have him for part of the game plan and regards to jal and Waddle who goes on the COVID list late last week before coming off and now on Monday for the Miami Dolphins. But how much of a challenge is it to adjust your game plan when you lose a guy you were

planning on having in that particular game plan. I mean, unfortunately, unfortunately, those situations happen and where your personnel changes, and when it does happen, you know, they're not gonna they're not gonna stop playing the game on Sunday. So we've got to have an opportunity to get somebody else ready to go. Somebody else has got to take advantage of that opportunity to be ready to go. And then we've we've got the expectation for everybody, coaches and players that we have

to perform at a high level when that opportunity comes up. So, um, does it change your plans to a certain extent. Certainly it does with a good player that that you're you're missing in there. But um, we've gotta we've gotta be ready to go, and someone's gonna step up there because they're gonna put the ball down on Sunday. Let's go right back to the trenches now, As coach was asked about Robert Jones, the undrafted rookie this season who played ten snaps in the game on Sunday, you kept hearing

it on the TV broadcast. I'm sure number sixty five has reported as eligible the extra offensive lineman under the game six oh line the heavy package. Here's coach on the decision to go with that on Sunday. Well, I think, you know, um, it's it's something we've talked about and have the capability of doing. Um. You know, you can utilize an extra player in a number of different ways. Um, And it was just an opportunity to get Rob in there.

We felt it was something that would give us an advantage and again we felt it was something that would give us productive plays potentially. So UM, you know, we we we do those things on different personnel groups at different times and where different plays. Whatever that is. We we have the capability of using different players, much like we use Christian as the fullback in the goal line package.

It's very very similar sort of concept. And I want to go ahead and finish up with this question I had for coach regarding the message to the team after you face the adversity there, because I think it applies to really the rest of the season and every single game and every single day in this profession of how you overcome something that doesn't go your way, because when

you're competing against somebody else, it's gonna happen. So what was the message to the team after the pick six, knowing we have to go put a drive together after that happened in the game. Well, I think the message is consistent, and it starts, you know, coming from coach all the time that hey, we're gonna we've got to play for sixty minutes. This game is gonna be sixty minutes and we're gonna have to play it right down

to the end. We don't know how it's gonna end up, but we know if we're in it at the end, we believe that we're gonna play hard enough and find a way. So we've got to play for the full sixty minutes. And you know, adversity happens, and our players responded, um, you know really well in that situation and gave us a chance to win in football game. But we've got to play the whole game for sixteen minutes and coach preachers at all the time. So there you go. There's

your Coordinator media from Tuesday. Again. If you have not done so already, you can check out the entirety of those interviews on the YouTube channel, the Miami Dolphins official YouTube channel. As for today's podcast, that's gonna be my time. You all please be sure to subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcast. Leave us a rating, leave us a review. We'll have the preview pod for you guys tomorrow. Dolphins at Saints. Give me a follow on Twitter It's at Wingfield, NFL.

Follow the team at Miami Dolphins on all social media accounts. Check out the fish Tank Podcast with Seth and o J. They had Jed Weaver on this week. Of course, the YouTube channel for the Media Availabilities and Dolphins Today, and last but not least, Miami Dolphins dot Com until next time. Fins Up Caroline Daddy's Coming Home.