Dolphins Comeback Comes up Short, Recapping 20-13 Loss in Denver

in Denver to the Broncos. We'll get the takeaways. I'll talk general thoughts about my expectations going into the game, what happened in this game. We'll hear some audio from Coach Flores to a tongue of byloa Ryan Fitzpatrick, and we'll talk about some of the individual performances from the Dolphins in loss. All of that and much more coming here on the Monday, November the twenty three edition of the Drive Time Podcast Drag Thomas brought to you by

Auto Nation. It's time to shift the way you celebrate the holidays and gear up in a new Mercedes Benz during the winter event. Enjoy holiday savings on your favorite Mercedes Benz Vehicles, So visit your six South Florida Mercedes Benz dealers today part of Auto Nation at Mercedes f l A dot Com. We have plenty to get to here as Dolphins fall in Denver, no more winning streak, but we have a chance next week to get that thing back to plus one next Sunday against the New

York Jets. The sixteen game Turnover Street continued with Xavian Howard's first quarter interception. That is the longest active streak in the NFL. But the twenty games with a sack that streak will come to an end. Dolphins did not get a sack on the Broncos quarterback in this game. A couple of things I wanted to look at and we'll talk about throughout the course of this podcast was

the pressure on Drew Lock. We know the story coming in all week was about the brew rused ribs with the banged up ribs he had coming into the game. They announced on Saturday that he would start the game. He did. He played well and made enough place for the Broncos to win this game. We'll talk about the Dolphins pressure fronts and pressure attacks and how they went after quarterback Drew Lock. I was curious about the running back rotation with savan Akhmed and Matt Rita now back

in the fold. We learned pregame that Chandler Cox and DeAndre Washington we're not going to be active, so it was amed with Brita and Patrick Laird mostly the savan Akhmed show once again in this game, so we'll get a look at that. The same offensive line that started the game last week starts this game on Sunday in Denver. It was Austin Jackson, Eric Flowers, Ted Carriss, Solomon Kinley, and Jesse Davis, though it did not end that way as Solomon Kinley left the game with a foot injury.

They kicked Jesse Davis into right guard and put Robert Hunt, the rookie out at right tackle. I was curious about third down in red zone defense in this game. Miami entered this game with eight touchdowns and their last ten

red zone possessions. They wound up getting their first red zone trip with a touchdown them and cash that thing in to go nine for eleven, but the interception at the end of the game made it nine for twelve, so Miami still batting seven fifty in the red zone here in recent games, they also on defense had a fourth down stop in the red zone, forced to fumble at the one yard line and forced a field goal as well. So plenty of good defensive effort in the

key area down around the goal line. In this game, again we talked about the Amiba packages and how that got that first drive looking like the Dolphins We're gonna do what they do every single week. Now, it seems like you've got Jamal Perry is one of the defensive backs up in that pressure look this time. We talked about it on the Tuesday podcast, how they showed Clayton Federalum and Cavan Fraser five defensive backs on the or five safeties rather on your eight defensive back your dollar

package showing pressure at the quarterback. This time, Jamal Perry was involved up there with Bobby McCain. So it doesn't matter who you are on this team, you can get in there for those pressure looks. We saw that early. It was effective early in this game. We talked, or I should say I tweeted during the game on Mike Gasiki's first couple of recept in this game. It was a good job of Ta replacing the bliss with the football. That was something I thought was a bit of a

struggle early on. The Broncos are blitzing, and To told us himself post game, he held onto the football too long, wasn't getting it out, wasn't seeing things the right way, mentioned that in his postgame presser. But it was nice to see them make the adjustment there and get the ball out hot on that drive that went down for that field goal in the second quarter, to kind of get things going there a little bit with a couple of those rips to Mike Gatsicky and then DeVante Parker

making some plays like a number one receiver. How about that. By the way, the stuff he was doing, it looks like you want your number one receiver to do with a touchdown grab one handed, just majestic work down around the back corner, the back pylon, the hitch on the drive, the field goal drive. I mentioned to to move the sticks on third and down in tight coverage with a defender and draped all over him. Then that diving catch

on the slant just a few plays later. I think it was the very next third down to move the sticks once again. The fifteen yard catch and run up the sideline on that last possession with Ryan Fitzpatrick in the game on that series, some big time plays from number eleven on the offense for Miami, and then some more things I wanted to look at here was how Vic Fangio called this game with the pressure looks. We saw guys coming from all over the field trying to

confuse that rookie quarterback. Young rookie quarterback on the road against a good defensive coach with a good defensive scheme and defensive talent. You kind of get this type of results. Sometimes not every time, but sometimes you're gonna have this result.

I thought that was a big storyline in this game, with the offensive line, the six sacks giving up on two and and the quarterbacks for the Dolphins in this game just not getting those blitz is picked up in the quarterback, like he said, maybe holding the ball a little bit too long as well. And you heard the broadcast say that the Broncos were stunting and it was

given the Dolphins problems all game long. Upfront, you have one guy, the inside guy work outside, the outside guy works inside, causing some confusion in the protection scheme and getting pressure on the quarterback. Accordingly, let's go ahead and get to our takeaways for this game. But first, before we do that, the stats from the game. The Dolphins with two d and twenty two yards of total offense. Denver had four forty nine in the game rushing that went to the Broncos in a big way, one eighty

nine for Denver to Miami's fifties six. The passing yards also goes to Denver to seventy two one sixties six with the advantage there. On third down, Miami's defense was pretty solid and we'll talk about this four for twelve for the Broncos on third down, Miami was seven out of sixteen on the money down and takeaways Miami had two of those, Denver had the one, the crucial one there at the end of the game, the Justin Simmons interception, and then six sacks with the Broncos zero for the Dolphins,

that of course a huge factor in the game. Miami had five penalties for fifty yards, Denver had eight for seventy yards, and t op time of possession was pretty even for the Dolphins, thirty nineteen for the Broncos. And the first takeaway from this game and to me it's that this team just excels with leadership and bringing the right type of people into the building that you want to have. We heard Shack Lawson talk about that. We

heard Emmanuel Ogba talk about that last week. We've heard Brian Flores talk about that, and not just in that specific instance, but in every single one of his press conferences. When you ask him about a player, what he does well, what attracted the Dolphins to him. He's smart, he's tough, he's competitive. It's important to him. He works hard. And I think you saw the reflection of that team in

defeat show up in this game. And I guess a subcategory of this is that two quarterbacks is better than one. It's good to have two quarterbacks on your roster if you lose your starter, you like to have a guy that can come off the bench and make some plays for you. It didn't wind up working out in the end. And we'll hear from Fitzpatrick here in just one second, but you've got some plays that were fits towards the end of the first or the end of that game.

Gives you confidence if he has to come off the bench later in the season at a moment's notice and make some plays the run to get that personal foul call. It's a vintage Fits play where he just takes off and gets the yardage with his feet. They put a late hit on in fifteen more yards. Got that drive really going, the shot to Parker up the sideline to really get that possession looking like it might end up in the end zone and might end up in a tie game. The quick RP O pop to Mike Gatsiki

for a conversion on that same drive. You like to have the Obviously, you never want to see your backup quarterback. Ideally he never has to play, but it doesn't hurt to have a guy that can come off the bench like that and make plays the way Ryan Fitzpatrick did. He's been doing it his entire career. Should be no surprise that he did it once again in this game.

But back to the original point and the leadership, And there's a reason I mentioned Ryan Fitzpatrick because he's a huge element of the way this team is constructed and of the way this team really conducts themselves in that leadership department. You just see the way these guys talked about it after the game. There's no question about where this team is headed, who belongs in what position, how

they feel about certain situations. It was a clear concise message from Ryan Fitzpatrick to a tongue of Valoa and Brian Flores with what's gonna happen post game, what their approach is going to be coming back to work next week, getting ready for the New York Jets. And we'll go ahead and start here with coach Flores. And I think the first question he was gonna be asked was a pretty obvious one. He was asked post game about the quarterback position, the switch and whose job is it too?

Wasn't injured. We just feel like it was the best move at that point of game. Short and sweet there. He also mentioned that he felt at the time the Dolphin's gonna go up tempo and that Ryan Fitzpatrick gave him the best chance to win at that point in the game, and that was the message afterwards, forgot the course of the players and the coach as well with Brian Flores, the the up temple offense, Ryan Fitzpatrick, a spark coming off the bench, gave him the best chance

to win. What about the problems that went wrong on the offense when two was in the game, I mean, we knew this all week. It's a good defense, you know, one of the top defensive minds in the game. They got good players, they had good scheme, they pressured us, they mixed the coverages, and they did a good job defensively. So we gotta execute better. And we had some opportunities we didn't we didn't we didn't take advantage of them. And then you know, tightly contesting that on the road,

we've got to we've gotta we've gotta play better. And I think they ended up with five or six sacks. They pressured us a good job in the back end from a cover standpoint, and we just struggled getting to going. And when that's going on throughout the course of the game, you got to try to do something to create some momentum. That's why we made switch. And but yeah, I think he's he's healthy. So there's your answer on to his health and status going forward. How about the concerns over

possible confidence shaking, Floris says, No, he's a confident kid. No, not at all. I think he's he's dealt with a lot of adversity. He's he's a confidence kid. I don't think this is I think he's fine. And you continue talking about the resilient group. This Miami Dolphins team has the Andrew band Gangle fumble forced there late in the fourth quarter to give the Dolphins a fighting chance late

in that game. Here's coach Floras on what that says about his football team, the ensuing drive with Ryan Fitzpatrick, what they were trying to get done on that drive, Just talking about the fourth quarter and playing for sixty minutes in a game that before the Melvin Gordon fumble seemed like it might have been lost. Yeah, I think, you know, this is a resilient group. So you we things look bleak. They're on the goal line, we make a play, we get on the one yard line, we

start to make a drive. You know, we bring put it into the end zone. We've got an opportunity to you know, punch it in and you know and perhaps tie the game there. And look, this game comes down to three plays, and the most critical plays are you know, normally at the end. And I think fits was trying to fireball in there and they made a good play. You know, Simmons is a good player. I mean we talked about him all week. Hopefully we learned from it.

I think, you know, there are other players throughout the game that we didn't make, you know, drop balls from protection standpoint defensively, you know, in the run game, No, look like we came clean on a punk lock and we didn't make that one either. So we gotta take advantage of our opportunities. And um, look that's that's the way it is in this league, and we gotta but I think this is a resilient group. Will keep our heads up. We'll get back in there and and prepare

for our next opponent. And when they turned around, but you know, try to get a victory next week. You heard Flores talk about the confident kid that to a tongue of blow is a two gold quarterback making his fourth NFL start in this game. Let's go ahead and hear from two on what his reaction was to being pulled out of the game as the starter in the Dolphins quarterback on this Sunday. Yeah, my my thoughts were,

whatever it was going to be best for the team. Um, you know, we couldn't well when I was in we we couldn't really get things going, and um, you know, coach felt like it was the best decision to put Fits into trying to give us a spark. Um. So when I heard that, I mean, you know, it's really what's best for the team. And I mean, if if we were to win with Fits in there, you know, the locker room would be a lot different. Everyone would be a lot happier. But you know, it just sucks

to lose. Definitely right about that too, It does suck to lose. Up next to it was asked about what you can take away from this game, the lessons you can learn from a loss, his first in the NFL. Well, I think you look at the entirety of the game and you learned from a lot of what the defense. You know that the Broncos had shown. Um, I mean they played a lot of base too to our normal

you know, the our normal offense. Um. You know, we try to get them out of their base look and um, you know what what we were doing, we just couldn't execute. And for me, it was a great learning experience. Um Now, and I felt like I was holding the ball a

little too long. Just gotta get completions and you know, gotta gotta get the ball um in the hands of our guys to make place for us and let's go ahead and finish up the postgame pressers here with Ryan Fitzpatrick, who of course came off the bench late in this game and it almost rescued. It almost got the Dolphins back into a thie situation there. If a touchdown goes in, if a Jason Center's p a t after that assumed touchdown goes in, all of a sudden, it's a twenty

football game late there in the fourth quarter. Here's Fitzpatrick on the conversation he had with Brian Flores about going into the game in that situation. Uh well, oh, we all came up and just said, we you know, need a little bit of a spark and we're going to kind of do the up tempo deal. And uh so

he said I was going in. So I talked to those guys and just let them know, you know, a that I was in there be you know, some of the stuff that potentially we could do, but just trying to get a little bit of juice going with those guys, and um, you know, unfortunately we came up short there, but um, you know again, I mean that that was a tough game that their defense played really well, and uh you know, I wish I wish I would have

hit that last throw go ahead and fall up. It fits his thoughts on long term outlook for the quarterback position of the Miami Dolphins. Yeah, I mean it's it's very clear this is this is to his team and you know Two is going to continue to get better and grow and um, you know, so for me, my defined role right now is whatever whatever coach flow and where the team needs out of me, and um, you know today it was different than the last few weeks and that he needed me to go out there and

try to move the ball and provide a spark. But um, a few weeks before that, it really was just full support mode on tour and even in the game like today when I'm out there, I'm still talking with Two on the sideline and we're going through stuff and just trying to get him, you know, to see what I'm

seeing and why I'm doing the things I'm doing. So, uh, you know, this is it's it's such a tough position to play, and uh it just has to You're just gonna continue to learn and it's it's going to be a bumpy road, but you just hope that you know the things that you learn, you you put him in the back, and you make a catalog in the back

of your head and you continue to get better. Go ahead and get one more SoundBite here from Fits about the conversations between he and Tungo by Loa throughout the course of this game, when one's in the game, when one's in the bench, and vice versa. Well, I mean those are those are discussions that you know I had with him on the sideline and stuff that will continue to have as we watch the film. But um, you know, without getting into too many ciffics, it's what I just

said is it's creating a catalog. Um, even in the games that you win, you know, things aren't going to go right all the time. So what happened in this game? You know, what could I have done differently? Um, you know, they seem like they were getting some pressure up front, So what are what are some things that I can

do as a quarterback to combat that you know? And he just keep putting these things in the back of your mind and as we go forward and he'll be able to lean on and continue to use some of those And for me, I think, you know my role here. I learned those things in sixteen years but is to accelerate the things that he's gonna and learn and you know, make sure that he learns it faster than I did.

And so that really was my main takeaway. There was the leadership provided by two guys in those leadership positions, and Brian Flores and Brian Fitzpatrick, who again these guys are in their late thirties, flows thirty nine, and if Fitzpatrick is thirty seven years old to a tongue of Valoa, as I mentioned earlier, is a twenty two year old kids.

So this is his first NFL season, whereas fits has almost twenty years in the league, Brian Flores has twenty years in the league as a coach and in various positions, whether it's offense, defense, special teams, assistants, head coach. Now he's done pretty much everything you can from a coaching standpoint, and so to have that leadership corps, that that group of experience that can help this young team, who still is the second youngest team with a young quarterback playing

his fourth NFL game. To me, it's just the way these guys spoke about this game afterwards, in the way they conveyed that message about whose team it is and backing up their quarterback and and him having the same mindset of well, I'm here to see this team win, and I'm here for it's all about if we get the w at the end of the day. He has the right mindset. It goes back to what Brian Flores says about the players he wants to bring in. It's

important to them they have a team first mindset. And Ryan Fitzpatrick and to a tongue of Valoa in the natural leadership position that is the quarterback spot. They have that trait and those those skill sets inherently in spades, and that's what you want out of that position. And I think that it's only going to benefit this team going forward to have those guys in those positions and to help the rest of the team kind of revolve around that and kind of rally around that and galvanize

the locker room with the way their quarterback is. Takeaway number two. The fast starts, and despite you know, things slowing down considerably after that quick start, it still happened. The Dolphins were up seven zero with four minutes and twenty two seconds of game time gone. After starting the game on the defensive side of the football. We're not talking about a four minute drive to take the opening kickoff and go four minutes for a touchdown. They began

the game on defense. Xavian Howard gets an interception here, which we'll get into here our next takeaway. But on the season, the Dolphins are now plus seventy one points in the first half as far as point differential, plus forty nine points in first core differential. This was their first time trailing at halftime since Week number four against

the Seattle Seahawks. The Broncos had one yard on their first seven plays of offense, with an interception that put Miami on the doorstep of the red zone, and that really kept the game tight until the end today because of how you know, lackluss or the maybe offensive performance was, or the fact that the defense just couldn't get off the field on those critical moments or in those specific running plays or the big chunk plays the offense got

of the Broncos. Despite all that, the Dolphins still got that seven point advantage off the start, and you do that enough times, as we've learned over the last several weeks,

you're gonna find w is more often than not. Takeaway number three is the Amiba package causes confusion once again, and again the package is nobody with their hand in the dirt on defense, picking different gaps, jumping around, kind of playing rover roles as they bounce around and out of different gaps and show pressure and simulate pressure in different gaps. And on the very first series of the game, two plays in third and ten, Broncos haven't moved the

football yet. It forces a time out because the playclock winds down, because the offense has to check their protection, check their call, try to go hot, try to figure out who's got who, and then of course exaving Howard just camped there in his own He's not playing a man. He's watching the quarterback's eyes and he follows it right to the football. As we saw on the television broadcast.

He's just standing in his own He follows locks eyes and gets himself to the football for the easy interception, and that continues an active turnover streak at sixteen games, longest in the NFL. And this is the larger takeaway here is how important takeaways are. Turnovers are creating turnovers. On the takeaway segment here, I can see how that could be confusing, but creating takeaways in today's NFL with all the points in all the yards, and really this

is a league that they they want offensive fireworks. It's turned that way in the NFL in recent years, and the league is geared towards making the offense more explosive, getting bigger plays, you know, fantasy points and all that stuff. That's what the NFL is turning into. And now people say this might not be a sustainable way of victory, but they've get they've got these big plays every single week from the defense, from special teams or the offense,

the hidden yards, whatever it is. They're finding these big plays every single week. And those early points, again, they don't determine the outcome of the game. Just look at the Rams game where basically we had happened to us what we did to the Broncos today with their quick turnover and touchdown right away off the top. But the

more possessions you can remove out of the game. A team gets eleven twelve possessions per game, take one or two of those away, and the more points you can get off of those turnovers, that means the offense then has to be even more perfect in their ten or

eleven drives they do have remaining. So it's just so crucial in a league that's designed for offensive fireworks, a league that's on track to break yardage and points records this year, if you can have an efficient offense of your own that converts third downs, that stays in the football field, that can remain balanced, and have a takeaway minded defense that plays strong in the red zone, which

is what I think we have here in Miami. That's what you want, and it's just it's so fun to see this thing kind of grow and evolve together despite the loss and the outcome today, Like Coach Floors mentioned, despite the outcome, it's all about finding corrections and improvements you can make on the field, on the team, all

three phases of the game. And while we're on the topic of Amiba packages and formations and the looks and different defensive calls, how about that big nickel defense when Brandon Jones, so nickel means five defensive acts, right, Normally that fifth defensive back is a cornerback, but the big nickel means that is a safety, and Brandon Jones plays

that role often and it plays it well. And I talked about his place feedback in training camp, his ability to pursue and two key and get into the backfield. He cuts down that backside sea gaps so quick and explosively. He can fit the run up in there as well. He damn near had himself a pick six a day on a call that got was really catch even though it looked like the title maybe didn't have possession going

to the ground. I'm not sure how you would overturn that, but it looked like that ball could have been an interception in that play. He would have had a big play that way as well. And then to finish off this point here kind of getting away from the general takeaway, but just I wanted to note the defensive back tackling in general. Bobby McCain made open field stops on Philip

Lindsay and Melvin Gordon three times in this game. We talked about Brandon Jones ability to tackle and fit the run, but also Byron Jones on a zero blitz the Dolphins brand they threw a screen out against him. He made a great open field tackle on Tim Patrick in space. So this defense has the right traits in the right makeup, and that's why they're still playing good. Just twenty points allowed today despite several three and outs from the offense.

The fourth takeaway is just about Jerome Baker and his his factor in all three phases of defense, blitzing, coverage and defending the run. And I rewatched the Rams game over the weekend and he was consistently in Goff's face getting free runs in that a gap. The quick skinny kind of slides between the block nature of his game,

but does it quickly without losing acceleration. It doesn't always show up in the box score because he just puts a hit on the quarterback and it creates a turnover which goes to the defensive back that caught the football. But he consistently does this. His blitz on the Broncos second drive force Lock to flee out of the pocket where he wanted to stand in there and deliver the football, but it helped get the defense off the field because

of a successful blitz from Jerome Baker. And our fifth takeaway here is something of an extension of our first takeaway. The Van Ginko play tells me everything again I need to know about this football team. The forced fumble when you are literally a yard away from certain defeat as a touchdown with five minutes to go, put you down by four team points and all but out of the

game at that point. But Van Ginko never gives up on it, and he had a chance to make a play there because of the effort of other guys around him. He talked about a post game I don't have the audio. There was a little bit of an audio hang up there at the end of the game post game in Denver there, so we didn't get the audio of that, but he talked about how there was three guys that were there around the football that made him make a decision to go and try to punch that football out.

He mentioned Bobby McCain, Eric Rowe, and Landed Roberts were all in on that tackle. And I saw this team fight for sixty minutes and not give up despite the fact that the Broncos were literally one yard and a middlesecond away from putting the game on ice, and they refused to let circumstances or the scoreboard determined the level of effort they give. And just to kind of further this point a little bit more, remember it's a week to week league. Things change every single week. Every opponent

every week is a restart. He try to go one and oh on the week tough defense over there with Denver and a good scheme and a good defense against a rookie quarterback. Literally, all rookie quarterbacks have ups and downs. It's going to happen. What was the narrative on this team six weeks ago? What is it today? Just just consider perspective on all this stuff. I had friends texted me early in this game, in the first quarter saying like, this is not looking good, and I'm like, that's just

not how football works. It's a game of attrition. This team will be back and they'll be competing next week. This sucks. Don't get me wrong. I hate losing as much as anybody, but this lass takes nothing off the table for what this team hopes to accomplish this season. Some individual notes for this game will go and get go ahead and get out of here. No John con Jemmy on this edition of the Recap podcast. He got tied up doing TV late on Sunday night. We'll get

John back next week. As their rest of the kickoffs this season are scheduled to be at one o'clock, except for maybe that Week six team game against the Raiders and possibly if any games get flexed. But right now four of the final or five of the final six games are scheduled to be played at one o'clock Eastern time. So that's great news for us because it gets the

podcast and the article out quicker. On Sunday, some individual notes talked about two are replacing the blitz with the football on some of those throws to Mike get Sicky. I liked that the location on the Davante Parker touchdown catch was just an absolute alls eye once again, right on the back ear hole there the cornerback can't get his head around. It could bounce back after a slow start, which kind of began with some deep shots that just

came up short. Just getting those things fine tune, we'll have a big impact on the offense going forward. You kind of expand things when you get the deep ball going complete. A couple of those, get the defense out of the box and really kind of stretch things out both vertically as you do horizontally in this offense as well.

On the running back position, I wrote a couple of notes on Savan akhmed I, just like how quick he hits it, the explosive first step and then when he decides to go, he's shot out of a cannon and he has a nice little outside hop step, a nice little outside jump cut he makes when getting to the edge on the ground. Game wide receivers Vante Parker the terrific footwork on the touchdown catch to open that game. That's just sheer brilliance. I talked about his big catches

on third down. He helps me the diving catch on the same drive on a third down to help extend that drive. Jachem Grant had a pancake on the Savan Akhmed run, and Josh Grazzard talked this week about how if you don't block it receiver, you're not gonna play on this football team. So I love seeing Jacchem Grant all five seven of him getting a pancake block. And then Antonio Callaway first reception is a fourteen yard game on a crucial third and ten. He had a very

smooth release on that play. In A cornerback and A J Boyer who's played a lot of good football in this league, talked about Gasicki at tight end a couple of hots. Also got that nice twenty five yard reception late in the game. Some good chemistry there between he and Ryan Fitzpatrick on that corner route. I thought that was smooth. Dermo Smith also had a good block off the edge on that fourteen yard Savon Akhmed run on the offensive linel probably save more of that for Tuesday.

On the All twenty two, we talked about the stunts causing some issues. Of course, six sacks in this game not what you want to see, but we'll get more into that on Tuesday. On the defensive line, I thought ray Kuan Davis had a fantastic game, getting penetration, slipping off blocks, stacking up double teams, getting tackles for loss. He had the surge on that fourth down stop, was in the backfield and made plenty of plays that way.

Emmanuel ogball before the door before the Dolphins forced McManus to a twenty nine yard fieldglore or something to that, something to that effect. He had a great tackle for loss on second and one, which then forced a quarterback or a call or the quarterback rolled out right into pressure and Kyle van Noy's face, who closed that thing down, made a big play himself. But Emmanuel a buy a big second down stop to help with the defense off the field for a field goal on that particular drive.

A linebacker, we talked about Jerome Baker plenty. He had a hell of a game, I thought in certain areas. Andrew van Geinkl just does so well to show the effort but also to keep his frame clean when it comes to getting blocked, both in the running game, in the passing game, whatever it might be. He does a good job getting off the edge there and shutting things down. Talked about Van Noy's play. I just love his consistent

backside pursuit as well. He's consistently in those gaps making plays against the run and of course defending the past as well. And he Landed Roberts had his one big tackle for loss on a run blitz. Might not have been at run blitz. I don't know the call, but he shot that thing quickly, made it look like it. If it wasn't, it serves how it was impressive either way. It was a hell of a player by Landon Roberts.

He does that have once a game now, twice a game now, it seems for your Miami Dolphins in the defensive backfield. Before that sixty one yeard play at the end of the game, which I don't even know how you count that, but it does go in books. Before that play, exaving, Howard had been targeted six times with one reception for sixteen yards, a pick and a pass breakup. He was in phase on the deep routes. He was breaking things up over the middle. He had to pick obviously.

He had a hell of a game. Once again Byron Jones, same story. I thought Broncos didn't get a whole lot going in the passing game in this one. Jerry Judy and kJ Hamler had some pops. They had that tight end throwback to the backup tight end there. I gained some yards, but mostly damage done on the ground in this game, again, the open field tackling of Bobby McCain,

Eric Rowe, and Brandon Jones. I love seeing that. I still think the secondary is playing really really good football with all those guys intact, all those guys getting plays. Nick needhim had a couple of big plays in this game as well. Some p b U s the hand on the back but didn't turn him on that play. I thought that was really good coverage there, and good savvy nous out of a second year player there in Nick need Hum. And then we finished on special teams.

Matt Hawk had some a couple of good punts in this one, but Clayton Fedglum had great open field tackles twice in this game. Commu grug Hill had some good plays on special teams as well. And then Andrew van Ginkl and Calvin Munson with great coverage on another punt stop and Jason Standers fifty three yards again money in the bank when you had to have it. Also, Noah Ignogamy consistently getting down there as the first man, the gunner that forces the returner to kind of make a cut,

change directions, and that's your main job. Force that guy to make a cut and slow down and let everybody else get caught up to make a play in Miami. Continues to win those hidden yards battles in that special teams grouping there. It's it's fun to watch those guys play every single week so consistently. Hats off once again to Danny Crossman forgetting that job done. All right, that's gonna be it for the Sunday Night recap etition here

of the Drivetime podcast. You all please be sure to subscribe, rate and review the show. Give me a follow on Twitter, It's at Winfield, NFL fall the team at Miami Dolphins. Check out the fish Tank and the audible podcasts, and of course Miami Dolphins dot Com. We'll come back with you guys on Tuesday for the All twenty two review here on Drivetime. Until next time finds up