Dolphins Jets Preview

New York. The dolphinship off to the Meadowlands for the second game this season with the Jets and a chance to pull within one game in the all time Dolphins and Jets rivalry. We're gonna hear from coach Flores on possible offensive line changes if a couple of starters can't go, improving the run defense, and his favorite holiday and the Flores Thanksgiving traditions. US will preview the game in depth as we do on Wednesdays, and finish up with some

player media availability. All of that and more on this Wednesday, November edition of the Drive Time Podcast. Hey Dolphins fans, the new year starts now at Auto Nation. Let's skip the rest of and get to big New year's savings on your favorite Auto Nation, Chevy's, Fords, Toyotas, Hondas and more shops safely at the AutoNation store near you or AutoNation dot com and save right now. Let's go ahead and turn this thing over to Brian flores Is Wednesday

morning media availability. We got plenty of talk on Thanksgiving, but we also talked plenty of football here, and we'll start with Coach discussing the Dolphins potential contingencies in the absence or potential absence I should say of Jesse Davis or Solomon Kinley. Davis, of course, added to COVID I are earlier in the week, and Solomon Kinley was taken out of the game with an aggravated foot injury that he entered the game with on one day. Let's go ahead and get to Coach on some of the guys

who have been on the offensive line this season. We just haven't seen very much of them because the starting offensive line has been relatively healthy and we don't have to see how this goes on practice. Um, you know, we've got, you know, a few few guys who haven't played much but practice well in training camp, and you know, throughout the course of the year. So you know you mentioned Dieter, Uh, Panky, Davenport. We gotta some guys who have played in games, have some experience, and we'll see

how it goes in practice. I think they're all reving for an opportunity if if that opportunity presents itself in we'll just at to see how it goes in practice and get the best five out there and the best combination of players. And like coach says, if that opportunity does in fact present itself, you could be getting a look at one of those three guys he mentioned, Adam Panky and Julian Davenport, who both have played Sperry Lead

this season. Pinky has been an additional eighth offensive lineman when he's been active and and on the game day roster with not on the inactive list four game days. And Julian Davenport also came into the Seahawks game way back in Week four and played six reps and did a pretty damn good job out there at left tackle. And then you also heard him talk about Michael Dieter,

who we haven't seen him once this season. He's been a you know where you want your reserve lineman to be because again, good health on the offensive lines paramount. But I am curious to see what maybe Dieter looks like in his second year, if he is to get the opportunity to play a little bit down the stretch here. He played some guards, some tackle last year, even played some center in college. This guy has some versatility. He's a smart kid, a tough, tough kid, and a hard worker.

And of course he had those consecutive start streak at Wisconsin. Type of guy that you can really develop and grow in your program. And so with each of those three guys, as coach always talks about rookie, veteran or otherwise, you're always going to be developing these players on your roster, A little bit of me is curious to what we have in those three guys if the opportunity does in

fact present itself. So again, one of these issues of depth a good problem to have, right It's a problem if you don't know who to play because you have so many good guys. That's a good problem to have if you're the Miami Dolphins. Up next, Coach discussed briefly here the engagement or interaction with two a Tungue Vyloa after the decision to go to Ryan Fitzpatrick on Sunday in the Denver game. Here's coach on Toa's response to the benching. He's been fine. I think it's it's a

little bit of adversity that's never hurt anyone. He's fine. We did our normal Tuesday meeting yesterday. What's with the Jets and no issues. And up next, Miles Gaskin is eligible to come off the injured reserve this week if he is ready, if the Dolphins feel he is ready to be activated. Here's coach Flora's on the potential of Miles Gaskin's return. Doing everything you can to get back. He's al jibuta to come off with. And we'll make a decision on that here whether or not come back

to practice. So um, but he's he's definitely made some some games over the last few weeks and we'll see how it goes. And let's get one more football question here for coach before we start talking about Turkey Ham and Thanksgiving. Here's coach talking about the run game, both offensively and defensively. I just got to continue to practice, um,

and then it's about execution. And I think we got to try to find different ways to you know, put the players in better positions to uh, to to have some success in the run game on both sides, offensively and defensively. You know, there's a there's a lot of different ways to do things in this league, you know,

different personnels, different schemes. So we haven't we haven't tried every every avenue think any team has, but we have to do with um you know, keep keep looking for those those different ways to create some opportunities for ourselves, whether it's and if it's something that we were unfamiliar with, and maybe we do that. But at the same time, you know, the things that there are always Hey, if we did if we've got one blog, we would just

sprung that one. Or if you know, we handled that movement, we would have sprung this one. It's a little bit of back and forth on the best ways to to try to make those improvements. But you know they're constant, constant conversations and we've been having them. Um, we have them every day. M M. You know, not necessarily just on the things that we struggle with, but you know, even the things that we haven't struggled with, So you know,

that's coaching. There's a lot of different conversations and communication and we're all just trying to get better, change Josh Danny, and they're just constantly trying to do everything they can to help you put these guys in position into to be successful. We'll continue to do that. I really enjoy hearing that note there from Coach about the single instances

that can disrupt a play. We talk about a team game all the time on podcast All the Time with Coach about how play execution requires eleven guys most of the times to make it happen, and if you have one league or one problem, it can blow things up. And you know, watching the All twenty two, we talked about it on the Tuesday podcast. You see that a few times, whether it's the passing game, the running game, defensively, offensively,

whatever it might be. I think that there's so many instances where this team might be even closer to having more of a running game, better run defense, and playing better football. And that's funny to say off of a five game winning streak, you know, the previous loss in

Denver notwithstanding, but a team playing good football. I've talked about it for weeks now that there is some more meat on the bone, and so it's cool to hear coach Flora's talk about how those one block or the one movement, if we handle something a little better, maybe we can get, if not significant, at least marginal improvements in these areas that can have a greater impact on the on the result of these games. On Sunday, let's go ahead and finish up here with coach Floress talking

about Thanksgiving says his favorite holiday. Gotta love him for that, but you also have to love this comment on the things that coaches thankful for this holiday season. You know, I'm thankful for health. I think the first thing that came to mind. I'm thankful for my wife puts up with my nonsense on a daily basis and handles our household. And here's a great mother to our kids and a great wife and great you know everything. So she's the first person that comes to mind. You know, my family.

I'm thankful with the head coach of his team. I'm very blessed. My life could have gone a few different ways, and to be sitting in this position is I'm thankful for And how about the most important topic of the day, turkey or ham, or a turkey and ham family, so you'll see both on the table. Um, you know, my mom, this was her this was her holiday, so it's funny she actually had m I think Jenny stole a few of her recipes, so I still get a little taste

of mom's cooking and Thanksgiving. So yeah, we're a turkey, ham stuffing, potatoes, greens. I mean there's a lot on the table. There's there's always too much. And so that's really a cool note. They're from Coach talk about, you know, his wife carrying on his mother's recipe so he can still have that taste of of back home and childhood, and that's kind of what holidays and Thanksgiving are all about.

And he talked about turkey and ham. There. I'm gonna go ahead and drop my power rankings here for you guys on the best Thanksgiving dishes, And personally, I'm a turkey guy. I think the protein is the most important aspect because you've got to have protein at every single meal. But really there's only four dishes that actually matter on

Thanksgiving and they are turkey. The ham is fine, but I think where the turkey really takes that's game to the next level is the mixture of turkey with the true champion of the entire meal, where the turkey really leaves the ham in the dust. It's the mashed tatoes and gravy, that combination of just kind of slathering it all together and eating it kind of like a KSC Famous Bowl like you're twelve years old. Again, that's my go to move. So turkey, mashed tatoes, and gravy and stuffing.

You have to have stuffing, and I don't really care if it's stovetop or whatever. It's just good stuff regardless, and that goes into the mixed mash of the famous bowl. And then the fourth and final dish is the green being cast role. You can take everything else. Take your cranberry sauce, take your games, take your whatever. Also, please give me a dinner role. But those are the four things I need. Most importantly is the mashed tatoes and gravy,

the turkey, stuffing, and the green being cast role. But most importantly it's the family of the football and the spirits. For me, my wife's family kind of adopted me as one of their own when we first met about five years ago, and that became a Thanksgiving Day tradition for us going over to her father's house. We would get the drinks going, get the food going, get the football on the television. That's the best part about having a

wife with a father who loves football. Make sure you have that because then you can sit there and watch the games all day and not be preoccupied with parades or other nonsense that no one. No one wants to watch that stuff. Football is on the TV. That's the most important thing. But um, that tradition started about five years ago for us. Unfortunately, with the way the world is right now, it stops this year. Hopefully continue that

in the future. But that's the best part about Thanksgiving, spending time with the people you love and watching football. Speak of football, how about Dolphins and Jets on Sunday. Let's go ahead and break down this game on the preview article up on Miami Dolphins dot com. And I know we have a six and four Dolphins team against o inten Jets team. Kickoff is at one o'clock. Thankfully, I'm so looking forward to a one o'clock kickoff again

on Sunday, November twenty nine. That MetLife Stadium fifty degrees mostly sunny, chance of rain and seven mile an hour wins. And again, I know it's an O intent football team, but do you really need motivation to get up for Jets week? I certainly don't. Because the old adage in the NFL says that there are two outcomes to any game, winning and learning. And head coach Brian Flores is adamant that there was no such thing as a perfect game.

So this team is always gonna be on the search, as you even heard him talk about in his press conference today, on the search for improvement in all areas of the game. And this is the first time in almost two months this Dolphins team has to go to the learning side of that adage. Again, they learned every week, but winning or learning, you come off your first loss in almost two months. I'm really curious see how this

team responds to the game. And too, you know, a game they go into is as favorites as far as what the national media perspective is, and you know, all the talk about this team having a chance to get to nine and three. I want to see if maybe they can take some of that medicine and say, you know, we can't read the press clippings, we have to be a focus on every single day, and not to say that they're not that, but I am curious to see how they respond come out of the gates, keep playing

well in the first part of games. In the first quarter in the first half, coach did say, hopefully we learned from that game. I think there are other plays throughout the game that we didn't make from drop balls a protection standpoint. Defensively in the running game, it looked like we came clean on a pump block and didn't make that one either. We've got to take advantage of our opportunities, so I want to see how they take

advantage of the opportunities. This game on Sunday presents them up in New York and the opportunity there to sweep a division rival. Things have not gone the way the Jets hope this season. Obviously, Oh and ten still in search of their first victory, but that doesn't mean they're breaft of talent on either side of the football. We saw how disruptive that defensive line can be. A few weeks in a row. They played well against my Amy

in the second half of that game. They got after the Patriots a few weeks ago played well in that game, and last week against the Chargers, they were throwing into the end zone with a chance to tie the game after the two minute warning and had a chance to go win that football game too, So they're not far off from winning games. That's how this league goes. We heard Byron Jones on his Monday press conference talk about how down this stretch, this part of the season, you're

gonna get tighter football games. You're not gonna have the benefit of jumping out to those early leads. You need to make sure you're playing silence, solid football every week, sixty minutes a week, and be ready for whatever the opposition is gonna throw you, whether they're trying to stay in the playoff race themselves or they're trying to spoil your playoff run. Things get tighter this time of year.

And with that we go to our first matchup. Highlight of the week here and I just wrote down to beat the blitz on the article because Greg Williams, the Jets defensive coordinator, he loves to turn the heat up. He plays that single high look with everybody up on the line of scrimmage, a safety about twenty yards off the ball. It's akin often to what Miami does with Bobby McCain playing that deep center field, They'll use that deep center and center fielder and Marcus Made to kind

of patrol things back there. They send an extra rusher. They blitz at the tenth most frequent clip in the NFL, that's thirty point nine percent, and he'll draw up some some exotic things, whether it's mugging up the A gaps coming with cat blitz, double cat blitz. You have two cornerbacks coming off either edge. You watch the tape, they find different ways to generate pressure. Again, kind of like Miami does in terms of using different various looks and

different fronts. Like Josh Bowyer talked about. Last year, they had the fourth highest clip of blitzing at thirty nine point two percent. So I'm sure there's a little bit of game plan strategy involved as far as how often they will send that blitz. But you know what's going to come. And the Dolphins counter to that is a quarterback who I've talked about all season long, all off season long, who excels against the blitz and two a

tongue of Byloa. He has thrown four of his six touchdown passes against the blitz for a passer rating of one hundred point six and an adjusted accuracy rating on Pro Football Focus that's on target footballs of sixty four

point one percent. And also the best way to help fourth the blitz in addition to a quick release, a quick processor replacing the blitz with the football from the quarterback is blocking up the interior pass rush really helps give that quarterback that clean pocket in the front so he can pick and slide to his spots and and choose his his platform to get to to have a

safe avenue to throw the football. This season, the Dolphins interior offensive line play with Eric Flowers and Ted Carriss not missing a snap at left garden center and then the right guard position of being a bit of a mixed match between Solomon Kindley and Jesse Davis. Those four guys at those positions have allowed just thirty four quarterback pressures and eleven quarterback hits this year on a combined one thousand, one hundred and thirty four pass blocking snap.

So getting the interior blitz block of the Jets should give to a chance to excel in our second area of highlight here, let's get vertical and that talks about the offense and defense. The Dolphins have struggled to push the ball vertically in recent weeks. According to Sharp Football Stats Warren Sharp dost fantastic analytic stuff on sharp football dot com myame ranks and explosive passing offense. Those are twenty plus yard plays at a seven point one percent clip.

The Jets rank in the same category, allowing nine point eight percent big plays on defense in the passing game tongue by lower back. In college, he was a downfield master, nineteen for thirty nine on throws twenty plus yards down the field, almost fifty on what traditionally is a low percentage throw, and he hit those for nine touchdowns and no picks. Well. As a member of the Dolphins. Here in the NFL, he's three of twelve on those deep throws. So I do expect that gap to be close here

a little bit. Can it start this week? Hopefully? Per Pro Football Focus, four Jets cornerbacks have allowed better than fourteen yards per reception this season, so there's some opportunity to get deep on this defense. Again, we talked about the single high safety and everybody mugged up on the line. You get that thing block, you're gonna have one on one opportunities to whichever side the safety does not cheat.

So it's gonna be up to two to kind of hold that safety and to move him to the opposite side of the field and to create no help on guys like Davante Parker, maybe Mike get Sick or jackem whoever might be that wants to get vertical to us. Job is to move that safety and create that opportunity. And tied in Mike Kasicki, he's responsible for Miami's longest offensive play this season. That's seventy yard or back in

Week five at San Francisco. But the next longest play for this Dolphins passing game among active players Preston Williams not counting because he does have a forty seven yard in a thirty two yard and a thirty five yard is a thirty yard completion to receiver Jakeem Grant. So I do expect this passing offense to get more vertical,

to get better in that area. And because last season Davante Parker caught twenty passes of twenty or more yards through ten games, this year, he's only caught two of those, So there are areas for growth right there for the Dolphins deep passing offense. And the third and final note here is to make the Jets quarterback feel the heat. We kind of use this every single week, and there's a reason for it because the Dolphins defense has implemented

the same recipe in the six victories this season. In six wins, one hundred and thirty three quarterback pressures per PFF.

That's twenty two point two pressures per game compared to forty six pressures in the four losses, just eleven point five, almost half as many pressures in the losses, and that includes a season high twenty nine pressures in the Week six win over the Jets zip shutout that featured seven three and outs, a turnover, and three sacks, and quarterbacks Joe Flacco and Sam Donald both endure statistical drop offs

when under durest this season. Flacco's passer rating under pressure is sixty three point five, while Donald's is sixty point one. We'll find out which quarterback plays here shortly this week, I'm sure. And in the Weeks six shutout of the Jets defensive end, Emmanuel Ogball collected a career high ten quarterback pressures and brought Flacco down for a pair of sacks. Fellow defensive ends Shack Lawson also had four quarterback pressures in that game, so a lot of pressures fourteen from

your two main defensive ends in that game. If those guys can do that again, the Dolphins should have a good chance to put the Jets offense on ice, put the clamps on them and hold them to a low point total once again, and hopefully that helps them get back to the victory circle. The Jets scheme offensively, they ranked thirty second, scoring at fourteen point nine points per game, total yards at two sixty eight point six per game, and passing at one seventy point one seventy per game.

There nine point six rushing yards per game is twenty six in the NFL. And under Adam Gates, we know about this. They love to run the eleven personnel package one or one running back, one tight end, three receivers. They've called that seventy five point three percent of their offensive snaps this year, and only one other personnel grouping twelve personnel, which is one back, two tight ends, two receivers. Only one other grouping has been called more than ten times.

They've run twelve personnel ninety times, so you're gonna get eleven personnel, you're gonna get twelve personnel. That's basically the gist of the offense. And traditionally, eleven personnel is matched up by what your nickel defense, right five defensive backs, whether it's three corners and two safeties, or we've talked about this before, Miami with a big nickel package going to cornerbacks with X and Byron Jones, and you bring Brandon Jones onto the field and he works in that box.

We heard Gerald Alexander on the Tuesday podcast talk a lot about his place, speed, his trigger, his his preparation and putting it on the field. I love watching that guy play, between both he and ray Kwon Davis Man. I think you've got some big hits there in the draft in a second and third round at defensive tackle and safety. But we're getting off track here. Traditionally eleven personnel is matched by the nickel defense. But the Dolphins

multiplicity tends to throw a curveball into the equation. As Josh Bowyer said on Tuesday, we do numerous different things.

Were very multiple with our fronts and as far as the Jets defense go The aforementioned Tounguel by Lois stats against the Blitz are very applicable against Greg Williams with the tenth highest pressure rate or Blitz rate I should say, at thirty point nine percent, but their pressure rate has been thirty second this year at fifteen point one percent, and few teams battened down the hatches and the red

zone like the Jets. They're fifty two point two percent red zone touchdowns allowed, rate is fourth best in the National Football League. On the whole, the Jets defense is allowing thirty point two points per game, that's thirty one in the NFL. They ran and total defense allowing four yards per game in passing and eleven in rush defense. New York lines up in nickel defense five defensive backs eight percent of the time. That's the second highest rate

in the National Football League. We talked about this off the top. The Dolphins have a chance to cut the Jets all time series lead to one. They currently leave fifty five to fifty three, with one tie in there as well. The Dolphins do have the loan post season victory over the New York Jets, and Tango Bloa is one of three rookie quarterbacks in the Super Bowl Era to not throw an interception in his first four career starts. He joins Gardner, Minshew Gokugs, and Dak Prescott in that category,

and in his last twenty games. Since Week seven of last season, Davante Parker is seventh in the NFL with one thousand, four hundred and thirty five receiving yards over that span. His ten receiving touchdowns since then are tied for tenth in the NFL. And he has a way of making big plays against this Jets team. Caught a couple of touchdowns against them last season, makes some big

plays down the football field. I think he's gonna have some opportunities on those deep shots from too in this game, and I think they're going to connect on one or two of those deep shots. Kasiki ranks eighth among NFL tight ends with four hundred and fourteen receiving yards. His fourteen point eight yards per reception is the highest among all NFL tight ends minimum fIF team receptions, and the Dolphins defense has a habit of limiting opposing offenses to

some of the worst statistical days of the season. Miami held the Chargers to just two hundred and seventy three net yards in week ten. They forced four turnovers against the Rams in Week eight and held the forty niners to one and twenty eight net passing yards in week five.

So the consistent theme there. I hope. I think this Dolphins team can get back on track this week against the Jets on the road, get a big victory on the road, come back home for a three game homestand in December, would be a nice run there to head into that stretch. At seven and four. All right, there's your Dolphins and Jets preview. Let's go ahead and finish up this podcast with some player media availability from Wednesday afternoon.

Let's go ahead and start with quarterback to a tongue of by Low, who first was asked about adjusting two different receiver types that he has here in Miami. Obviously, DeVante Parker is six ft three, Jachem Grant is five ft seven, some speed variants there to talks about the difference and the receiver types and how to adjust to that, and he starts the question or the answer rather by repeating the question, how do you make those adjustments? Exactly what you said at the end. I think that's what

it is, It's all about adjusting. Um, you know, we have we have a fast guy. I think all our guys are fast. Um. The thing is, you know, we we really have one really really fast guy that's Jaquem and um, you know, I think for for me, it's just finding who I'm throwing to, knowing the timing with those guys, understanding who's running that route, um, and things like that. So it's it's really just all about adjusting.

So um, now that's why we have practice and I got to continue to be better on giving these guys opportunities to have good run after catches up. Next two was asked to reflect upon his initial meeting with Brian Flores back when the two first met and too now and how that relationship has evolved, and to kind of break down who Brian Flores is as a coach and as a person around the building every single day with his players. Yeah, coach fall Is is a very passionate

He's very passionate as a coach. UM's and he's very disciplined. Um as a person. You know, if the things he does, um, I mean I would say as a team, you know, the more success we have, you know, the in a way the guys start to kind of lay back a little. But um, you know that has never been the case while I've been here with Flow. You know, we never change anything, um. And the recipe to success is how

we go out and practice every day. And I mean it's really with his philosophy is you gotta work hard, you know, to to go out and you know, be successful.

Go ahead and finish up here with the Miami Dolphins quarterback with the question I had for two uh about the advantage of having a tape against the Jets already in their back pocket, with Ryan Fitzpatrick there to walk him through the place he saw the defense he saw too, has a great answer here about taking ownership for himself and getting a film and getting the lessons applied himself. Here's to Uh. I would say it helps tremendously. It's has been out there and he's seen this defense. Um,

you know, he's he's played against them. I've only had about like three snaps um against them the last game we played. And you know, just hearing his thoughts on where he would go with the ball, um, how to manipulate guys in the back end. And you know, also what where we want to attack these guys. UM. But I think, uh, you know, a big deal with with this too is I have to take ownership on, you know,

being disciplined with seeing things for myself. As far as the film um looks that they give and whatnot, Um, And to me, it goes back to discipline kind of like with what you know, with what coach Saban actually said, you either self suffer from the pain of discipline or

you suffer from the pain of defeat. Let's go ahead and move from the offense over to a defensive captain and safety Bobby McCain, who first was asked about the way coach Flora's is after a victory after a defeat and how tough he is on the team after either of those two things. He's tough on quote, even when you win football games, you still have to make corrections and you still don't even no one plays a perfect game, so you still have to you know, he still coaches

either through wins and laws. We'll go ahead and finish up here with Bobby with a question about what is it that makes coach Flora's unique in the way he's been coaching the past and now in the NFL here's Bobby on his head. Coach just you know, he demands, he demands what he asked for and as a defense, as a team, offensively spencer teams. While we all understand you have to be hard, smart and tough to play on this team, and you know play, you know, to

do the things he asked. I mean, he's he's a unique coach in a way that he can get the best out of his players. And you know, he's a great teacher, a great coach, and um, you know, we um, we're just trying to just be the best week can each and every week for him and us. And that's the one thing you pretty much always hear when the players or people in the media or people that know coach Flora's talk about him, that he's demanding. He's the same guy every day. And so the consistency of Flora's

the answer regarding coach Flooras is always consistent. I find that to be pretty intriguing. Alright, let's go ahead and button up this podcast here, short and sweet on this Wednesday, have a happy Thanksgiving tomorrow, everybody, we're gonna have the Andrew Van Ginkle feature. That interview is in the books. He's a fun guy to talk to. You got to let the hair down a little bit in this podcast,

so don't forget to check that out on Thursday. We also have the Flashback on Friday with Dick Anderson talking about the Jets Dolphins rivalry in the seventies as well as the late great Jake Scott on the podcast here. As for today's time, that's gonna be my time. You all, please be sure to subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcast, leave us a rating and leave us a review, Give me a follow on Twitter. It's at Wingfield, NFL. Follow the team at Miami Dolphins. Don't forget to check out

the Audible and the fish Tank podcast. I cannot recommend the Davon Best episode. Enough great stuff from the guys of the Fish Tank as always, and of course, last but not least, Miami Dolphins dot Com. Until next time, fins up.