Dolphins Pull Off Improbable Late Win; Recap, Takeaways, Sound Bites from the 26-25 Victory Over Raiders

ahead and let this thing play for fifteen seconds? You get the maximum amount of a lot of time for Jay Rock as the Dolphins. WI thanks win win win, win, win win win win wins. I'm saying that, mommy, when win wes, Dolphins are winners. The excitement of it, all the takeaways, the individual performances, the emotions, the ramifications. We're gonna cover it all here on this Sunday, December edition of the Drivetime Podcast. Hey Dolphins fans, the New year

starts now at Auto Nation. Let's skip the rest of and get two big New Year savings on your favorite Auto Nation Chevy's, Fords, Toyotas, Hondas, and a whole lot more shops safely at the AutoNation store near you or auto nation dot com and save. Now, let's go ahead and just go through this thing from an emotional standpoint first, and then we'll go ahead and let that shine wear off a little bit and get back into it more logically,

more rationally. Here on this recap edition of the Drive Time podcast, David Locke, the owner of Locked on Sports, one of my I Guess podcast mentors, taught me rule number one in this industry a long time ago. You play the hits first, and we start with the play. Let's actually go ahead and first start with the quote from Mac Hollins on what he had to say on what he saw on that particular play, his big thirty four yard reception to help put the Dolphins in position

to win over the Raiders. Um, I'm not sure from there and what what happened, Um, I'm sure fits. It's something usually when safeties or corners go somewhere, they're not supposed to be at their their following quarterback eyes. So I didn't get to see back there, I'll ha. All I saw was the picture so far fits his face facing the opposite end zone. Um, while he's throwing the ball.

So that's the only picture I've seen, so I'm not even sure how he got the ball off, but yeah, if I had to guess, I'd say one of the safeties was falling quarterback eyes and ended up losing me on the back side. And I kind of feel like saying something on steroids is the most cliche like thing you can say, but this game to me felt like the Miami Miracle on steroids, because one, it puts us in prime position to go ahead and control our own

destiny in Week seventeen. But two, I mean maybe it was just that one reason, but I do feel like these two events that occurred had similar odds of occurring like that because you look at the pitch play and you think, yeah, that's obviously a very low percentage chance of happening. But consider the things that had to happen on this play from the twenty five yard line, a thirty four yard pass with nobody in sight around mac Hollins.

You heard him talk about the possibility of a cornerback or a safety kind of peeking on on Ryan Fitzpatrick's eyes in that cover to look that he talked about there, I mean that had to happen. You had to get that face mask, because even if Matt comes down and bounds, you still have to shoot another ten fifteen yards to the sideline, probably to give Jason Sanders a realistic shot.

He was at about a fifty nine fifty eight yard field goal, which he can make those, but your percentages from that distance are not great among the National Football League history of field goals. So you had to get that penalty to help stop the clock and get you the extra fifteen yards because if you shoot the middle of the field on the next play, you're not gonna have a chance to get up there clock and get the kicking team out there. So the odds of that

just insanely low of having that happened. And Ryan Fitzpatrick discussed the play post game. He was asked, was this the craziest play you've ever been a part of? Or was this the have you ever had a completion more in saying in that one. Here's Fitzpatrick after the game. No, I I don't think so. Uh, you know, I think the the odds are pretty low there of us being able to complete something with the proper yardage and not have to throw a hail Mary, but actually take a

field goal, and um, you know. I didn't. I didn't know that it was complete. As you guys saw, my face mask was getting pulled and my head was getting ripped off, and I turned around to say, hey, you know, face masch just to make sure they saw it. And I think Jesse Davis or um maybe Miles had to tell me that it was complete, but I didn't know that we completed it. I mean, nineteen seconds, no time outs. You literally have like two possible outcomes on this play.

You either get a big catch and run down the middle of the field and spike it and you hope you have some time left out of nineteen seconds to have what happened happened. I mean, I guess we could get some pitchy woo woo going, but that's usually the final play of the game, reserved for when you have to go the length of the football field on one play, so you don't consider that an option on this play. But you get the receiver in behind the cornerback there

and underneath the safety. Not sure what the raider's call was there, mac halland speculated maybe a cover to look where they're kind of focused on Fitzpatrick's eyes, but he feels the dang thing like a punt and gets out of bounds. So there you're looking at fifty eight, fifty nine yards, maybe sixty depending on where the spot where the snap and all that stuff is from Jason Sanders. But even more impressive as the fact that Ryan Fitzpatrick's

head is on sideways. Give him fifteen yards, give us forty five yards for Jason Sanders to go ahead and put that thing through the uprights. Money in the bank, give us one win away from the postseason. Let's go ahead and hear from Fitzpatrick, who's now just one win away from going to the postseason for the first time in his career. I want to go, man, I want to I want to feel what it's like. Uh. I think we've got a special team. I think this team

all year long as has fought. And for me, it's it's not just this year, it's it's the last two years and trying to build this foundation and you know, build this vision of what coach Floras thinks that we are. So I'm proud of the fact that I've really been able to contribute to that and have a strong contribution. And uh, you know that that today was was a great play at the end, but just on the sideline, the excitement being able to hug your teammates and your coaches.

I mean, that's why we played the game. So uh, I am well aware that to the playoffs, I promise you omar and would love nothing more than to get there. And so the play that sparked the victory that got us to within one victory of the postseason was after absolute mayhem. Before that, the Raiders didn't convert a third

down all game long. So after Myles Gaston rips off a fifty nine yard touchdown catch and run on that Fitzpatrick pass late in the fourth quarter, like three left in that game, I was pretty well expecting that to be the game. Right there, I had you erased and

begun my story from Miami Dolphins dot com. Go ahead and check that out right now up on the team website for oh, I don't know, the eighteenth time or so, I had my winning column my losing column, trying to find out how to match those two things together and get you the best story post game possibly. I'm happy to do it. And then they got the big play from Nelson agilark back to the losing column, I have

to go ahead and publish the Swing of Emotions. Oh buddy, I'm just not cut out for but this team, they certainly are. It speaks of the resilient nature of this team. Man. You heard Fitzpatrick talk about it there in the playoff clip. This team has risen to the occasion all year long and become a team that has taken on the personality of their head coach, a team that just is not gonna give up, not gonna lose their fight. They're gonna keep that even keel mindset that even kill personality and

approach from opening gun to the final buzzer. Oh my god, and my god. You know, I love this time of year for many reasons. But I also love how Facebook or Snapchat or time hop, whatever those social media sites that give you the flashback data from your previous post or tweets or whatever it might be. And on Christmas Night in my brother and I popped champagne when the Chiefs beat the Broncos to get the Dolphins into the playoffs. That you're breaking an eight year streak of playoff free

football for the Dolphins. And tonight he was with me again to watch a game for the first time together since actually the Colts game and a tough loss. That game was together. But man, I'm not popping anything tonight, but that was a fun, fun game of fun night, fun experience that with my brother. Let's go ahead and jump right into the takeaways, the storylines I was taking a look at and the individual evaluations here on this recap edition of Drive Time. No John can gem me tonight.

I'm hoping he is fast asleep right now as we are recording this podcast very early morning hours on Sunday morning. So a couple of things I want to take a look at heading into this game, and of course the storylines changed throughout the course of this game. What the Dolphins offense looked like when they go back to the more hurry up approach, is it going to be more of a conservative kind of milk the clock and play the defense and special teams game. Early on that was

the case. Pretty pretty slow start offensively both from a production and pacing standpoint. The second half, they got things going there with the running game, got that balance back achieved, and got some some more up tempo attack going, especially in that fourth quarter once Ryan Fitzpatrick was inserted into the lineup. A different looking offense when he came into the game, and they kind of had to go and had to get up tempo and had to get points

on the board there quickly. And the balance on the offense was a big thing I was keeping an eye on in this game because heading into the final game and the playoffs stretch down the line here, the more versatility you can show as a team and really as an offense in this particular instance, is only going to help you at this time of year, because whether or opponents or different circumstances that arise throughout the course of a game become heightened tenfold week six team, weeks, seventeam

possibly into the postseason, and you have to have multiple pitches in your bag. I think I referred to this on a podcast a while back about the Saints over the years. How all those years Drew Brees piled up four thousand, five thousand, you know, fifty five hundred yards and fifty touchdown passes and all those records making numbers, but they were going seven and nine in games because they only really had that one pitch in their in

their toolbag. The the vertical offense, the explosion explosive offense, and kind of had to find a way to win games forty two to thirty nine and a half the time. Then they found that balance. They found Alvin Kamara and mark Ingram a couple of years ago. They got Cameron Jordan playing at a high level. They got all those the defense playing at a high level to go along with Cameron Jordan's and they suddenly had multiple ways to win football games, and they become a twelve thirteen win

outfit that goes into the postseason every single year. You find that balance. You find a two hundred and fifty yard Russian performance last week and one hundred sixty nine yards from scrimmage this week from one guy from Miles Gaskin gonna be a takeaway. You have that ultimate balance.

And then we see Mike Kasicki taking steamshots up in the middle of the field with that injured shoulder and all, and playing through it and playing through the and fighting through the pain of whatever he's dealing with in that shoulder, and going out and making big plays in the passing game, and Lynn Bowden taking vertical and horizontal shots and and making his plays, and Jachee Grant taking pot passes and just incorporating the entire slew of your offensive arsenal to

find balance on offense. I think that was a big accomplishment and big achieved achievement in this game. My other storyline, how did the injured guys come back? You heard me talk there about Mike Asiki and Jeachem Grant. Both those guys had an impact, although Grant did leave later with an ankle injury and did not return to the game. Davante Parker was not available for this game. We'll see about his status for next week. I also wanted to

know which back is gonna get the bulk of the workload. Well, there you go, Myles Gasking one and sixty nine yards from scrimmage. What a game he had. What was the plan going to be for Derek Carr coming off of an injury that originally, you know Ian Rappaport, those guys reported ten to fourteen day injury. They did have a ten day layoff in between games. And so he comes back after that ten day layoff and plays a good

football game. Derek Carson to good quarterback. But I thought Miami's planned once again after a bit of a slow start that first Raider touchdown drive. After that, I thought they really settled into their own and found a way to kind of make him uncomfortable and cut off the pass on some of those bootleg rollouts. We'll talk more

about that here in just one second. Was really curious to see how they would do that going in and with the special teams get back on track after a couple of games that just seemed a little bit uncharacteristic from Danny Craftsman's units. These things were all stuff I was looking at. And the first takeaway from tonight's podcast,

you have to say, Ryan Fitzpatrick to the rescue. You know, I let off my my recap story up on Miami Dolphins dot com talking about his October twenty one press conference when he was you know, he kind of bared his soul to the Miami South Florida media, talked about how much pain it was to find out that he

wasn't gonna get a play anymore. How he opened internally about is this the last time I get to play with the squad or with you know, with this league, with this sport, with this profession, that I take my last snap as a quarterback in the National Football League. He thought about that. He talked about that to us and to see him come out here and get that victory in this game, play the way he did and kind of sparked the offense with that energy. It just

speaks to the character of Ryan Fitzpatrick. It speaks to the value of Ryan Fitzpatrick for this football team. And how about the stats. He ended up with the one touchdown past nine for thirteen, throwing the football on two yards and at one thirty seven point five passer rating for Ryan Fitzpatrick, the ball came out quick, he felt in the rhythm early on. He talked about post game how he was heading back to the bathroom, kind of you know, taking a pee in the tunnel bathroom back there.

When Brian Flores approached him when he came back onto the sideline, said hey, you're gonna be going in. He talked about getting his obligatory seven warm up reps, has seven warm up throws coming right into the game, coming off the bench called coach Flores talked about him like a ninth inning reliever in that sense. And this guy can just really flip a switch and turn it on

in an instant. I can't think of a better backup quarterback maybe in the history of the National Football like, this guy is exactly how you want to be as far as that galvanizing force, that guy that really sparks the energy and and helps the team, you know, be better from a preparation standpoint, and when he has to come onto the field and the pinch, he can perform for you. He did it in this game. He helped it Dolphin save the season for the meat for the meantime.

You know, we'll see what happens next week. And they also had scenarios to get into the playoffs with a loss in this game. But getting that victory is a big, big, big, big note here for the Miami Dolphins, for Ryan Fitzpatrick and he comes off the bench and makes it happen. What a job by Ryan Fitzpatrick. Let's go ahead and here from two a tongue of Valoa on what he saw fen the sidelines when fitz came in and made things happen. Well, it's always good to win. It always

feels good to win. First off, Um, you know, I know outsiders they're probably gonna say, well, it wasn't you in there that brought the win? Of course it was Fits And I think it was a it was a great effort by not just him, but the entire offense. Um, you know, just him understanding you know how to get in the groove and you know where to go quickly with the ball and whatnot. I think, um, oh that that's that's what makes fits to who he is. And in a way, it really wasn't as shocking um tonight,

you know, to see what had happened. Um now they call it fifth magic for a reason. I mean, how great is that spirit there from Miami Dolphins quarterback to a tongue byloa who Brian Flores announced after the game he's the starting quarterback. That's how it's gonna be going forward. Fits came off the bench to help give you a spark. He achieved that he accomplished that. Here's Coach flor Is talking about tows game after the game. Um, you know I think you know it was up and down. Um,

look I have a way. Look we I have a lot of confidence to us. He's made a lot of place for us because he makes he made place today. But we just felt like we needed a spark the way the game was going and the Fitz he gave us that. But if we have a lot of a lot of a lot of confidences to us when he's a young player, he's developing, he's improving on a daily basis. He's learning from these experiences and you will be better next week and he will get the Buffalo Bills on

the road next week up there in Orchard Park. But just to go ahead and finish off that first note, man like Ryan Fitzpatrick, the value he has this football team. You heard him talk about the two year process of being a big contributor to establishing a culture and establishing

the vision that Brian Flores has here in Miami. It's been fun to watch fits tip of the hat to use, sir, you have the utmost respect from myself, Dolphins fans, Dolphins Nation, all over the country, all over the world, Ryan Fitzpatrick, forever, forever in our hearts. Let's go ahead and talk about

takeaway number two here in Miles gascon. The production. We talked about the one and sixty nine yards, the two touchdowns he scored in the game, one from two oh one from fits there breaking tackles and the balance to wind back those runs and to run through arm tackles and produce extra yards as he kind of fell forward through the contact and the vision to find those backside cuts or those backside lanes on those cuts, and just to set defenders up to make them miss in that

first and second level. There were so many players where it seemed like he got to the edge and he had to get around one guy that whether it was with speed to the edge or a cut up field and kind of get through an arm tackle or get him off balance and make him miss in the open field. He did it time and time again. I cannot wait to go back and check out the PF numbers on yards after contact, how many forced miss tackles he had because he was making it happen all night long in

this game. A big, big piece of the puzzle as he comes off of savan Achmed's one and twenty two yard rushing performance last week, former Washington Husky and his own right there and gives you this performance in this game, one hundred sixty nine yards from scrimmage. Man, what a good performance that was the Dolphins running back And all of a sudden, you've got some backs in the stable now that can produce for you and generate that balance we talked about that's so important to have at this

stage of the season. Now, he also had that fifty nine yard touchdown run do in large part of a couple of big downfield blocks from Mac Hollins and Mike Asiki. They talked about that in the receiver room, in the tight end room all the time. It was a big focus of my article on Friday, my Top News Temperature Check, not Friday. On Thursday's Top News, the Temperature Check article taking a look at the Dolphin's ability to block downfield. How Chan Gailey says, You're not gonna have a big

run unless you have blocking downfield. How Josh Grazzar, the receiver's coach, a few weeks back, said, if you're not gonna block force, you're not gonna play in this room. Mike Asiki Mac Collins made huge blocks downfield on that fifty nine yard touchdown. Here's Myles Gaskin talking about the blocks from his guys Mike and Mac. Yeah. Uh, this kind of got spun around after the catch. And then I've seen see my dogs out there. Uh, Mack and Mike. So I've seen I've seen Mike's block. I don't really

see Max block. He told me about it. Yeah, it was great, and News is always trying always trying to make plays, you know what I'm saying, So you ain't always gotta have the blowing on hand. The main plays I don't happen ont In too, and He's absolutely right, does not happen without those two guys out there. Takeaway number two. I wanted to see how this team responded to the slow start, and especially defensively. After that first Raiders drive goes down, they score touched not the first

I have the second drive of the game. Rather they go down, score a touchdown. And I like the way they responded to what the Raiders were doing offensively. So many of those little chip plays out in the flat where car would do a play action, get some boot action going and check it down to like a Jason Witten or a Josh Jacobs or a Darren Waller, which,

my goodness, Darren Waller is a freaking monster man. But they had these plans to get the ball out Derek Carr's hands quickly, and I thought Miami responded well to take away those quick outlet options and take away his initial reason force him to kind of stand back into

that pocket. Remami had the kind of rush contained to keep him hemmed in there and force me to make plays from within the pocket, and I thought that they did so well to marriage to marry that up with coverage downfield to really put the clamps on this Raiders offense pretty much from that drive on all the way until late in the fourth quarter when things kind of got sideways. There a couple of big plays deep on the field in the passing game, one on the d

p I one on the big Agilar touchdown reception. We'll cover those later in the week on the All twenty two review of the podcast here, But just so many good instances of open field tackling, shutting down the running as for both the backs as well as Derek Carr trying to get out in space. They were over ten on third down. I thought the most crucial third down of the game was Nick met him on the edge and kind of one on one coverage there with Hunter Renfro who just makes a habit of making guys miss.

I mean, we saw on the punt returns, this guy is elusive in the open field, and he nearly has a touchdown when the game was thirteen thirteen, which could have been kind of a momentum killer. Even though we saw the Dolphins bounce back from that stuff all the time, especially in this game. But if they go up twenty to thirteen there, you might be having a different complexion

of this game. But need Him finds a way to get that stop, and it just speaks the way this defense plays year weekend and week out all year long. With that relentless passion. They fly to the football. They don't worry about the scoreboard, the downer distance. They just play situational football for that moment and they find a way to make plays. They put pressure on the quarterback and just finding out what the what the Raiders were

doing that was working against that defense. I thought they responded and reacting to that couple of instances with combo coverages where you saw guys getting doubled or bracketed down the field different rush packages. We saw need Him coming off the cap blitz. They're off the side to team up with Andrew Van Ginkle for that first sack. They were walling guys off in those crossing routes that have given so many teams so much fits in man coverage

throughout the course of all eternity. They find a way to get some of that stuff shut down and take away number three. Speaking of the Van Ginkel pairing on that blitz on that sack with Nick need him, Van Ginkle big day in Shack Lawson's absence, and not that he is a one for one replacement of Shack Lawson. I mean, the Dolphins defense is so multiple and so vast you're gonna have. You know, you're gonna have multiple guys filling for a guy like Shack Lawson when he's down.

But I thought it was interesting because you go back to Week five against the forty Niners and that was the first game that Shack missed as a Miami Dolphin, one of two games he's missed now as a Miami Dolphin, and going into that game, Van Ginkle average third team point five snaps per game. He goes up to forty six snaps in that game and gives you a sack, gives you a force fumble, gives you a bunch of

big plays in that game. And he comes out tonight and winds up with a career high two sacks in the game, now has five and a half in his career four and a half on the season. But he also had a run stop right on the first play of the game from scrimmage. He does such a good job coming off that edge and kind of angling inward and forcing the back to make a quick decision, because sometimes the back might want to spot or pick out their lane, pick out their whole and kind of work

through it. But if you do that with Andrew Van Gigla as the backside pursuit defender, he's gonna get you in the backfield. He did all the time in college, He's done it so far through two years in the NFL. He did it in this game tonight. Also had a pass breakup in the second quarter. Man, he's playing some good football and really needed him on this game without

Shack Lawson being on the field. And the fifth takeaway here from this podcast, we'll go ahead and talk about some of the I guess shortcomings recently for the offense. We go ahead and talk about playing in kind of that short condensed area, but also the inability early in this game to convert on on third and short yards they were one for three in the first half on

third and two or shorter. But also playing in that kind of condensed area and trying to play the short passing game and live in that kind of stay ahead of the chain type of offense. It just it puts them in such a situation where they have to play such mistake free football. You have to catch every football,

every pass has to be on target. You can't have penalties, those little things that can go awry on any given drive, and some of the things the Dolphins defense has found a way to capitalize on with their kind of bend but don't break mentality where they make you make multiple plays a game and not make the mistake, which every team to this point pretty much has, as the Dolphins lead the NFL with twice seven takeaways. The same is

true of the offensive side of the football. And granted, you know you're down Devonte Parker in this game, Mike Asiki's comming back off that shoulder injury. You get your running backs back and get your Keem Grant back, But all things told, the Dolphins just kind of shot themselves in the foot early in this game, and that's been the case for a few weeks offensively to get things started.

It's great to the way they respond and come out of locker room in the second half, but man, if they can get that earlier season first half offense paired back up with the way this team is coming out and playing in the second half of games. If they can find that script, if they can find that recipe, man, they can beat anybody in this league. I would be fun to watch to see if I can figure that out over this last game heading forward into the rest

of the season. But I think that playing in that kind of short, condensed box and failing to convert on some of those third and short yardages, that's where some of the meat is on the bone for this offense and for this team. A couple of extra points. I want to go ahead and note here, I guess takeaway six and number seven number six would be special teams finding a way to generate big plays to help get the offense going. Clayton Fedgerlum fourth and one. I talked

about watching the game with my brother. I told him, here comes with the direct snap to Federlum, because it just looked like a good time to do it, and plus territory. They do it. He goes for twenty two yards and that was the longest run by a non Skille player for the Miami Dolphins since two thousand three, a Monday night football game against the Eagles when partner Matt Turk took off for twenty three yards. Here's a cool fact about that. Your boy, at sixteen years old,

was at that game. That was my first game in Miami, My first ever Miami Dolphins game was seeing Matt Turk run for twenty three yards. So some cool uh, some cool parallels there between Clayton Federalum and Matt Turk and the seventh final extra point. Here is just these different level tight ends, and I'm talking about Travis Kelsey and Darren Waller. They're impossible to defend. I mean, Eric Roe had a good game for my money. He was in good coverage out the course of the entire game. And

Darren Waller just kept making play after play. Oh man, that's a that's like a new beast and new weapon in this NFL. Travis Kelsey and Darren Waller, My goodness, I'm glad both those guys are off the schedule for the rest of the season. Some individual notes here. I thought to a tongue about Lower early in the game of the quarterback position. I like the way he stood in there and delivered the football on a cruel route

on a third nine passage of Keem Grant. Thought he was throwing the ball kind of getting away from pressure nicely in this game, and then he had to obviously come out of the game in the fourth quarter. Ryan Fitzpatrick comes in and found a rhythm. That first third down conversion to Isaiah four I thought was so important in this game to get the offense sparked, to find that rhythm, to get himself into the game, into the

flow of the game, fresh off the bench. Quarterback playing this game as a whole was good because of the way those two guys found ways to make plays at those big moments. The running back position, we talked about Miles Gascon already. I just thought this was the best, the best running I've seen from a Dolphins player this year, even though savan Akman was so good last week. I thought Gaskin just had a little bit extra juice in this game. Hopefully he's just well rested and fresh legs.

We're gonna go into the stretch run here into week seventeen and moving forward. At the receiver position, Lynn bones wildcat zone read, converting that short yardage. The way he runs through tackles and finds holes. That quarterback slash wide receiver experience. By the way This goes back to like the Ryan Tannehill thing where we talked about he's a former receiver playing quarterback. Lyn Boden was always a receiver. He played quarterback his final year of Kentucky because two

guys got hurt ahead of him. So just remember that he is a receiver and he kind of has that that strong lower half build, kind of like that Jarvis Landry Albert Wilson type of can shake tackles, can make guys miss in short condensed spaces. Sure do you like watching that guy play football? And then on the offensive line, I liked the way Eric Flowers bounced back in this game. I thought the offensive you know, we talked about the

struggles in the first half of the game. I thought that Eric Flowers had some moments where maybe he was trying to get back from his you know, his pre injury playing. And I thought the second half we saw that takeoff for him. He had a nice big block, opened up a big hole on a big Miles gas and run on the defensive line. I put some notes in here for Emmanuel Ogball, who just continues to find a way to put pressure in the face of the quarterback in such key situations. There was an incomplete pass

down on the red zone. The Raiders go one for five in the red zone in this game. There was an incomplete pass where car had to throw it away because og ball both one excuse me one his pass rush move and then fell back into the passing lane and disrupted the play in two different ways. He also got pressure later on a third down and completion. He continues to do that stuff every single week for your Miami Dolphins defense. And then Zach Seler the massive stuff

on fourth and one in the third quarter. We've seen that all year long from this defense. When they have to have a play, they find a way to come up and make a big play. He also had some runstops with some pressures later in this game as well, things that either continues to play very very well. Talked

about Andrew Van Ginkle. I want to talk about Kyle van Noy, and we talked about this on the podcast on the feature last week, talking about him setting the edge on Saturday, right, he says, the edge gets set on Saturday in your preparation. Well, this week, I mean had to been Friday because they played the game on Saturday.

But it was a perfect symmetry for this game for him because he so often gets on that upfield outside shoulder of the tight end of the outside blocker and finds a way to set the edge of work back inside to make a play. I thought he had an excellent, excellent coverage snap on third and one on Josh Jacobs where he both took a chip from the tight end, found the back leaking into the backfield, and got into

the passing lane. Car had to go the other direction and try to pass the ball to Jerome Baker's man. I think it might have been Jalen Richard on that side of the play, but van Noy was such so instinctively sound and instinctively into his assignment on that play. He does that so often and it doesn't really get noticed, I think by the general fan. But Kyle Vanoy continues to play the high level landon roberts Man. That sucks to see him go down like that. Hopefully he's okay.

Quick recovery for him. He had two more of those big missile plays where he just shoots in there and gets the tackle at the line. He's been a lot of fun to watch this year for your Dolphins defense, and we talked about Jerome Baker. Thought he had a hell of a game once again, putting together what I think is by far his best season as a pro. Jerome Baker again the run as a pass rusher. In coverage Man, he continues to get the job done out there,

over and over again. Xaviing Howard on the over route. Just the perfect defender on those over routes. Man. He almost had himself another pick on one of those, almost got one deep down the field. Covering Henry Ruggs deep down the field as well. I thought he continued to play very well in this game. Brandon Jones had a tackle on Jalen Rochard on uh one yard short of the sticks on that third nine team play in the

second quarter where they picked up eighteen yards. They did convert on fourth and one, but Brandon Jones stood him up and stopped him short of the sticks. I wanted to go ahead and make a note of that again. Eric Rowe, I thought, was in good coverage all game long. Sometimes the guys just make plays, But as a whole, the Dolphins secondary once again plays another good game. Special teams, of course, a couple of big punt returns there had a hold on the punt return on um on Hunter Renfro.

But the big run for Clayton Federlum that was a big, big deal for this team to get the offense going. So at least they found a way to make a play there when it mattered most as this Dolphins team finds a way to do over and over again. Alright, So the Dolphins sit at ten and five. If we have one game left against the Buffalo Bills next week, and if the Dolphins win that game, they're in. That's all it is to win the game and you're in

the playoffs. Possible seven seed. I think they could move up to the six or five seed, depending on how things check out. But right now, when the game getting the damn dance, that's how it goes. As far as that game against Buffalo, we'll see how they play it. If Buffalo wins on Monday night against the Patriots, they will lock up the two seed. Cannot be moved up, cannot be moved down from that position if Buffalo beats

the Patriots on Monday night. So we'll see how Sean McDermott wants to play that if that's the case next week. In week seventeen, some other scenarios to get in. The Dolphins could lose the game on Sunday and still get in depending on how Baltimore or Cleveland or the Colts play the last two games of the season. We will find out how that works. We'll break it down later in the week once we have the results from these

Sunday games. Enjoy the games on Sunday as you hear this podcast, Enjoy the rest of your week, Enjoy your holiday season. I hope you guys all had a merry, merry Christmas and they have a happy New Year coming up here. But we have one more big game to get to here before this regular season is over here on the Drivetime Podcast. Dolphins win big in Las Vegas get to ten and five on the season, first double digit win season. Since I hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did. I hope you'll enjoy this

edition of the Drivetime Podcast until next time. That's gonna be my time. Subscribe, rate review, follow me on Twitter at Wingfield NFL. Check out the fish Tank and the Audible, and on Miami Dolphins dot com we have the recap story and the Miles Gaskins Saturday Night Spotlight story up on Miami Dolphins dot Com until next time fins Up