Dolphins Rams Preview

the weekend appetizer for Dolphins Rams Sunday at hard Rock Stadium. Boy, I can't wait to get out there for that game on Sunday. We're gonna preview the game with the matchups, personnel scheme. We're gonna hear from Coach Flora's about the r p O game, condensed formations, injury updates, and get some players perspective on the game as well. All of that and more on this Thursday, October, the twenty nine edition of the Drive Time Podcast. Drive Time was brought

to you by Auto Nation. There are so many reasons to drive pink, but for Auto Nation, there's only one to finish the fight against cancer. In fact, Auto Nation has helped raise over twenty five million dollars to drive out Cancer. To join the fight, visit the Auto Nation store near you, or drive pink dot com. On a Thursday, here on Drivetime, we have to get you caught up on the latest from Dolphins and Rams with the injury report.

We'll go ahead and start with your Miami Dolphins and up. First, Linebacker Andrew van Ginkle was removed from the injury report on Thursday. Lynn Bowden was added, but only because he did not practice because he had the birth of his child. Congratulations Lynn for that. Jakeem Grant did not practice on Thursday because of an illness listed on the injury report.

Dolphins had six players who were full participants on Thursday, Ray Kua, Davis, Cavan, Frasier, Commu, grug Hill, Xaviing Howard, Byron Jones, and Shack Lawson, as far as limited participants, five of them Bobby mccame, DeVante Parker, Jamal Perry, who was upgraded from did not practice on Wednesday, and Kyle van Neu was also limited on Thursday. For the Rams, on Wednesday, we have their report. Four players did not practice.

Two of those were because of an illness with tight end Gerald Everett and wide receiver Tristan Jackson, while veterans Aaron Donald on the defensive line and offensive lineman Andrew Whitworth did not practice, but those were not injury related on Wednesday either. And then Tyler Higbee, the tight end he was limited on Wednesday's practice with a hand injury.

Will have the rest of the Rams updated injury report for you guys on the Blitz on Friday morning on Thursday's top news as well, so keep it locked Miami Dolphins dot com as well as the Drivetime podcast for the latest on Dolphins and Rams injuries. Let's go ahead and kick off coach flores Thursday morning media availability with the question about release time from the quarterback and the system that calls for quick passes holding the ball a

little bit longer. Here's Coach Flora's talking about his offensive approach. Regardless of who the quarterback is, there's a lot that goes into whether or not you want the ball out quickly. I mean it's really case by case, team by team, week by week. So you know, one week you might want to hold it a little bit longer, get the ball down field more. You know, some other weeks, you might want to get it out quickly. I think, you know, in general, you want a little a mix of all

those things. So m you know, if Itz did a good job of that, and practice I think too has done a good job of that. But you know, we'll see how this is how it shows up in the game. And on the same topic of the quarterback position here, Coach was asked about to managing expectations and keeping his his focus singularly on the Los Angeles Rams. Here's Coach on where the quarterbacks focus is heading into his first

NFL start. Think a lot of that has to do with to man because his focus is on um, you know, this week and really, you know, not much else. I think he understands that it's it's not two against the Rams, it's the Dolphins against the Rams. You know, he's a team guy, and I think his teammates are supportive of him, and that's kind of the approach we've all taken. I think he's staying out approach. Also, go ahead and finish up here we're gonna hear more from Coach in the

middle of the game preview section of this podcast. We'll go ahead and finish up this initial look into his Thursday morning media availability, he was asked about the importance of other players winning their one on one matchups when you do have to double somebody on the defensive line. Coaches talked all week long about how this RAMS defense is more than just Aaron Donald. They have several good players.

Here's coach on that topic. Yeah, I mean they got they have good They have good players, you know, outside of Aaron on with a lot of good players. So again, it's gonna be a team effort. I think, Yeah, Iron Donald is a great player. He's uh, very productive, high energy, high intensity, high effort um. But you see that from a lot of their guys, so m obviously we'll play close attention to him. Aaron Donald's I'm speaking of. But like I said all week, you know, I think you know,

Leonard Floyd's playing real good football right now. So it's Brocker's, so it's Jane Ramsey, you know Johnson, the BC guy back there playing good ball as well. So it's a tough test really across the board. They got good team and so there is Coach Flores this Thursday morning media availability, again, we're gonna jump back into a couple more of the comments he made in the preview portion of the podcast. It just kind of drives well with some of the

topics I covered in the preview portion. And with that, let's go ahead and preview this Dolphins and Rams games Sunday at one o'clock Eastern November the first at hard Rock Stadium. Three and three Dolphins five and two Rams, eighty four degrees, fifty chance of rain. Feels like every game we've had this year at home has had some type of raindity an eleven mile prior wins. So a

typical South Florida Sunday down here in November. And I always like to look at the parallels between the two teams in the intro paragraph of my preview piece up on Miami Dolphins dot com, and I find it interesting there are a few coaches in the league right now under the age of forty. Brian Flores and Sean McVeigh

both fall into that category. And both these guys were popular head coaching candidates as coordinators before they got their jobs, obviously, and they met back in that Super Bowl when Sean McVeigh took his Rams team as the head coach to the Super Bowl and Brian Flores was the defensive play caller for the Patriots and that third team to three win for the Patriots over the Los Angeles Rams. And you look at where McVeigh is now in his fourth

season as the head coach of the Rams. Had a good playoff run his rookie season, went to the Super Bowl and you're number two, and then missed the playoffs for the first time last season. But he has had the first, second, and eleventh rank scoring offenses and currently ranked eighteenth and scoring offense this season. You can see where his specialty is, his bread and butter on that offensive side of the ball, whereas Brian Flora is now

and your number two. Kind of like McVeigh did in Los Angeles with his offense, Flora's has his defense as the number third ranked scoring defense right now at eighteen point eight points per game. So as they say, styles makes make fights, and this is good on good with the Rams offense and this Dolphins defense. On the Rams defensive side, their first year coordinator Brandon Staley is doing a hell of a job on that defense. They have the second rank scoring defense right now at seven teen

points seven points per game. And he'll get a look at rookie quarterback to a Tongue of Valoa who makes his first start of his Miami Dolphin's career, and McVeigh was asked about preparing for a young quarterback like to a Tongue of Valoa, and he said, with any quarterback in general, it's about establishing a rapport between the offensive coordinator, he says chan Gailey and the quarterback to a Tongue of Valoa, which he says, I'm sure they've done so

you don't surprise him with anything. But he says that everything he does starts with the quarterback. That's the first thing you start with the offense. On the defense aside, he talked about Brian floras A scheme and Josh Bowyer's scheme over here in Miami, and he praised him for being multiple, for being mixed, saying, quote, they do a great job being able to mix up a variety of looks, coverage principles, front structures that they had a lot to deal with and a very tough thing to prepare for,

especially on a short week. They play hard, they play physical, They've got good players, but I think they're a really sound defense. They challenge you at the right spots, but I think the mixture and the versatility that Flores can activate poses a real challenge for you. So similar to the other night, we've got to be fishing in early downs. We have to have good balance and a good mixture of some things we can that we can activate towards them.

And the Rams do have to come across country, of course, in that one o'clock Eastern time zone ten am Pacific body clock game for a West Coast team coming east, and this is an area where typically you say there's an advantage there, but the Rams, like the Seahawks in the previous contest we had like this, have been just fine in that role under McVeigh, coming over from the

West coast to the East coast. The Rams are two and one playing in those circumstances this season, and since mcveigh's arrival, they are six and two in the one o'clock eastern time zone kickoff in the NFL, so they handled that pretty well as well as anybody, and they also run the football pretty much as well as anybody in the National Football League right now. Darryl Henderson, who has been kind of in a bit of a time share there with a couple of running backs with Malcolm Brown.

They also have Cam Akers, the rookie out of Florida State, but Darryl Henderson is the leading guy right now. He has the fourteenth most rushing yards in the NFL with four hundred and twelve and he has four four nine speed, which he really helps used to get to those to get to the edge on those outside wide zone runs that the Rams are so accustomed to having success on. He evered just four point seven yards per carry behind.

Pro Football focuses number seven ranked offensive line, so they move guys off the ball, they get the edge, and they win it in the running game. And Andrew Whitworth is like really the market name up front on that offensive line. He's in third his thirteen season as a professional football player, his fourth in Los Ange List, four time Pro Bowler, All Pro honors two times in his career, and we heard coach Hobby on Tuesday talk about Whitworth going back to their college days in the SEC. Here's

coach talking about his history with Andrew Whitworth. I'll tell you what, He's been a great player in his whole career. Now, he went through his college days playing against him. Oven He's a l S. I was at Old Miss, so I've watched his career go through college into the pros man he's a pro. You know, he's a savvy vet. Uh. He doesn't make a lot of mistakes, you know. He he could tell he game plans for each opponent. He has a plan. I'll tell you what he He is

one of the best players in this league. So we'll see probably Shack Lawson get his fair share of opportunities up against Andrew Whitworthy, veteran off the left side of the offensive line, but the entire Rams line has been good for a long time. Rob Havenstein off the other end, is another big body, so it's big on big with loss and all up against Whitworth and having Stein off the right side. There At the tight end position, Tyler Higbie is fifteen among tight ends with two hundred and

twenty three receiving yards. His three touchdowns are tied for seventh among tight ends. But we know that Eric Rohe Dolphins safety has had his day in the sun against pretty much all tight ends he's seen since his switched to safety last season. Held down Zach Urts to one catch last year, held George Kittle to one catch, in the Niners game a couple of weeks back as well,

for just twelve yards per Pro Football Focus. There the Rams receivers, they have two guys in the top thirty in the league in receptions and Cooper Cup and Robert Woods. And Cup from what actually the town that I came here from, from Yakima, Washington. He is a savvy route runner. He is a guy that understands leverage. He knows how to beat both man and zone defenses. Just a really

good underneath receiver. They can show the numbers to the quarterback and make big plays and move the chains that way. Speaking of big plays, Robert Woods, this guy does a little bit of everything, short, deep, intermediate, running that fly sweep, jet motion, taking handoffs, taking under routes, doing whatever he can to move the football down the field and keep that offense on schedule. They also have Josh Reynolds into

there as well. We'll see about the health of Gerald writ as both he and Higbee were on the injury report as we reported earlier on the podcast today. But that offense has plenty of weapons in the backfield at tight end and at receiver. But as far as the Dolphins are concerned, to be able to combat that depth. Since Byron Jones came back from his growing injury in Week five, the combination of he and fellow cornerback Xavien Howard, they've been targeted twenty two times, giving up six catches

sixty nine yards, two interceptions, and three pass breakups. That's a passer rating of two point seven two point seven. That's it against Jones and Howard over the last two games. On the other side of the football, the Rams have an all Pro cornerback in their own right, Jalen Ramsey. He's allowing just fifty three point five percent of targets to be completed for five point three three yards per target. You want to be up over seven into the eight

there for a good above average receiver. Jalen Ramsey putting the clamps on receivers at that spot, and the passer writing against him is just seventy seven point one. And also in that backfield, John Johnsons PFF number nineteen graded

safety in the NFL this year. We'll jump more to the personnel and scheme usage there of the Rams, but first I want to go ahead and jump in to the matchup highlights here and where else can you start besides the Dolphins interior three up against the Rams interior pass rush and primarily Aaron Donald, and they do have Michael Brocker's involved there as well, another very good player

been in the league for a long time. But Donald is, as coach Flores said, one of, if not the best player in the entire league, regardless of position, and few players really stand out the way this guy does. Since Donald has finished as Pro Football focuses number one interior defensive lineman grade wise every season except for his rookie year, which he was number two behind J. J. Watt. Back in,

He's back at it. In quarterback pressures that's more than anybody in football, not just interior defensive lineman, edge rushers, outside linebackers on the football. He has the most quarterback pressures in the NFL from his interior spot. Also has the second most sacks behind Myles Garrett and edge rusher, where sacks typically come from. Garrett had nine. Donald has eight,

that second in the National Football League. He also has thirteen run stock, which is tied for thirteen along with Christian Wilkins among defensive tackles and the Dolphins interior offensive line.

They're set to neutralize interior pressure. They have done an all season long, stopping the game's most dangerous disruptive force on the inside on a combined seven hundred and seventeen pass blocking snaps for guards Eric Flowers and Solomon Kinley and center Ted Carriss among the three of them, just quarterback pressures allowed one every thirty four point one snaps. Of the twenty one pressures, only seven of those have

resulted in quarterback hits. Ideally, you want to get your entire front five blocking off and keeping a good pocket for the quarterback. But if you can keep that interior, that interior portion of the pocket sound, the quarterbacks more likely to be able to navigate edge pressure as they kind of condense things inside and force that rusher behind the quarterback so he can step up, get off the spot, flee the pocket left or right, or go right through

the middle. So holding up the interior pressure is certainly the most important thing when it comes to having that solid pot it for the offensive games. That's why this matchup is so so big. Donald does command the most double teams in the NFL per Next Gen Stats, and how the Dolphins decided to block him and deal with the blitzers and rushers operating next to him will be an integral part of how this game shakes out for the Dolphins offensively and how they move the ball and

Tugo blows first start. The next matchup here is early down runs and this goes for both sides of the football. McVeigh comes from the same tree as Kyle Shanahan and that forty offense we saw a few weeks ago. They both came out of Washington under Kyle's father, Mike Shanahan, and they really emphasize that outside run and then from there the play action passing game takes off and it

can really help take advantage of all the misdirection. They use a pre snap motion shifting the I candy, which is designed to create false steps for your linebackers, for your defenders, get them moving one direction, throw the ball into the window vacated or created by that misdirection you show them. But the Dolphins were able to successfully thwart the forty play action game a couple weeks ago, as Jimmy Garoppolo had a season low fifteen point seven passer

rating in that game. But they're gonna have to one up that performance against this Rams offense because Jared goff has the most dropbacks three total from play action. He's completing sixty eight point eight percent of those throws for an average of eight point nine yards per pass and a passer rating of one fourteen point six. That passer rating is twenty point nine points higher than his general passer rating of point seven on non play action throws.

So GoF throws off play pass on of his passes. A lot of that comes off the bootleg action. And the reason they can have success on that is they are averaging six point five yards per rush running off left tackle and nine point one yards per rush off the right side per pff. That's their two best rushing gaps by average. And then from there they'll pill Jared Goff off and have him kind of work the backside of the formation, hit up crossers from all those condensed formations,

which we'll talk about here in just one second. And for the Dolphins offense, the play action game is the best friend of any quarterback, particularly a rookie quarterback making his first art and we saw a tongue of Byla execute the play action bootleg on the first pass of

his career. Out of that pistol formation against the Jets along the end line of the end zone, moving to his left, throws a strike to Patrick Lair, gets a completion, gets out of bounds, and then on the next play, the Dolphins moved the chains on third and seven, but ideally you would cut that down to third and three, third and two, right. The shorter distances really increase your odds of moving the chains and staying on the field.

So the Dolphins can have a better third down success rate in this game hopefully and hopefully keep the kicking game on the sideline when it comes to the offense. But if you can't, if you have to go to the punting and field goal units, that's a good match up. Here are third matchup between the Dolphins and Rams to highlight, and Johnny Hecker is a full blown weapon. Man pinned four points down inside the ten yard line on Monday

Night Football against the Bears. That gives him a league high sixteen points down inside the twenty yard line this season. But Matt Hawk has a little bit better of a net punting average at forty two point four compared to Hecker's forty two point oh and the Dolphins special teams units are collectively ranked third on Football Outsiders d v

o A. That's defensive adjusted value over average. It removes the It's kind of like war and saber metrics and baseball removes outside factors that contribute to certain elements of the game. I won't sit here and pretend to know the mathematic equation behind that, but I know that a lot of folks really rely on the Football Outsiders d v o A. And Dolphins are third and special teams

collective ranking. They're on Football Outsiders and running back Matt Brita and safety Cavan Fraser both lead the Dolphins with three tackles each on special teams, and Jachim Grant has the third most punt return yards in the NFL with one d and thirty nine. And Jason Sanders, who was named the October Special Teams Player of the Month his second time in the last three months. He won it last December. He did that by kicking eleven field goals

or eleven successful field goals on eleven tries. He's now fifteen for fifteen on the season, thirteen of thirteen on p A t s. And the Rams on the other side, recently released kicker Samuel Sloman and brought Kai for Bath onto the roster. He has not made a kick this season and he has not attempted a kick, I should say, but he was successful in all eleven of his kicks

last year. As far as the Rams schematics that we talked about, offensively ranking eighteen and points per game of twenty five point one points per game, and total offense, they ranked tenth with three hundred and eighty five point seven yards per game, rushing their seventh with one thirty eight point nine and passing there eighteen with two hundred and forty nine points six yards per game from Jared

Goff and the passing offense. And if play action is the Rams bread and butter on offense, eleven personnel is the milk and eggs, so to speak. One running back, one tight end, three receivers is the Rams preferred offensive package by a long shot. They've run three hundred and seventeen plays from that grouping. That's sixth most in the NFL. So you're gonna get three receiver looks plenty of times.

Aside from eleven, they really only ever go to twelve and thirteen personnel, and that second number of the grouping means tight ends. So twelve is two tight ends, thirteen is three tight ends, and you just take a receiver off the field for every tighten you bring onto the field. And so with that, the Dolphin's depth at cornerback and linebackers should be able to help combat the Rams depth at both receiver and tight end. And no team in the NFL operates out of tighter splits than the Rams.

Per NFL next Gen Stats, the Rams with between their furthest with split receivers on the field is twenty point four yards, the tightest in the NFL, and that will test Miami's communication and ability to fight through all the crossing and traffic of those condensed formations. But coach Flores talked about this and his presser on Thursday morning about one of the reasons or one of the elements that contributes to that is the rams ability to get out of the huddle and go quick. Let's go ahead and

hear from coach Flores on the condensed formations. I'm not sure the next Gen Stats has, you know, the their ability to line up quickly on the ball. I think a lot of that's the line up quickly. That's why they're condensed because they get to the ball and snapping quickly, you gotta go out wide. It takes a little bit more time. I'm not sure what the next Gen stats sees all that, but yeah, there's a and just a

line up tight. I would say one of them is that they can get to the ball quickly and snap it quickly, and there's some advantages to aligning the wide. They do a good job of both and offensively. Next Gen has the Dolphins as the widest split offense in the National Football League and at coach flores as presser, he was asked about the r P O game and what that can do to a defense to help create space and create conflict for the defense. Here's coach on

the RPO game. I mean, put you in conflict. Run player, they're reading. They're reading basically the run player, and if the run player plays run, they throw a pass. If the run player plays pass, they run it. Put you an immediate conflict, you know. Just defensively, you just have to do just do a good job of recognizing those sets and adjusting the defense in order to to play those schemes. I mean, we really haven't done much of that this season, So a couple of days of practice.

It's hard to you know, put something like that. So just you know, if we see them. I know they got a couple of them over there, not too many, but you know, we gotta we have to be ready to defend them on a weekly basis. I think they show up every week in this league in some form of fashion. So some RPO talked there with coach Flores.

On the Rams defensive side of the football, only five teams have called more dime defense this year with six defensive backs on the field, and of their four hundred and forty five defensive plays, one hundred and seven have come from dime to seventy seven from nickel. That's five defensive backs and fifty nine with four defensive backs on the field. Those fifty nine snaps with only four defensive backs on the field is the fifth lowest in the NFL.

So they'll defend whether it's you know, two tight end packages with their nickel defense, and they did that a few times. In the Monday night game against the Bears. Their twelve personnel calls for Chicago, fourteen of the sixteen calls came out with nickel defense against twelve personnel, So

interesting matchup there. Other way, they go with the smaller bodies against the bigger bodies of the tight ends in formation, and the Rams don't really rushed the passer as far as blitzing more than your league average their eighteenth and blitz rate eight percent of the time they do get home though. With that four man rush, quarterback Sacks has tied for the third most in the National Football League.

Their defense on balance ranks second, was seven teen points seven points allowed per game, and their defense allows just three hundred and twelve point nine yards per game, which is six in the NFL. The passing defense is fifth to twelve point four and rushing defense at one hundred point four yards per game ranks seventh in the NFL. So the defense ranks good no matter how you splice

this thing. Some final game notes here. The Dolphins are leading the all time series against the Rams eleven to two, with a four game winning street going back to two thousand four. The last time the Rams beat Miami when they were St. Louis was at ten win back in two thousand one. On the note of the starting quarterback, Tongue Byloa expected to make his first start of his NFL career. He was the fifth pick in the NFL Draft, the highest quarterback selected in franchise history since Bob Greasy

was selected number four overall in nineteen sixty seven. Last week against the Jets, Tongue Baloo became the fourth left handed quarterback to throw a pass for Miami, Jim del Gazo, Scott Mitchell, and Pat White. Among those others Ronnie Brown, Jarvis Landry. Those guys didn't count because they did throw passes, but they were not quarterbacks. And when Tangua Balaloo starts, he'll become the seventh rookie to start a game at

QB in Dolphins history. He joins Ryan Tannehill twelve, John Beck two thousand seven, Dan Marino n three, David Woodley and eighty, Bob Greasy and sixty seven, and Rick Norton in nineteen sixties six. He will step into a lineup with an impressive performance upfront. So far, despite starting four new players on the offensive line, just ten sacks allowed that's ninth fewest in the National Football League and on

the other side, generating plenty of pressure as well. The Dolphins seventeen sacks is tied for eleventh in the NFL, and in six games, Miami has nine takeaways that marks tied fort in the National Football League. The Dolphins have also four six fumbles that's tied for fifth in the NFL, and the third down defense has been solid, limiting opponents to just thirty one point three percent conversion on third

down that is best in the National Football League. For postgame coverage, on Sunday night, we're gonna have the Recap Podcast with John con Jemmy. I'll get my takeaways, the individual performances, the stats, John's takeaways plenty to come for you guys. On that podcast will have the Sunday Spotlight taking a look at the Dolphins top performer and his statistics from that game, as well as the game recap up on Miami Dolphins dot com. That's it for the preview.

Let's go ahead and jump now to the rest of the media availability from Thursday and here from some Dolphins players, and we start there with cornerback Byron Jones, who first was asked about the development of the Dolphins secondary bunch of new parts in this defensive back over the last couple of years and Byron being the newest of them, how is it coming along? So far here in Miami with he Xaviing Howard, Bobby McCain, Eric Row and the veterans on the back end, it's fun. We're starting to

build the chemistry as a secondary um. The young guys are are paying attention to learning and getting up to speed. But it's nice to be out there with the vets who've been out there for a while and we're kind of building building our chemistry and we understand each other. We're keeping communicating a lot better. So that's that's the big that's a big plus for having everyone out there at the same time. And how about Byron's take on how rookie quarterback to a tongue Baloa has looked this

week in practice. Yeah, he looks he looks good. Uh, he's hipping the ball. You can tell his confident back there. So, um, you know, it's cool to see young guys do well in this league. And I think he's definitely gonna be one of them. So you know, for him, is learning as much as possible from Ryan Fitz and putting it too, putting U into use. So I think we're in a

good spot. We talked a lot about this in the preview portion of the podcast, all the eye candy and shifting and motion and the relative comparability to the fort offense we saw a few weeks ago. Here's Byron Jones and all the shifting and motion and the importance of communication. Yeah, so one of the biggest components to an offense like this. He's communicating pre snap, so understanding where the motions can

can come from and understanding how that changes our defense. So, um, if you ever receive an attack position, he's looking in towards the quarterback. It's communicating to the dvs to the other side like, hey, this guy may go on motion. Man, surely you check this or check that. It's just really about that as a defense being on the same page and communicating. Because they have different snap accounts, they have

different motions and different shifts. So this is a game where we have to communicate to do a pre snap as opposed to, you know, when the boss being snapped up. Next, we got Dolphins right tackle Robert Hunt, and a common question this week has been about the lefty quarterback instead of the right handed quarterback. Here's Robert Hunt on the offensive lines approach and how it's all about the entire line. All five guys properly communicating on Sunday. I don't think

we felt pressure. UM. I think that everybody, um wants to be on the same page, and including like the left side of center. I think everybody want to be on the right page. And um, you know, keep two up and two go down. Um first to anybody, that's the end. To keep them up and keep those guys healthy, you know, and keep him up with as much as possible. And how about how rookie Robert Hunt spent his first NFL by a week? Where was he at in the facility?

I mean I just I was here, you know a lot. Um, I was up at the complex, you know, just doing a lot of guys up here, you know, just getting workout standing in there. Um. You know you need treating on your body, just staying proactive on your body. Stuff like that. Um. You know things that I think I need to work on personally for myself, I worked on and then I just enjoy some time some downtime at home.

And we'll go ahead and finish up with Rob here with a question about where is this Rams defensive front stack in terms of the teams they faced so far this season. In Robert Hunts rookie year me personally, Man, I'm I'm a rookie. So I think everybody we play so far i've been really good. I mean, this is the National Football League, so everybody's good. Um, these guys, they just I've been seen him. You haven't played against me yet, but on family and they're fast and they're

strong and they do a lot of good things. On defense. We go from one tackle to the other, from the right side to the left side, from a rookie to a veteran to Jesse Davis, who first was asked about what he's seen so far from two a tongue of volt or preparing for his first NFL start this past week in practice. Um, yeah, you know too. He's cool, he's comfortable in pocket, he's you know, he's in the

huddle and he's confident. You know. I walked in here on bye week and he's in the quarterback room watching tape study and so, I mean that's that was very pleasing to see. You know, he's doing his job for sure. I think he's gonna be a good player. I think I can't wait to see him play on Sunday. Had a good scenario coming into this season with Fitz being his mentor kind of which showing defense is showing um,

you know, what to expect out there. So watching him progress through O T A S the training camp to you know now has been you know, it's been cool to see. You know, he's gotten a lot better. He's you know, he's throwing the ball really well. Um, you know, he looks good and so for a big rob. It was his first bye week as a pro, but Jesse Davis has used the bye week in the past. He knows what it's for, recharging the batteries, and he also says the Dolphins might have had their best practice on

this past Wednesday coming back off the bye week. Here's Jesse. Yeah, Ivan, I think we had four days off for whatever it was, and um, you know it very well, like it helps somebody actually relax, you know, heals some old wounds. But you know, coming into just recharging the batteries is probably the best I can put it. Getting away from the facility or football for a little bit and just you know, now we're coming back, we're you know, we're more energizing.

Wednesday I was probably one of our best practices we had, you know, the energy level with the scout team, you know, giving a great look to the quarterbacks, you know, putting the ball in the money. And I think that bye week was very It's a good spot for it. And the guy or one of the guys that Jesse and Rob block for running back. Miles Gaskin was first asked about his experience in the RPO in college. Did Washington run it? Are there pros and cons for it? Here's

Miles on the r p O in the NFL. Um, I am familiar with it ran Washington, Yes, and uh, I don't see any pros and cons about it. It's just the offense. I mean it has president cons in every offense. I'll just try and do what I can when I get the ball and then just run out of my faith doubt. And here's Miles on what he's seen from Okay quarterback to Wa Tongo by looa. Uh, he's looked great. He's always looked great, I mean since day one. Um. I think he's getting more comfortable obviously

with the role now that is his right now. UM, I think he's stepping up. He's communicating a lot, so he's doing everything you want to see out of a out of the NFL quarterback. I think I think Fits has taught him a lot in the past games, and I think he's still teaching them, so you kind of see it kind of the trickle down effect, and I'm really excited for him. And a question for Miles. And one thing you see a lot with Punden's out there

praising his game is the vision he has. The way he presses the holes and gets defenders to commit to a certain gap and he winds that thing back out to the outsider or just picks the correct gap, and it's it's something that happens fast, the reactive, the instincts. I wanted to ask Miles about can you work on that vision, can you improve it? Or is it more of a god given ability? Um? I would say a

lot of his God given Thank God, UM. And definitely throughout the week you see tendencies because he has always been great about teasings about the fronts, about what what this front may may lead to, what the cutback maybe, or where the cut maybe with a whole ba B. So obviously a pre snap, you've got to diagnose what you want and what you want to do with it. But as soon as the ball snapped, you're playing football and things things closed fast, games that ran on the

front line. So you've got a good idea. But I would say a lot of this god given and just kind of feeling playing football life. So and we'll go ahead and finish up on the theme I had for my question today about the bye week and how players feel coming off the bye week going back into another game on Sunday with two weeks since their previous game. Here's Myles Gascon and running back on the bye week. Definitely physically, you get the rest of your body, You get to uh get kind of some of the kinks

out or whatever. You give a massage or two whatever, you whatever. Anybody's root en is. But I think it made me a little bit more hungry watching everybody else

play personally just missing out or not missing out. Obviously everybody gets a vibe, but just watching other people do good is inspiring, inspiring, inspiring, motivating everyone to call it, but just excited to be back in the building, back into god as weird with COVID, you don't want to be around nobody, So the bybe we kind of was kind of kind of excited to be back here morning more than years in the past, so and there you have it. That is going to do it for us.

On this edition of the Drive Time podcast. We have the preview up on Miami Dolphins dot com. If you missed the Bobby McCain feature, go ahead and check that out, as well as the podcast on Wednesday that accompanies that with my exclusive interview with Bobby McCain. We'll come back tomorrow with flashback. I had Seth and OJ on the podcast for an extended version talking about Over the Rams with O J who was on the field that day for that game, for that win, the last in the

career of Don Shula. Plenty of content coming your way all ahead of Sunday's kick off again Us the Rams and we'll recap that entire thing for you guys with John con Jemmy and on Miami Dolphins dot Com. From yours truly until then, you all, please be sure to subscribe to the podcast on Apple, podcast, Spotify, wherever you get your podcast from. Go ahead and leave us a rating, leave us a review, give me a follow on Twitter. It's at Wingfield, NFL. Follow the team at Miami Dolphins.

Check out the fish Tank, check out the audible, and of course Miami Dolphins dot com until next time fins Up