Dolphins Training Camp 2021 Day 9 Recap

So if you don't see day eight on your podcast app, that's because we punted on the podcast for that day. But that means we have a loaded show for you today as the pads came back on. We have a ton of media to cover and a physical practice where to a Tonga bloa and the offense shined once again. We have standout performers, the matchup of the day, and the most encouraging thing of the entire day from the Baptist Health Studios inside the Baptist Health Training Complex. This

is the Drive Time Podcast. So Xavier Howard was out there on the practice field today. He got some reps in the seven on seven periods. He was coaching guys up. He also ran gassers after practice. I want to go back to Friday with Brian Flores media availability and play some sound from that media availability. Here's coach talking about xaviing Howard so far in practice. I think Xavier has done done, done a nice job. He's dealing with an ankle. UM.

I think he's been very supportive of his teammates. I think he's been a ten of the meetings. Uh. I think you see him on the field, coaching guys up, young guys. Um. I think he's dealing with an injury. Like um, you know, we have several other players dealing with injuries, and I think he's working on a daily

basis to get back. Um. Obviously he's an important part of this team, and UM, you know he's taking things ay today and when he gets back, UM, we'll get him in there and and and get him working with his teammates. And UM. Yeah, I think he's doing a nice job, you know, considering his situation. And it was good to see x back onto the field dressed in full pads at Saturday's practice, going through some press drills, going through individual drills, getting some involvement there in the

seven on seven periods as well. And the big quote you probably saw over the weekend was Brian Flores saying this about Xavier Howard, we don't want to trade x write that down. So, uh, he's a very good player. He's a big part of the team. You know, we don't want to trade him. And other roster news on this Saturday here from the Baptist Health Training Complex is it was great to see savan Akhmed back in there

free of the non contact red jersey. He was back in his white jersey and he had a good practice too, so it looks like he's up to full steam ahead. No fuller and no Phillips day. Brandon Jones was shaking up at one point mid practice as well. We'll get more about him for you guys on a later podcast down the Line. Davante Parker was a full goal as well, and Andrew van Ginkl was also out there in practice

for the Miami Dolphins. One thing we learned from Jesse Davis on Friday was that the Dolphins have structured out modified practice days for some of the veterans. Jesse said, unbeknownst to him that they had this plan for him coming into camp, and he said he didn't know he was getting these modified days where you play a few certain periods you go through some of the stuff like Xaving Howard for instance, where you go through seven on

seven stretching individuals and that type of thing. What else we got here a couple of other things I wanted to cover before we get into the practice notes. First Saturday, coach touched on the joint practices in Chicago they're coming up this week and the importance or lack thereof, of first team, second team, third team distinctions this time of year. And we're gonna kind of mixmash those two ideas together here.

As coach talks about the offensive line, he was asked a question about Solemn and Kinley and his progression and whether or not he's playing first, second, third team reps. Here's coach talking about what's important this time of year, and it ain't which team you're part of, because there are so many rotations involved in this time of year with practice and the evaluation. I think there's a lot of competition in that room. Um, I think you've seen guys work with the ones with the twos, with the

three Solomon's. You know, actually want a guy who's worked with the ones with the twos with the threes. Um, but again, like I said, I've said, you know numerous times, it doesn't really matter where you're you're you know, what group you're with. It's you know, is your from alignment, assignment, responsibility and technique fundamental? Are you doing the right things? Um? And that's for each player. UM, And that's really what

we're looking for and that supposed being evaluated. So doesn't matter what group you're in, UM, you know, are you are you taking care of business when you know with with the reps that you have as far as the team chemistry or chemistry along the offensive line, I think it's very important, very valid question, uh, something that we

don't you know, take for granted at all. Um. At some point we'll we'll kind of narrow to sing down to let's call it five, six, seven guys, because we gotta have at least, you know, seven eight guys at the game and whatever five of that group, that group has to have, you know, the chemistry you need to be an effective offensive line. UM. So there'll always be some moving parts. I know. Uh, I think we all like to say, hey, it's just five guys and let them play and let them work. But again I think

Barry asked us the other day. Um, we gotta get some other guys in there too, so that chemistry with the sixth line in the seventh lineman. Um, there's not a big drop off because inevitably that that's gonna happen. Um. So if you want to see all five every day for you know, days and weeks in a row, I'm sorry, it's just not gonna happen. Uh, I don't. I just don't think that's the best thing for for the group overall.

And um, but yeah, we're gonna now just down there, you know, you know it's called seven eight guys at some point. Um. So then coach was asked a follow up after that because he said, seven or eight guys about that number, seven or eight guys that you feel good about? How do you feel about those guys at this point of the season, at this point of training camp. Here's coach, you know early on, Yes, I mean we're we're we're I mean, look, there's some guys who were

out of others. I mean, it's up to this point, but we still got you know, the practices against Chicago will tell us a lot. The game, the preseason games will tell us a lot. So um and told me, you guys are we're keeping score on this, but it's still early, you know, still very early. But you know the Chicago practices that that'll that'll go a long way.

The preseason games that'll go a long way. And I just think, yeah, you know, we're not going to make a full on evaluation or or um declaration of who's who until we get through that. Still early, we're still early, still early, still early. A little fun from coach at the very end of that, And why wouldn't he have some fun with that good stuff there? From Brian Flores. Three more here before we get into the practice notes.

And I wanted to share this because there was a tweet by a national publication that got a lot of run on Twitter, and I, like a lot of people, vehemently disagree with that particular take, basically calling the preseason glorified practices that are overblown this time of year. And as we heard coach say, the joint practices and the games are very important in this process. And I love the preseason, especially Dolphins games. Frankly, the emotion of the

regular season games. That counting the standings is fun when you win, and that's the balance of life. Right, the yin and the yang. If something is going to be that good, it also has to have the equal possibility of something that bad on the opposite end. And I don't love the drama of that because well sometimes it hurts. But in preseason you don't have that emotional attachment. It's

football for the sake of football. It's pure evaluation without a meaningful result as far as the school aboard goes and the standings at the end of the season. So

that's why I love it. But if my words not enough to convince you for why the preseason is both valuable and entertaining for my money, why don't we hear from a player with regards to why it's important to them, like Dirtball Kira's netto a practice squad player from the International Pathway program who just picked up football not that long ago. Do you think these games married to him?

Let's hear from Dirtball this is do everything I want, like science that came here every day at Bratt's, Bratt's Bratt's, And the last two years I've been like watching all my teammates and the weekends going for the game and I have to stay and then like that, every week every week, making me like more hanger hunger for that. I want that, I want. I want to be in a game. Nothing, nothing is more important for me than

being a game and help my chain. Yeah. I will take preseason football every day, every year, every week, whatever you want to call it, I'll take preseason games. Next.

I think I had one tweet from Friday's walk through and it was Michael Pollardi doing something I have frankly never seen before, and he was taking the football at midfield and punting it on a line drive, like not into the air, like not a hang time punt, but line drives down to Jason Sanders who was at the ten yard line, and he was hitting these perfect spirals that were getting down there on a line and he

was just putting it right on Jason Sanders chest. So I asked Mike about this after practice on Saturday, and his face lit up. And apparently, even though it's uncommon, as you'll hear him say, he doesn't every day. And I guess I'm just so inundated with the rest of practice that I haven't seen it yet. Let's go ahead and hear from Mike. I don't think it's common, at least from what I've seen. UM, For me, it's it's mentally getting myself prepared to kind of experience the elements

that are around me. UM. My train of thought is if I can put the ball on a rope um at a specific spot of specific yard line when I go out into the open field and I have this this ton of space, UM, it allows me to be a little bit more comfortable with hitting directionally painting the sideline if I want to put it outside the red line here on the fields, UM, you know, trying to hit the ball so that the returner can't catch it, hit out of bounds, you know, those are the those

are the best returns and the best punts, the ones I can't catch. Right. So that's kind of my train of thought. It kind of mentally gets me prepared. But it's part of my warm up weather, um before practice or before a game. So you'll always see that. That's

I appreciate it. Yeah. I really enjoyed that last part there because I was I was really kind of showing my impressed, I suppose opinion of that particular kick as I was nodding along with him and smiling because I just found it so interesting, so good sport there from Mike to tell me about that, but also, I mean, you can see how impactful it has been for him because he's been putting the football in the air on a line to the sideline pretty much do whatever the

hell he wants with that thing when he punts it out here. And the last sound I wanted to play for him was this because he spoke about a connection between he and the coaching staff and why he's a good fit here in Miami with the special teams. Here's Mike talking about coach Flora's and Coach Crossman and their intensity on the special team side of the football and how that clicks with his personality and play style. Yeah,

it manifests itself in so many different ways. Um, you know, Coach Croftsman, Coach Flores expect a lot out of their specialist and I expect a lot out of myself. So they challenged me. I challenged me. My teammates challenged me, and I want them to uh. Sometimes it's verbally. Sometimes they don't even need to say anything, and I kind of know what what I need to do to execute my role, my job, whatever the play is, and if it's not met, I'm upset of myself. You know, I've

let my teammates down, I've let my coaches down. But and I think that's I think that's what I need. And uh, I'm happy that I'm here to be able to witness it. And of course, Miami Special Teams was a top the Football Outsiders d v o A metric for nearly half the season last year. It changed in December when they finished number six and d v o A. So yeah, details definitely matter, and the punter is a

big part of that. Finally, Lynn Bowden spoke to us after practice on Saturday, and I really liked what he had to say, albeit briefly, about working with coach Studentsville and coach Godzi in the new offense. Also quick aside, Lynn did say that he would play center if they asked him to, said he wants to just play ball, but here he is talking about the new offense here in Miami. To me, I think the offense is magnificent. You know, the coaches, they they took their time with it,

you know, they just they made it for us. And like I said, short and sweet, there all right, We've got more audio for you guys, but we'll work into the story of the day here as we go along, and we actually start with this one. More audio from Dolphins quarterback Read Senet, the second year QB who spent last year on the practice squad until a week sevent team promotion up in Buffalo where he serves as the backup to two O Donga Biloa. He's here working again

and I think he's looked pretty sharp. Here's what he had to say Friday after the walkthrough about what you can gain from the walkthrough. There's so much to talk about. You know. We we got a lot of cover zero looks, so we talked about how we're gonna protect it and how we're gonna you know, attack certain defenses. And so it's really great to do it at a learning tempo where we're all able to kind of talk it through and get get the reps without you know, the contact

and obviously the physical nature that the game is. So it's great for the wide receivers and then we can go in and watch the film and say, you know, here's what we can improve on now when we're in a live setting, hopefully we don't have to coach it up, you know, a second time. And so for the quarterbacks. These learning and the walkthroughs are huge. And the reason I play this is because, well, the defense turned up the heat at Saturday's practice on Dolphins quarterbacks and I

thought QB one really handled it. L I didn't get as good of a look at Jacoby Brissette today because they were on the far field simultaneously as two and his crew were working on the near field. But I didn't see another bomb from Jacoby to Isaiah Ford, which, by the way, Isaiah is making big plays and tough catches off his frame down the field, whatever you want to call it, every single day out here at practice. But watching to and the offense work through the pressure

was quite a treat on Saturday. Real quick, before we get right back to that, you probably saw my sand Lot tweet my reference and I'm really getting into the references these days. It seems. I noted that Parker ran a route and the fundamental drills portion of practice and the ball didn't change a thing about his route or the routes of the other receivers, and that was the

whole drill. You just run your route, put your hands up, and the ball doesn't change anything about the rep And thanks to the great community of Dolphins fans we have on Twitter at Bushwood Underscore. C C shared this with me and I was able to kind of confirm it and vet it through an article I found on the New York Times simple Google, so it's not that tough that I also shared on my timeline if you want

to go see it for yourself. There are some great quotes from Calvin Ridley and other players from the Crimson Tide back in those days as well. But Brian day Ball, current Buffalo Bill's offensive coordinator former o C with a Crimson Tide there with Towa and here's the excerpt from that article. The Alabama offensive coordinator Brian Dayball has a certain way of looking at the throwing accuracy of quarterbacks. All of them can drop back seven steps and hit

a house with the ball, he said. Some of them can hit the door. A few of them can even hit the door knob to a dave. Ball said can hit the keyhole. And I wanted to bring that up for you guys because of the ball placement. It has been my favorite thing to watch through nine days of

camp so far. Then today we got another look at something good and this jives with TWA's numbers against pressure as a rookie from Pro Football Focus to I had a sixty completion rate last year with six seventy four passing yards against the Blitz, seven touchdowns and one I n T against the Blitz for a total passer rating against extra pressure against a fifth rusher or more of one oh two point two. And my first note was watching them go through a drill while stretching was going on,

the quarterbacks working off to the side. They set up some bags to kind of simulate an offensive line in front of them, and then a coach would toss a specific bag at the quarterback's face as they went to throw the football. And that would obviously be a theme of the day on Saturday. And one of those themes was throwing the football like I mentioned on Wednesday, like he discussed on Wednesday and covered it in the podcast, And if you haven't listened to it already, go do that.

If you have listen again, there's no rules against that. But the idea was throwing the football to a spot. And there were two instances where I really noticed that today at practice. One was a crossing pattern to Jalen Waddle where two just almost like you would on a screen pass, faded away from the pressure and lobbed it into the vacated space and that's when the fund starts for Wattle, I mean the speed, the athletic ability, the agility that he shows out there. It really shows up

when the ball is in his his hands. Another was DeVante Parker one on one against Byron Jones. Parker took off and to a cot rock through, got that thing out quickly down the field and the ball was in great shape. I thought DeVante was gonna make a play. He did, went up and got the football, but then Byron Jones flies in from seemingly nowhere to get the pass breakup, and our social team posted that to Twitter,

so you can find that play online. So it's the accuracy, the poison under pressure, the touch passes, the recognition of soft spots and coverage and how to get the ball to those spots for his guys to make plays. And then the last thing I want to touch on regarding two a here in this podcast, the running man. He

looks fast out there. He had a rushing touchdown and goal line work today, But the one where I really saw the jets that made him the top dual threat quarterback in high school when he was coming out of St. Louis High School in Hawaii. Emmanuel Ogbad gets immediate pressure off the blind side of the quarterback and to have felt it and took off right away from the pressure,

and he outran every buddy. He gets up the sideline and then reaches the football out like across the sticks as you go out of bounce, like you see some quarterbacks do these days, like Russell Wilson does every time he carries the ball up the sideline. It was close to ten yards, might have been nine, might have been eleven, but either way, it was a very fast looking quarterback back there for Miami. And actually I mentioned I was

gonna finish up. We'll do one more here on to We heard from Mac Hollands after practice, who is having himself a very nice camp as well. But after practice on Saturday, he touched on what he's seen as the biggest jump for the Dolphins quarterback in your number two here's Mac. Yeah, I think that's the biggest transition, especially really for the whole NFL, but for quarterbacks, especially that year one to year two where you understand how a

season works. You know, you get out of college and it's like, all right, combined training a million interview preps, and it's you're so stressed you don't even know how to play football anymore a lot of time. So now he's been able to take a deep breath and take control of an offense, understand the offense, and really shine out there. I mean you. And that's a great way to segue into the receiver position because mac I also

had possibly the quote of camp. He caught a long ball from to during the team period and scored from about fifty yards away or so. Plenty more of that today. And then Max spiked the football at the end of the end zone and someone asked him or maybe he was a dunk over the goal post. I forget. He's always doing one of the two. Somebody asked him why he's always having so much fun out there, and he said, you know, one day I'll be in a box in the dirt. I'm gonna have fun while I'm here. And

I love that. What a great life mentality. Mac is just he's the best. He's the best out there. I also really liked him talking about studying Matthew Slater, the great long time special teamer of the Patriots. Just insightful stuff from Mac, and we'll hear more from him here later in this podcast as well. But how about Jalen wattle Man. I dropped an outcast reference on Twitter today with him, because he just moves at a different speed

than everybody else, compression sleeve or not. And like I've mentioned so many times, it's not just the speed that makes his game go. In a two minute period today, he got free access up the middle and to hit the back foot and fired that thing out and he went completely stretched out and hauled that thing in on a great diving catch. He's been making catches like that all camp long, solid hands to go with the speed,

an incredible catch on this one. He also caught one, and this was against pressure onto a on a little pass out into the flat where the past kind of sailed a little bit in the face of pressure. But Jalen leaps, grabs it, spins and hits the ground like he's one of those wind up cars that you have to crank up and pull back on the ground that you put it down and it takes off because you've

wrapped up the tire so much. Just impressive acceleration and he's just eating up catches and yards and touchdowns and team periods every day out here. A really good camp from the rookie, and to me, that's the story. Nothing else. The way he's producing out there, and he's been available every day at practice, that is the story. And real quick here, that was a nice thing to see today with a couple of passes that weren't exactly perfect at times.

A lot of the time it was either a really good pass right on location, but there were two three or four instances where it wasn't and two US guys made place for him anyway. Like matc. Hollins also had a really nice one handed catch in two minute that put Miami in position for Sanders to air quote win the game. The scoreboard read thirteen Sanders connects from fifty yards.

He also did the exact same thing with the two's also a fifty yard field goal, and he also went five for five in the field goal periods, so seven for seven, two game winners for Jason Sanders. On Saturday, back to Waddle for a moment in a seven on seven period, Waddle ran this little jerk route where you stick your foot in the ground and change direction and basically play off the leverage of the defensive back, Like if he's inside, you stick your foot in the ground

the inside and you break back to the outside. You get your leverage that way because you're moving in the DBS stationary and the dB was right there on top of it, and with him being on the left of Wattle, two throws it off to the right of Waddle and his first step out of the break was all the

separation that they needed. So it's not just speed separation from that speed, but a real understanding of routes, leverage, and the chemistry with his quarterback and former teammate and current teammate here in Miami, Jachem Grant continues to have one hell of a camp. He caught so many slants today, two of them in a row during team period, and

the second one was just pure beauty. He gets inside and the ball, like we've mentioned, doesn't slow him down one step, and so even with the corner right on his back, he's able to unleash that speed and just takes off and runs away from everybody. Because we know how fast Chachim can run. Eighty eight yard punt return touchdown last season, he obliterates the angle of the nearest defender and then Javon Holland gets over the top to usher him out of bounds after about fifty or so yards.

So whether it's air yards yack yards, they're finding ways to get big plays in multiple ways. Nice rhyme. Jachim also got free in the seven on seven period for a pair of touchdowns from the twenty five yard line going in. He caught the slants, deep balls, passes, in traffic, all of it. Big day for number nineteen. And then

today was our best look at DeVante Parker. He caught a touchdown in seven on seven where I thought he did an awesome job getting off press coverage Byron Jones came at him and attacked him with a jam, but DeVante got outside of it and then to have puts it right at the front pylon before the safety could get over the top. And of course this comes after I tweetd at Miami defensive backs were preventing everything deep

in that drill. I was just watching downfield to see how they kind of passed off coverage and whatnot, and guys were blanketing and two was taken the short stuff as the result. Another day of back and forth wins for the offense and defense. Also, Albert Wilson had a deep catch where it looked like maybe someone busted I'm not sure. I don't have the call, but the post was vacated and to have found him in the middle

of the field for a big gain. And the last note here on the receiver's Kirk Merritt, he makes plays every day out there. Man. In the two minute period he ran a curl route or he fell down to his knees but caught the ball from his knees, and he had a few more plays from Jacoby Brissette in this practice as well. Merritts have a very drawn camp At the tight end position. Durham, Smith and Seeth and Carter had nice days. I was a big fan of

their blocking in the initial run game period. The first eleven and eleven was exclusively run plays, and this was the most pad popping I've heard all camp long. Both of those guys were really good at selling the backside edge and proficient with their technique in that way. Durham also had himself a diving catch and goal line work similar to the Wattle play where he threw away from leverage, but this one was a bit outside, but Smith went

out and got it for his quarterbacks. So again more stuff, more good stuff, I should say from the past catchers and quarterback, and how about the tailbacks. Man Jared Oakes is a load. The majority of collisions out there come from his reps and he presses the hole with real urgency and he just keeps that downhill head of steam rolling. He believes in north and south running. Arm tackles on him are largely futile and a nice kind of, you know,

compliment to that style. As Miles Gaskin in the run game in general, I thought had their best day, but he sprung. Miles did the first playoff practice out the shoot for a big game. He's moving very very well, looks a step faster than me. He's cutting sharply, making quick decisions, and with all the backs, I'm excited to see a game when you can get a better feel for how they're actually running with true live tackling against

somebody else. But Miles caught a pass in space early on, and Byron Jones and Jerome Baker had a shot in open space and the sideline there as well, so basically only had one direction to go and we know these are two of the best athletes on the team Byron and Bake and Miles made both of them miss and I know that's very rare with these guys, so to see Myles do it, I like that. I can't remember if I dropped my Formula one reference on Jalen Waddle or not, but I used it on Savon Akhmed in

the notes too. Because he is very quick. He forces defenders to get it right and get it right quick because he's coming at you with that speed. And the run game can't function without an offensive line. So today Rob Hunt was moving bodies. More on that in a moment. We'll come back to that. Jesse Davis had himself a strong day too, I thought, especially in the ground game. He was clearing out some lanes for guys. And I thought Deeter and Eikenberg did well in this department as well.

I can have worked as a good job of staying on blocks, and I like the way Deeter comes off the ball. He's quick off the snap at a low pad level and seems to have really found his groove for playing in control as he climbs to that second level, very difficult task to get onto the linebackers at the second level and square him up. He's been doing good in that area. I thought Austin Jackson did a great job and pass pro today, particularly against the pressure looks

coming off the edge from that defense. He was passing off and sliding and showing you the athletic ability to quickly get to his landmark and then drop the anchor and stay square over his pads to make his pass blocks that way too. Other offensive line notes, Adam Panky had one of my favorite blocks of camp where he just carried a block all the way down the line and stayed on that thing for the entirety of the ref Stay on blocks, that's the goal for the offense,

get off blocks, that's the goal for the defense. Solomon Kinley had two reps that I loved. First, he and Scura hit a double team that cleared a big lane, and then Kinley came off and got another block on the second level. Later, I'm watching just the offensive line as the ball is about to come out, and I take a look at big Solomon out there, who comes off his man who was originally stone walled, and then put a hit on the man next to him, his man,

and he got the pancake for that. He is the type of dude that you hate playing against because he always finds work. I remember asking him last offseason or this offseason, i should say, and he said that his mindset was, I'm never gonna put a rep on tape where the coaches can ask me about my effort, and we saw it on this particular play. Finally, Robert Jones and Jonathan Hubbard cleared what I thought was the biggest lane of the entire day, this one for Patrick Laird.

He went twenty five yards into the defense before he was touched and man sixty five. Jones is a huge man. His legs are so thick, and I think that's the second or third mention of that on the podcast. We look for bodies out here. That's a big part of football scudding, look at body types, and he's got a big, massive trunkload and legload. How about some defense ray Kwon Davis, We'll get to him in a moment. His cohorts made

some noise to though. Christian Wilkins, he made a play in the backfield, made another play where he stacked in shed. But my favorite of the day was an effort play, which is kind of a daily thing. For he recognizes a quick screen, gets in the passing lane and Jacoby Brissette has to tuck it and look the other way, and he runs away and nine four days in pursuit on his tail the entire way. Man, He's fun to watch play. And Adam Butler stopped me. If you've heard

this a few times now. He works himself down the line, comes off a block to get to the ball carrier for a stop at the line. Two gapping, one gapping penetrator inside outside. Guy can do it all. Speaking of guys that can do it all, Zach Seiler blue through the line for what would have been a four or five yard lost TfL. And he does that, it seems every day. He puts guys in such conflict with that combo of reach and power and quickness. Just a rock

stead solid, solid football player, chevy like a rock. Jonathan Ledbetter had a great stack in shed rep in the run period. He teamed up with Noah Egnogamy on a tackle at the line and since that play has made off the edge, just go ahead and stay out there on the edge. Another strong day from Emmanuel Ogba. He had the pressure on two I mentioned where two escaped

and ran for the first down. He had another would be sack in the two minute period on the hallands one handed catch, and got some more strong work in the run game as well. Shakeem Griffin had another play with pressure. He got in and forced a throwaway from Brissette into the team period and the linebackers had some kind of day Baker McKinney, and then I thought Sam Ego Van had the best day of all. He was

my defender of the entire day for that matter. He had fills in the run game where he's there before the back and just drops the shoulder and wraps up and makes the play. He came clean on a couple of blitzes, including one really nice pass rush move working

on Solomon Kinley. He also pulled down a pick on Reid Senet when Benito Jones batted a pass up into the air, and on one instance it looked like the gap was open and then eg Van came in smacked the blocker and the contact knocked the blocker back into the gap and stacked that thing up. Man. He was filling rushing coverage. He was scraping. We talked about that in a podcast earlier scraping as when your d line stacks it up and you work right off their butt,

right off their outside shoulder and fill that gap. An alack heart kind of day for Sam eg Von. On Saturday, Bernardic McKinney and Jerome Baker, Man, they play nicely in tandem together, don't they. They are often first on the scene when the run game is stacked up. McKinney had

a tackle for loss in the run period. Baker made some tackles close to the line of scrimmage as well, and he made up for the play against Gascon later in the pursuit drill where he didn't take the cheese on a move made by Miles and stayed square and got the would be tackle. On that period, Calvin Munson had an awesome fill on a Jared Oakes run and that was the biggest pop of the day. You could hear the page from up in the seats. Also, Duke Riley,

his speed, man, It does not slump. In fact, the team's speed in general is so obvious that every position on this football team. But I noticed his speed and that down up drill again where he's just flying around. Then later in team he covers Savon Akman on a wheel route and he matches Savan step for step up the sideline. Brossette tries to go back shore ball because Riley's on top of the route, but the ball is a little bit under thrown off target, and then Riley

stands up and signals incomplete emphatically. He had a great rep. So go ahead and celebrate it. And we finished up here with the secondary. And we start here with some audio from coach on Javon Holland and Coach was asked about Javan and his progression so far here in camp. Coach talked about alignment, communication, the keys for a safety, playing multiple spots. Let's just go ahead and here from coach,

we're asking a lot of them, you know, multiple positions. UM. I think he's doing a nice job, but it's it's it's it's it's not necessarily the interception and that's a good play and when everyone kind of sees, but it's getting guys lined up, get himself lined up, being in the right position, and um being a good position to make you know, a last line of defense tackle UM communication with the corners, with the linebackers, UM down a distant situation, I mean there's there's a lot that goes

into that that that position. UM. I think he's taken on that responsibility um and been very uh um let's call it forth right and and and try to you know, do a good job as far as uh taken on that leadership or signal caller spot. Um, which is it's hard for a rookie. You know, I would say to step in there and tell you know, somebody else say what to do. But that's what the that's what the position calls for. So UM, he's growing. Um, he's getting better.

Still a long way to go. And again you know, I think you know, the next few practices you know for us these next two days and then or in the three days and then Chicago and in the preseason game and then we'll um trying to make you steady improvements. And then I talked to Javan after practice without his play speed and what it is that allows him to play so fast, is that the instincts is that the just general skill and speed you have here's Javon T and t s. You know that takes no takes no

talent type thing. It's just about effort and won that ball. Coach can't went over. Um. You know, he talked to us about just feeling like the person with the ball is taking your livelihood and uh to attack the ball every play like that, and nobody has an answered for that, you know, that efforts to the ball every time. So UM, I think that's one of the one of the main things of you know, trying to play fast is make sure that you know what you're doing so you can

react and just go running the ball. And he also talked a little bit about the value of having Gerald Alexander in the room and his playing experience. I thought Jason mccordy going back to the veteran was terrific today and that's just great news to me because of the depth he adds to literally every spot in the secondary. I mean, it's nice to have a guy so trustworthy that has played every position in the secondary for twelve

years now. And his most notable rep came in two minutes when there's an in cut and he's on the back of Jachim Grant, who's tough to cover deep and then you have to be responsible for that deep pattern but also be ready to drive on an incut like he did right here. And this time he's on the back because again he's behind Jachim and he has to work around his back and he does it successfully to get his hand in there for a pass break up. Good work from Jason mccordy. And then Eric Rowe was

also very good in my eyes today. I thought I mentioned rather the seven on seven checkdowns. I thought he was a big part of that because he was cutting off crossers, picking up steam rouch, just a little bit of everything back there and that defensive secondary. And then in the one on one situations he was also very good. On one rep he blanketed Adam Shaheen to of throws

away from the leverage. The ball hit Shaheen away from the leverage on the money, but Rode gets his hand in there, separates the hands for the pass break up. Then his next rep he was all up in Shaheen's grill, forcing another incomplete pass, two in a row on that matchup. Brandon Jones had a forced fumble on practice today against Chachim Grant on one of those slants, but Jachim fell back on it, and this was before Brandon got nicked up. Obviously.

Finallyly Tino Ellis had a pressure in the team period. And that is it for my notes. Let's get to the top performers and the matchup of the matchup of the march up of the day today. It was Rob Hunt and ray Kwon Davis, and there was a rep where ray Kuon initially, or rather Rob initially got pushed on ray Kuon and then had to while engage kind of flip his hips and seal off the backside of

the formation. And I thought that the movement and athletic ability combined with the strength was on display on that particular rip and he just got pushed all day long, really creating space, creating lanes. Whether it was ray Kwon Davis or somebody else. But I noted these guys in this matchup because Davis got a few of his own and there was a player where he tossed the block aside and I don't think that was Davis or Rob Hunt rather, but Davis tossed a block aside and then

met Savon Achmed immediately. Very impressive rep from the Big Fellows had a strong camp and the initial power is just evident when you watch these two guys scaring off. Then you see them work with the technique, and I

think that's where the real year to grow. This is evident the way they work after the initial shock of the first punch, because in college you can maybe win a lot of the time with that pure power initially in the rep but the real pros can counter and redirect, and I saw both of them getting it done in that way. Today today's top performers, let's go ahead and run through this list. I had Rob Hunt on there.

I had Ray Kuan Davis on there. Also had Michael Dieter, Liam Eichenberg I thought had some good work in the Running Game. Robert Jones. We talked about him to Sam Ego, Von Davante Parker, Joachim Grant, Jason mccordy, Eric Rowe, Miles Gaskin, and to a tongue Vyla. As your top performers. No Twitter questions today. We had a little bit of a long rundown, so we don't have time to get to it,

but we'll do another one on tomorrow's podcast. So if you have a question, put it in the rate, rating and review section on Apple Podcast and we'll cover that. As for today, that is going to be my time you all. Please be sure to subscribe to the podcast on Apple podcast. Leave us a rating, leave us a review that helps the podcast get out to more Dolphins fans. It's the best thing you can do for us here on Drive Time. If you want to follow me on Twitter,

you should do that at Wingfield NFL. Follow the team at Miami Dolphins. Check out the fish Tank, the podcast with Set and OJ. They had a new episode dropped last week, and of course Miami Dolphins dot com Until next time. Thanks up.