Drive Time - Dolphins Depth and Intriguing Camp Developments

daily dose of Miami Dolphins football. And on today's show, a very media episode, we're talking Dolphins depth and players that I can't wait to personally watch in training camp, plus players in the top ten at their position in the NFL, playing the best round of golf in my life, and an absolute banger of a song that I've had on repeat all weekend. All of that and more on

this Monday, July edition of the Drivetime Podcasts. So I did get back out to the inks again for the third time in the last three years, and I shot a ninety. Feeling very good about that about being a bogey golfer just three times out in the previous three years. But I still feel like there's a lot more room for improvement there. Even think I could have shaved off maybe five strokes off that score. I was just piping the ball off the tea and with the long irons.

But when I get into finesse, short shot range, short chips and putting, well, that's where I gotta get some work in. Probably spend about six months doing that. But it's tough because if I don't make some money quick, my Grandma's gonna lose her house. So it's a tough spot out there. And speaking of underappreciated movies or TV shows, is happy Gilmore underappreciated? I think it is. I don't know.

I was talking with a friend and fellow Dolphins fan over the weekend about our Hard Knocks season back in and there were plenty of fun moments from that show, like the introduction to the Man's Man, Dan Campbell for screaming at Michael Egg knew we had Darrell Root and all of his personality on the show. But among all the great stories, one little line from that five episode saga really stood out to me, and it came from Ocho.

From Chad Johnson. One thing I always appreciated about Ocho was his attention to detail and really focusing on the small things that add up to make a big thing. All the small details really do matter. And he had this line where he's kind of walking and talking to himself on the practice field. I think it was before practice, trying to get himself mentally right, going over the reps mentally in his head, and he was murmuring a mantra of sorts to himself, just kept saying quick but not

in a hurry, Quick but not in a hurry. And that got me thinking about a current Dolphins receiver who I spoke to last week for an interview that was outside the scope of football on the field, and it sparked an interest to go back and watch his tape and his game, and it led to the conception of a little segment idea on I don't want to say

under appreciated players. And the more I thought about, the more I realized, I think that's the wrong way to phrase it, the wrong way to cut them, because we can appreciate what these guys bring to the field, but they were ultimately guys that I am just super intrigued to see what they can do on the practice field in training camp now just a couple of weeks out, and also how these guys really contribute to how much depth this team has compared to previous rosters of the

Miami Dolphins. So on top of developing several players I think last year that now look like long term solutions for your Dolphins. Whether it's Eric Row going from a one year prove it deal with Miami to an extension in season, or Davonte Parker breaking out in a big, big way and more on him later in this podcast, or Preston Williams and Nick need Um looking like real players in their respective U d F A rookie years might get sicky really hitting big strides in year number two,

especially down the stretch late last year. Whatever it was, I think there was also a glut of players that developed a strong core that allows this team to take a more focused approach in the coming off seasons ahead this offseason, we had resources and use those to simply get better on the football field. Coach Flora's talked about that in the scouting or at the scouting combine rather back in February, about signing players, drafting players, trying to

accumulate good players. That is always the idea, and the Dolphins I think did get much better, at least on paper, because remember Flora's also says games are not one in March and April, and he's right, of course they're not. You have to go out and put it on the field on Sundays in the fall and the winter. But with all these resources and developed players as far as the incumbents go, you now have a chance to really

narrow that focus. And what do I mean by that, Well, I'm gonna reference another episode of my favorite podcast as we do here on Drive Time. It seems like once a week in the Move the Sticks podcast with Daniel Jeremiah and Bucky Brooks on NFL Media and Jeremiah it was on the Patrick Mahomes episode after his mega deal, his mega contracts and how he would then focus his approach on the team around that contract given to their star quarterback, their m v P and Super Bowl MVP

quarterback and Patrick Mahomes. And the first point DJ makes on that point is that he doesn't want to see his half billion dollar quarterbacks standing next to Big Red Andy Reid on the sidelines on crutches. And those were DJs word. I don't want him on crutches on the sideline.

So we're gonna invest in the offensive line and in the top target and secondary target for this Chief's team, and for the Chiefs, the two top targets are really indiscernible since basically Tyreek Hill and Travis Kelsey are both elite, top end guys at their position, and then they're gonna go ahead and roll through the other positions with draft

picks and lower end free agent contracts. But that's where DJ would put the money on this team, on the offensive line and on the top two weapons of Patrick Mahomes. And it got me thinking about how the Dolphins team looks to develop a core and then take a similar approach as far as how you round out the fifty three man roster in terms of what positions you might

prioritize over others. Because if we come out of this upcoming season with I don't know, just throwing a number against the wall, maybe thirty true core players, guys that you know you can put on the football field and really trust that they're going to execute their job and do the right thing and make plays for you, then man, we are cooking with gas with another eleven draft picks

next year, plenty of salary cap resources. So it got me thinking about this team's roster beyond the guys like Byron Jones and and Kyle Van Noy and to a tongue of Voloa, and Austin Jackson and Noah Igbanogny and Christian Wilkins. Your top dollar free agent guys and first round draft picks, right, guys that you invest the highest level resources into. And the inspiration for this was Isaiah Ford, which before we talk about his game on the field.

We haven't put this into the podcast yet, but we did publish a story up on Miami Dolphins dot com about his Be the Change scholarship fund that he launched back in June, and it was really cool to talk to Isaiah about his motivation to use his platform to make a difference in his community. So we have the

story up on Miami Dolphins dot com. Isaiah himself retweeted it for us, obviously, and I'm upstairs in my office working on Thursday with the link to the go fund me page open, just kind of refreshing it and seeing how much reach we got out of that interview and how we got two more people because of that interview,

and it was going good. I even sent Isaiah a message saying how happy I personally was that we were able to raise another couple of hundred dollars since that interview that had gone on the website twelve hours prior to that. And as soon as I do that, I refreshed the page and suddenly his goal of five k

is blown away. It's all the way up to eight four hundred after sitting at right around thirty four hundred before this one click where I hit the refresh, I see a donor of five thousand dollars, And who was that guy other than the guy that throws the football to Isaiah on Sundays and Ryan Fitzpatrick. And that was

just that was so cool. I was so thrilled in that moment and so happy to be such a part, you know, a small part of such a tight knit organization and one that really supports one another in their you know, ventures, both on the field and off the field as well. Just a really cool moment over the weekend with Isaiah Ford and Ryan Fitzpatrick. Now, as for Ford's on field work, I love, love, love his twenty

nine team story. He had just three past targets through the first twelve games of the season, and they were all in that Chargers game back in Week four, and Ford had a difficult start to his career. Just from an obstacle standpoint, he tore in a c L as a seventh round rookie in that year's preseason, and that's such a tall order for a guy to overcome. But he wasn't going to let those challenges dictate his future.

You guys all know by now that I was down in South Florida as a member of the media with locked On daw Fins for ten practices last summer at training camp, and every single day, each and every day even he worked with fits after practice on some routes, throwing some vertical balls and just getting some extra work in. And it would stand a reason to me to think that extra work really helped develop a chemistry and trust

because in the opening days of camp. Throughout the course of training camp, you probably didn't have much Isaiah Ford and Ryan Fitzpatrick because Fitzpatrick was your first team quarterback and Ford was not running with the ones in camp. So he got that extra work in with the Dolphins quarterback and I'm sure that helps develop chemistry and trust as any football player or athlete in basketball, football, whatever

it might be, could probably tell you. Because as I continue to rewatch this twenty nineteen season and I'm on the Week four teen game at the Jets. Ford goes from not playing much early in that game to getting on the field for every single snap because both Parker

and Wilson had to exit unfortunately with injuries. So all Ford does is see nine targets, three times his season total at that point, catches six of them, again three times his total catches at that point as well, puts up ninety two yards, and he would finish out the final four games catching twenty one out of twenty nine passes, a very solid seventy two point four percent catch rate for two d and thirty four yards. Another really good metric at eight point one one yards per target and

fifteen first downs. Fifteen of the twenty one catches move the chains for Ford, and four of those came on third down on the money, crucial down. And he also had a huge catch and overtime against the Bengals to help set up the winning field goal in that game in overtime, and he looks like a trusted target with how he's able to pluck the ball when it's off

of his body. One of the more challenging aspects of playing receiver if the ball is not on your body and you have to kind of drop your head, which changes the angle and the hand eye coordination and the site of the football. Because as a baseball player, when you had a pop up in the infield, for instance, I used to play catcher back in my very early baseball days, like in little league and middle school all the way up to high school. And I guess this is really true of pop ups on anywhere on the

baseball field. But they want you to catch the ball over your head and not do a basket catch because when you do a basket catch, your line of sight then changes as you track the ball from up high and then you move your head down low to your waist to see the basket catch in So anytime you have to change that eye line, that eyesight, it's gonna have a negative impact on how well you catch the ball.

And the same is true in football. If you have to drop your head or move it to the side, it's gonna make the catch it more difficult because it changes your hand eye coordination and the relationship between those two. So to catch the ball off your body is a long winded way of saying it's difficult, and that video that I tweeted out of him running a dig route against the Jets. The balls on his back shoulder because Fits takes an absolute shot as he throws the ball

and it impacts the flight of the ball. Ford has to make the adjustment and he catches the football for a big first down on the drive that put the Dolphins ahead late in the fourth quarter. So when the quarterback knows he has a bigger strike zone with that receiver, it's going to develop more trust makes total sense, right. So the metrics when he gets the opportunity Isaiah Ford are awesome, and I jotted down some notes about what

I saw in his game. So this is where Chad Johnson's line about being quick but not in a hurry comes up. For Ford. He plays any of the three receiver positions in eleven personnel and you've got three receivers on the field, and he has a real calm approach about how he wants to set up his release and attack the leverage at the line of scrimmage. He's very patient, finds a way to square up the man in front of him, then uses either quickness or physicality to create

that separation we saw in the Jets game. We saw it again in Week seventeen against the Pats with some crucial clutch catches in that game as well, and coach Flores had some admiring words for the way Ford responded when he got that opportunity, as well as praising Isaiah for helping communicate some of the checks and the offense in general towards the end of the season when they had some new eyes in the lineup late in the year. And then there's this quote from Fits after that Week

seventeen win in New England. Quote, Yeah, it was huge talking about Isaiah's contributions. Sometimes we relied on throwing to Davante outside and a lot of times we relied on working to the middle of the field. I missed Albert Wilson a couple of times that I wish I would have hit him, but he had some nice catch and runs.

And Isaiah the same thing. I think as a quarterback, when you have guys that you trust and you know they're going to do the right thing and you know they're gonna make a play, it makes your job a lot easier. All those guys out there have certainly developed into that this year. Again, I said this the last few weeks about Isaiah Ford, but he's a special guy, a guy that you can just rely on in any situation,

and he did a great job today. And quote, I mean to take that entire blurb, not just about Isaiah, but about the entire Dolphins receiving corps for him to say that those guys developed into that into trustworthy targets throughout the course of the season, with Parker Williams, Grant Wilson, Ford, and Hearns making up really half of the Dolphins current wide receiver room and all six of those guys having contributions last year who fits referred to on that particular

quote after the Patriots game. That's just a lot of trustworthy, reliable guys in the receiver's room, and you feel good about needing any of them in a pinch if you do, because guys get hurt in this game. Guys are gonna be unavailable at times. That's how football works. And that's not to say the other guys on this roster are not.

That we just don't have the game day evidence to really show you that tangible evidence that we do have from the aforementioned six guys that Fitzpatrick mentions in this quote, and that's really how it is at so many positions like safety for instance. Maybe it's his build, but for the longest time, I wasn't really aware of how fast Adrian Colbert ran. He clocked a four or four nine at the scouting combine back in I think it was, and he filled an admirably for Bobby McCain at free

safety and off the streets as a free agent. Mind you over the final six games of last year, and you see that speed when he's playing that deep center field role as we go into man or press man coverage where everybody's up front across the board and you have one safety yards off the football. There's a play against the Jets again from that game where I tweeted

out a video of it. The Jets go trips to the field side of the formation, and again if you're new to the podcast, the field side is the wide side of the field where there's more room to operate.

The boundary is the short side. And the camera doesn't show you Colbert on this particular play on the broadcast version because he's twenty yards off the football, but on the all twenty two you can see that he lines up on the boundary side hash mark, and the way the Jets aligned on this play is to that field side where you have three receivers. The furthest receiver split out is the Z, and that's gonna be a plus split on the outside of the numbers, you know the

ten yard, twenty yard, thirty yard marker. If you're on the outside of that, that's a plus split. You then got Jamison Crowder in the slot in a negative split, which is inside the numbers. And then your why you're tight end in line on the line of scrimmage, makes up your three receivers. There You've got Robby Anderson is the X to the boundary the short side of the field, and to Marius Thomas is that Z in the plus split.

So one of those guys, Robbie Anderson is your speed merchant where da Marius Thomas won so many routes throughout the course of his great career with more physicality and short area quickness and route running. So Colbert aligns on the boundary side hash mark, the short side of the field hash mark and just begins to gain depth immediately

off the snap. And the structure of this call I thought was cool because Crowder is the guy you worry about here because he takes this inside release and he wants to run directly at Colbert and try to break a route off in front of him to make some conflict there. You always want to create conflict for the player the quarterback is reading, and most times that can

be a safety. But Miami caps off Crowder with a nice double team so that Colbert doesn't have to concern himself with that route, and then you can just follow Sam Donald's eyes deep to the target he wants to go to, and Robbie Anderson, who tries to get vertical on Ryan lewis to the short side of the field. So Hilbert from the boundary side hash mark short side

of the field. He ranges over almost immediately reading Donald's eyes and gets his hands on the football, almost gets a pick, but Anderson turned into a defender on the play and breaks it up. And that's the ideal cut of what you need at a single high position twenty yards off the football. Speed, instincts, range, ball skills, all those things. And that's where Bobby McCain skill set comes

into play. He starts in that role. You've got Eric Rowe doing all the stuff we've talked about down in the box, covering tight ends, even matching up in the slot or out wide when you need it. And then Colbert is there to provide you with just another guy you can put on the field and trust that he'll do his job the right way. Brandon Jones, a third round draft pick. You have expectations for a guy you select that high. Clayton Federland played with the Bengals last

year in some sub package roles. The same is true of Cavon Frazier in Dallas. You just feel good about any of these guys if you have to call upon them and get them on the field. And let's go ahead and read a quote from coach Flora's about Adrian Colbert. This is after that game against the Jets. Quote. He brings a lot of energy on a day to day basis. He's got some leadership qualities. He's been here for three weeks and it feels like he's been here all year.

He's smart, He's a really good teammate. It's important to him. He works extremely hard. From my preparation standpoint, he's here early, he stays late trying to get the information correct. He's a guy who brings people together. It's been good having him and quote another guy that earns high praise from the coaching staff, and next on my list is Jesse Davis, and his performance in December is where I want to

focus on. He got an extension right before the season began back in September and has been praised for his

leadership and the way he works. And I always find davis his quotes really refreshing right in the throws of the most challenging portions of the season last year, talking about professionalism, showing up and putting in the work, getting better every day, having a bigger picture mindset as you attack every day with that professionalism and a certain level of vigor and respect for your own performance and the

eight PEO put out there, all that stuff. And I got to talk to Jesse, who was wearing a Mariner's hat in the locker room by the Way post game after the Bengals victory, because he's from a story of Washington, a small town up near Seattle, go Ms by the Way, and he talked about things at that interview clicking for him a little bit in that Eagles game back in the first part of December and dealing with all those rushers that Philly has off the edge, about dealing with

the speed of those rushers and the scheme they want to play to get up field and really utilize that explosive first step to rush up field and beat the tackle with that speed, and some of those wide alignments

the Eagles play because of those skill sets. As you'll recall, Matt Burke is there now on the defensive line coach and those guys, and he incorporates a lot of those same fronts with his edge rushers as he did with Cam Wake here in Miami a few years back, and those wide alignments that really take advantage of a player like Wake and his explosive first step off the ball.

And in that game, Jesse allowed two hurries and had no penalties, so Fitz didn't get hit by anybody rushing off of Davis and he didn't push the team back with any mental lapses either. He would go on to finish the season without allowing any sacks in December at all clean sheet. He allowed just three hits in the month of December, which is five games and a handful of hurries and only one penalty, just one foul in

five games. A really solid month and a guy that you can depend on upfront, always available, a good communicator. I think Jesse really exemplifies the types of players and the types of people that coach Floorda prefers Coach flora As prefers on this roster. Here's a quote from midweek after the Colts win before the home game against Buffalo. It was November four. I think wherever you put him, he's going to be productive and play well. So right tackle,

right guard, left tackle. I think he's gonna go out there and give us his best effort. He's gonna play hard, he's going to play physical, he's going to be tough. I like having Jesse on this team. I feel confident. I'm very confident in his ability. End quote. There. So Ford, we have Jesse Davis and Adrian Hilbert, two more guys on my list here, and one of them is a linebacker. In fact, both of them are the first ones. Ray Kwon McMillan is last year. He was Pro Football Focuses

number fifteen graded run defending linebacker. Just one spot behind Indianapolis is Darius Leonard, who had an All Pro birth in his rookie season. Back in team and that was coming off the heels of the season for Ray Kwan, where over the final ten games he was the number two graded run defending linebacker on Pro Football Focus in all of football, behind Luke Keekley and one spot ahead of Bobby Wagner. Both two guys, in my opinion, are

headed to the Hall of Fame one day. And McMillan had forty five run stops over that time that was the most in football from Week six through Week seven team. On top of all that, I just love to watch him defeat blocks and really play the game with a physical mindset the way Flora's loves this game played in between the numbers in the box, physical beating blocks and making tackles. Now, finally, my last one for this list

today is another linebacker in Vince Bagel. And though he does come down and line up on the ball in addition to playing some linebacker, so he's really just a defender, a defensive player on this defense. He led the team last year in pressures. I've talked about his spin move, his relentless motor. There's a play in the Colts game up against Brian Hoyer and that Colts offense last year where he disrupts a flat route a tight end coming

across the formation. He bodies him up and throws him off his pattern, which forces Hoyer to go to the other side of the formation, the other side of the field, and look for a target. And when there's nothing there, Hoyer decides to tuck it and run for the chains, and Beagle sees the entire thing and chases him down from the other side of the field and makes the stop short of the sticks. It was my favorite hustle

play of the entire season. And here's a quote from coach on his November fift availability talking about Vince Bagle after that Colts game. Quote, Vince, He's tough, he's smart, he loves to play. He's got good play strength. He's still developing in a lot of areas, tackling, pass, rush, coverage. He can do a lot of things. I like Vince a lot. I think he's brought a lot of energy, a lot of effort, a lot of enthusiasm. I think he plays the game the way it should be played.

He loves to play, he gives maximum, maximum effort on every play. It's been fun having him coaching him and watching him improve and get better. I think there's a lot more room for improvement for him and quote, so Flora has given some praise and also offering up some improvement there for his linebacker slash defensive end. And one of the questions I get most is who will start or who plays the most on this team this coming season. And the truth is that not even coach knows the

answer to that question. So who am I to give you answers on that question. We've got to get through camp and see where we are at that point before that discussion becomes anything outside of just pure projection. We always have our favorites, right, but there are so many parts to sort out here, and I think that was by design. We talked about the three man rush packages back on the Friday podcast and the variety of guys you can put on the field to rush the quarterback.

Vince Bagel is one of them. His former college teammate Andrew van Ginkle one of them. We know what Flores and staff thinks about Jerome Baker, Kyle van Noy was signed to do a little bit of everything. Commu Gruge Hill, same idea. You've got Shack Lawson and Emmanuel Ogba. Whether you call them ends or linebackers and Curtis Weaver, all these players that were added, their Landon Roberts a true linebacker,

all these players added. The point goes back to the same thing we've said about the wide receivers on this podcast, that there are so many capable players that are now in the mix giving you what depth you feel good about any of these guys if you have to call upon them a fifty three man roster focused depth, depth, depth in a game where it's a complete war of attrition for four months over sixteen games. Beagle is a guy that can play a lot of positions, a guy

that can rush from multiple spots. We saw him fall into the curl zone and snag an interception off of Eli last year with a really nice play in that week fifteen game. He finished out the year with thirty four pressures. And remember that he was a set September arrival last year and only had to fourteen, seven, ten and fourteen pass rep pass rush reps the first five games,

so a part time player. But then after that he was a consistent twenty plus pass rush guy, starting in that week's seven game against Buffalo and from that point over the next four games as he has and thirty four pass rush reps increasing each week. He winds up with a total of six team pressures over those four games and thirty four pressures on the entire year. And guys like this or why I just can't wait to

get down the training camp. Sure, I want to see how Devanta Parker goes up against Byron Jones or Xavien Howard, all the premier matchups we're gonna have on the Marquee this coming training camp. But it's the way the fifty three take shape in totality that really intrigues me. I can't wait for that man. So we are just about two weeks away from the from July the rough starting

date of training camp. And on the topic of Devanta Parker, going back to the sceiver room, I also have a note on his game that I finally was able to put into words watching him do his thing in that Eagles contest where he just went nuts. His true breakout game for my money. First, his December five games was twenty six catches, five hundred and seven yards, five touchdowns, and remember he exited the Jets game in the second quarter.

You extrapolate that over a full sixteen game season and you've got a pro rated production amount of eighty three catches, two yards and sixteen touchdowns. Not bad, huh. But the reason I wanted to dive in was because the new debate about the value of contested catches. It kind of reminds me of the running back value debate that was sparked five, six, seven years ago by analytics people in football, which is a good argument to have. But this new

one that I saw is contested catches. And while I think in college you might have a little bit of trepidation from people and scouts over a high volume of contested catches because maybe it means the receiver isn't creating consistent separation against camp petition in college that he should be. But this is the NFL being opened by a yard is open. That's how you how it goes when you're going up against professionals on the other side of the ball as well, And a high contested catch rate is

simply another tool to measure a players abilities. So I wanted to figure out what it was that made him so special at plucking these balls that would normally be considered fifty fifty balls, but last year became way more of an advantage for the offense and Davante Parker and I found a common theme among those catches. And it wasn't just this season, It's been his entire career. You

go back to against Baltimore in his rookie season. He does it in that game on a post route, then a very similar route on a game the following year in and I touched down against the Cleveland Browns again a post route in the front of the end zone. He did on opening day before the true breakout season really occurred this year, again against Baltimore. But this was my take. He has a tendency to use his frame

to his advantage. He's aware of that advantage of a size and athletic ability combination, two traits that will put a receiver into the first round of the draft, just like Davante was back But he finds this way to really innately elevate himself into the defender and often leaves his feet what looks like it's early, but then he suspends himself in midair, throwing his body at the defender, and because of his frame and leaping ability and long arms, the defender then has to try to re establish an

advantageous position very quickly, and the only way to get through the ball is to go through Davante. So Davanta is playing the ball and all of a sudden, the cornerback or the guy in coverage is forced to play through his body. It's so subtle, but my goodness, he perfected it last year. Watched the catch he made for a touchdown against the Giants against DeAndre Baker. That's like a prime example of it, where he just falls into the defender, reaches up plux, it scores a touchdown. It

was beautiful. So Davante finishes fifth in the NFL in receiving yards and tied for fourth and touchdowns in the NFL. And in that Jesse Davis quote from coach Flow, Flow

talks about it being a production business. So fourth and yards and fifth and touchdowns seems pretty good to me, right, And that's the topic I want to close this podcast on because ESPN is releasing some really interesting list where they pulled fifty or so people from around the league, executives, scouts, coaches, I think some players involved in that as well, and they took top ten players by position and showed the players overall rank where they scored cumulatively where their highest

rank was and their lowest rank, and that's where I really became intrigued by this. And more on that in just a moment. But first regarding Davante and top ten production, but being absent from this list, I think it's fair to want to see him duplicate that season again, but to go back to how he made those catches and how this wasn't the first year that he did it. You see the talent and ability to do it, and if he does it again, I think there's a great

chance that he is on this list next year. Now they haven't published every position yet, I imagine Byron Jones will get in there among the cornerbacks. Think X has a claim to be in there as well, But so far, there are not any Dolphins on the positions they've done so far, and I don't want to speculate a whole lot further as to what will be on there. I have opinions about who should be and maybe who could be in there this year and this time next year,

but it's all about the team. It's about a collective fifty three doing what they have to do to win games. So let's not be too bothered by the individual aspect of it. The point that I did want to get to an emphasize here, however, was the discrepancy over the

quarterback list. I think it really shines a light on how different organizations just value different things, or how different organizations maybe have different criteria both for talent, production, sample size, all the things that go into evaluating players on a college and professional level, like go to the tackle position,

for instance. And that was the big outcry you saw on Twitter was the omission over of Kansas City's Mitchell Schwartz, the right tackle who allowed the fewest pressures of any tackle in football both in twenty nineteen and eighteen. And the best comment saw in the midst of all this, and this came from the mentions of Ben Finnell, who we had on the podcast pre draft to talk about defensive backs. A great follow. I believe he's at Ben

Fennel NFL. He's a savant of the entire game. He expressed how he thinks that Schwartz should have been in the top ten, and a coach replied to him, Eric Mateos, who is the old line coach at b Y. You verified on Twitter, so I know it's legit, he said, quote. Many can't separate how a player looks during the job from how well the job gets done. Even us coaches sometimes end quote. And I love that self evaluation and found it to be very interesting and how there could

be so many different ways to evaluate the game. Part of what I think makes the game so much fun is the different ways that you can look at it. And from a scouting perspective, it makes sense, right find the guy with the best traits and then trust your coaches to get his technique right. And so at quarterback. This is where I wanted to come full circle here where I was most fascinated. Mahomes lowest ranking was fourth, Wilson's was ninth, Lamar jack Exon's last year's m v

P was twelve to Shaun Watson number eleven. The list was cumulative, though, and I think that played out pretty well. I've got some disagreements, but for the most part, I thought it was pretty good. It goes Mahomes, Wilson, Rogers, Watson, Brees, Lamar Jackson, Tom Brady, Carson, Wentz, Dak Prescott, Matt Stafford in their top ten. I always love to see how the league differs from what we might see in media

or on social whatever it might be. I think you're always gonna have a little bit difference of opinion, but I just thought it was so cool to get an inside look at how teams might view these players and these positions and how they stack up against their peers. Just a different perspective on it. Something unique that was really cool. The ESPN did. They also had some multiple votes for Matt Ryan, big Ben Kyler, Murray Kirk Cousins

and Jimmy Garoppolo also received multiple votes. There was a couple of guys in there that had just one vote each as well. So you can check that out on ESPN and you look over this list and the quarterbacks and just think, ma'am, this really is the golden age for quarterback play in the NFL. I don't think there's ever been this many good quarterbacks in the NFL. And that's where we'll go ahead and close it out. And on that topic, they're also has never been more knowledgeable

football fans pumping out content out there. And we had Big E on the podcast on Friday from Dolphins Talk. He does some writing and video content for them, and Dolphins Talk just landed another fish a big fish, I should say my buddy and really smart football mind Kevin dern So I wanted to drop him a big time congratulations. He is at Kevin m D four on Twitter. Give him a follow. Can't wait to see your work over there, buddy,

congrats and best of luck to you. And my final note those of you that were with me at locked On. You guys know my music taste are probably comprise of about rock music or sub genres of rock in terms of the music I listened to, but I do like hip hop and rap as well. And I think I played that new kid cutt e Eminem collaboration over the weekend at least seventy three times. Man that as the kids say, slaps or is it rips? I don't know

either way. That right, there is a good spot to go ahead and line off for this Monday July edition of the Drivetime podcast. You all please be sure to subscribe to the podcast on Apple, podcast, Spotify, tuned in, wherever you get your podcasts from. Go ahead and leave us a rating, leave us a review. Follow me on Twitter at Wingfield, NFL. Follow the Dolphins at Miami Dolphins.

Check out the fish tank they had Ray Lucas in the Tank last week The Audible Podcast with Kim and John Miami Dolphins dot Com Until next time finds up