To on the move, going deep, speedless, peace, Peace from the Baptist Health Studios inside the Baptist Health Training Complex.
This is Drivetime with Travis Wingfield.
He's gon my avnds in the playoffs.
What is up, Dolphans And welcome to the Drift Time Podcast. I am your host, Travis Wingfield. And on today's show we take a look at my five picks for breakout candidates in twenty twenty four. We'll also here's some additional audio from media following Tuesday's practice here in Miami Guards at the Baptist Health Training Complex from the Baptist Health Studios inside the BHTC. This is the Drift Time Podcast. Ye Daffeir, I tease this idea last week, something I've
been thinking about here for a while. And the genesis of this idea for this content is Austin Jackson, a player with immense talent and upside who enters the league younger than literally anybody else besides one of his teammates, Noah Igbinoghany and one other person in the league whose name escapes me at the moment, but I do recall him being the third youngest player in the NFL when he was drafted, but a fourth year player who began his career strong in the first three games. I'll never
forget the TNF game at Jacksonville. We're zero and two after losing to New England and Seattle No New England and Buffalo in back to back games to open the season. And then Ryan Fitzpatrick went Nanners against the Jacksonville Jaguars and Austin Jackson had a great game in that one, and he gets injured, and then we never really saw that again from him until this past season, because his second year was incredibly difficult, even in coming off of
the injury. His rookie year struggled coming back into lineup off of that injury, and then in twenty twenty three he or twenty twenty one, rather he gets more moved around seemingly every single week to a different position, that
he changes systems. In year three, gets a vote of confidence, gets the entire wire to wire run as the right tackle in the offense, gets injured in the first quarter of the first game, and this is basically the entire year from there, and then last year the breakout year. But I want to absolutely obliterate any thought here that this might be a slight at Austin because I always
knew there was potential there. Obviously, he was the eighteenth pick in the draft and had elite, elite level athletic ability imagine not trying to harness that, by the way, And I knew how hard he worked at it too, And he was a guy that I thought could articulate technique and fundamentals and the whole idea of offensive line play.
And I've always pointed out this on Twitter and on the show, that the timeline of offensive line development and the trend the last half decade or so of guys in that position group taking a couple of years on average to realize their full potential. I have no doubt that Austin Jackson would have gotten to the success sheet in twenty twenty three had those injuries not prevented him
from getting there in twenty twenty two. But instead he was dubbed with the worst label a player can obtain, the collective Twitter whipping boy.
Right.
Okay, well really it's not the worst, But go back and look, and nobody among the fan base, probably myself included, in some ways, you know, was giving this guy much of a chance. And you would you'd be right to think that because the production wasn't there. And then he lines up on day one of camp at right tackle and carries that all the way through to a playoff game in January and the freezing ah cold in Kansas City, with a contract extension coming midway through that year, by
the way, a really really good season. My point to all this is he completely reversed the expectation that fans had of him, and now you're counting on him as a pillar at a key position to make this offense what we want it to be. Back to back number one ranked in the NFL, and I'm sure there will be detractors out there who say we want more because we want the end of the season to reflect the
beginning of the season. Hey, I'm with you, but number one ranked offense is a pretty cool distinction to own. So look at the roster who can carry the water from a similar mantle that aj embraced a season ago and exceeded a season ago. Last week, we talked about some of the proven stars and how their development can take them to a stratosphere beyond superstar production. But that's not the only thing that makes a football team competitive
or even great for that matter. It's finding contributors in unexpected places. Maybe you miss on a high draft pick, but in the same class a player at the same position excels as an undrafted free agent. It happens all the time for every single team. In fact, look at the Buffalo Bills. Kyer Elam was their first round pick. He has not been a good player for them at all at all. Is it the right name, Kayer Elam. Let's look that up real quick. I think I might
have that wrong Buffalo Bills twenty twenty three Wikipedia. But they also took Christian ben Ford in the sixth round that year, and he's now a starting quarterback for them. So sometimes it just kind of goes that way, right. Sometimes you miss, yeah it was Kyrie Elm. Sometimes you miss early and you recoup fort later on. I mean, Kirk Cousins had a better career than RG three. Who
would have known that? So you know, hell, I can't even I can't even recall or try to forget Training Camp twenty twenty because that draft class produced three offensive lineman right Austin Jackson, Robert Hunt and Solomon Kinley. And first of all, for the they can't draft o Lineman crowd like. Two of those guys are studs with massive
contract extensions. One guy didn't work out. But you know which of the three of Austin Jackson, Robert Hunt, and Solomon Kinley went wire to wire from camp to the season as a starter. It wasn't the first round pick, it wasn't the second round pick. It was the fourth round guy from Georgia, the overweight Solomon Kinley, who played for a little bit, had a good rookie year and then disappeared into the doghouse for the rest of his career, and now he's not been with a club for the
last two seas seasons. Mauston Jackson has a twelve million dollars per year contract, Robert Hunt got twenty million per year and over one hundred million a nine figure contract for the Carolina Panthers. And again, not to disparage anybody, but Kinley was released by the Giants in May of twenty twenty three and has not been on a roster since then. So the whole point is to tell you that it's fine to have expectations, but you're probably wrong, and thus you should not be so steadfast in what
you think might happen. I remember last year, like I'll
never forget this. I got home from the Houston trip, I was waiting for my wife to pick me up at the airport and I was texting with the buddy of mine that I tuxed about the Dolphins with every single day, and we were like showing these tweets from fans after the Toronto Arms had injury, and there was someone who was saying, like, my friends are making fun of me because of how bad the offensive line's going to be and how our season's over before it even begins.
And so because of Kendall Lambt left tackle, you thought this offense couldn't function, and they go off and they score thirty six, twenty four to seventy points in the first three games of the season and NFL records. My whole point is just like, chill, Chill. I get you think your points are the end all be all, but they're not. No ones are not even the guys that do this for a living. So just enjoy it. I guess That's what I'm trying to get to here. And with that, I want to go ahead and lay out
some candidates who could follow suit with Austin Jackson. That was kind of a sidebar that I didn't mean to get into there, but I just it helps trust me as a lifelong fan, and some of it does as professionally. Just chill, just chill out, man, it'll be good. It'll all be good. So as I eviscerate the idea of expectations, now, I'm going to tell you about my expectations. Isn't that funny how it works because I have the microphone and
I will say whatever I prease. My expectation is that we will get another Austin Jackson this year, maybe multiple of them. And in this segment, I'm going to make the case for who that could be. And there are some obvious ones, right spoiler alert, Eric Azuokama fits this entire thing I just spelled out to a t. He'll
be in there. But let's go ahead and start with a guy who only carries low expectations because of how he entered the league, much like cater Coho who made some plays in training camp and you're like, well, yeah, but just training camp, And then you get to Week one and it's like, oh, he's making plays all over the field against the New England Patriots and it's like, oh,
the Dolphins have discovered something here with cater Coho. I'm talking, of course, about Ethan Bonner, like co Who, Bonner was a UDFA, And it starts where it always starts, with
the tape. I saw a player who showcased the traits that I think are most important to excel at the position, albeit in a miniscule sample size, but if you go back to his Stanford tape, it was on display there too, and those are long speed and recovery speed kind of the same category, change of direction, feel and recognition, and
overall physicality and working backwards up that list. In the playoff game, he broke down in space and put a hat on the football on Clyde Edwards Laire and the physicality and technique pair for a nice splash play to jar that football, free kansasity to recover the fumble. It was late in the game, didn't matter, but it was a good rep And I'm basing this more off of watching him in camp last year, but you can see
it practice. How he understands his coverage responsibilities, how the route concepts can exploit where the defense is vulnerable, and best of all, knowing where your help is so that you can take chances. It's all over his Stanford tape
Smart Football Player. In fact, there's a clip of him versus Utah and twenty twenty two where he's running out of the huddle to play the boundary receiver, but Utah does not send the receiver out that way, so he sinks inside and fulfills a quasi will linebacker role weak side linebacker, and they run the football and he steps into the hole and fits the gap and drives the backwards onto the ground Like that's the definition to me
of an Anthony Weaver defensive back. Hey sink inside here and go fit a gap in the running game, the change of direction on pattern matching where he can squat, accelerate, flip the hips, and get vertical. You better be able to do all that in this league because you got to defend guys like Tyreek Hill and Jaileen Waddle. And that bleeds into our first bullet point here. Back to the Kansas City game. They run this mesh concept where Ethan is in off coverage to the boundary the short
side of the field. He's playing about seven yards off the line of scrimmage and his man runs a shallow cross a little drag route and by playing off he's able to get over the top of the pick. But you're inherently at a disadvantage because of your pre snap alignment to get to that position. Right, he's basically starting like in the fifth position on an F one grid and trying to flag down the guy in first and
maybe it's even Max Verstappen. I forgot his name. There forer point five seconds you're out numbered from the start, but he shows off the long speed, takes a perfect angle and whoop dumps the ballcarrier short of the six super impressive rep. It's always so jarring to me to pull up PFF's cornerback grades from twenty twenty three and who is number one on that list? Jalen Johnson's up there,
the great cornerback for the Bears. Deron Bland, who had five pick six's last year for the Cowboys is up there. Sauce Gardner who holds his way all the way to that top spot as well. That's two, three and four. You know who number one is White Lightning Ethan Bonner. Like I know, it's the smallest of sample sizes because it's twenty three snaps versus eighth nine, one thousand and then one thousand and fifty. But it just shows you how productive he was with that extremely limited workload. Next
is to get more right. But teams were you know, one for three, trying him for seven yards and twelve covered snaps. He had a stop and a force fumble. We played the audio from him from camp just talking to him. This is closer to a trust me bro than using taper numbers. But I just think he gets it. It feels like he just kind of gets it. I don't know how tangible that is, but I am trusting my gut on that one and asking you to do the same there. Now, Bonner is sort of the anomaly
on the list, a second year player. Nobody in the world has a negative connotation with him because he, even though a very brief playing time, did show well last year. But I think that Ramsey Fuller, Needham Coohu, Cam Smith. I don't think the fan expectation is that he'll play a ton, but you know you're gonna get into six and seven cornerbacks that have to be used this year, and I think there's a ballplayer there, and I'm pretty excited about having him let's go ahead and take our
first break right there. Come back on the other side and do the next four players on my list. Ethan Bonner's down. We have an offensive lineman, a defensive lineman, a tight end, and a wide receiver. Here. We'll go ahead and cover those guys next. On the Draft Time podcast, your host Travis Winfield, brought to you by Auto Nation. One player down on my breakout candidates for twenty twenty four. We're not talking about breakout like this guy's going to
go in the MVP. We're talking about guys that you probably haven't thought much about, who I think could play quality contributing roles in a championship contending football team. Ethan Bonner was first on the list and second is going
back to the trenches, much like Austin last year. I'm going with Jack Driscoll, who is also different from Austin in the sense that this is his first year here at the Miami Dolphins, so you probably have You know, whatever a player changes teams, no matter how good or bad their tape was, that new team thinks, oh, we can be the ones that get the best performance out of him. So he probably already comes in with like
expectations in a positive light. But I also think you can go back to watch the tape and say, like, there's a reason that he was, you know, on the market for what he was available for. But I think you can also look at his college projection scheme, fit age, and developmental timeline and you can say, all right, I can see them getting the best version of this player that we've ever seen from this player. So here's the scoutgyport for NFL dot Com when he was at Auburn.
Teams who covet athleticism over brawn will take a look at Driscoll. He will need to add mass and muscle to have a shot, but he has range as a run blocker and in past protection, athletic on counterpolls from the backside, and good recognition of where to turn it up. Composed and controlled to the second level with the ability to adjust to moving targets. He's quick out of a
stance with ladder agility to handle zone blocking duties. I mean, did I just read the one oh one manifesto from Dolphins Offensive line Play Like I feel like I did, and it drives with the two practices I just saw that Jack had here in the aqua and orange, firing off the football, fantastic pad level, wide base to establish a wall off block and execute it. And of course the versatility is always key, especially on the offensive line.
But when you just watch his tape, I think his play translates more inside and I look at the six five frame that he features, like the way he was able to kind of use length on the interior because he's he's a short arm tackle, but when you kick him inside he has like he's more considered long in that position because of just how the positions, the measurables for each position differ in terms of what's long versus
what's not long on tackle versus garter center. And you know, watching his tape in the way his play translates, and given you know the fact that we have Tron Armstead, Austin Jackson, who that's your left tackle right tackle opening day provided are good, and then Kendall Lamb as we saw last year, can play a very good left tackle for you, and then Patrick Paul who quite frankly, guys,
I think there's something there. I really do. I'm not so sure that we need Jack Driscoll to play tackle like he might be tackle five but when I watch him play, his ability to stay compact and play in a phone booth sounds like a guard. I feel like the bad tape came out when he got extended, had the entire corner to contend with, and that naturally gives you a little bit more inside post to open up because you're worried about the edge, because I see really
good technique inside. You know, six foot five, three hundred and fifteen pounds benefits him in a way that he can get wide of blocks that other guys have to really reach for and get out over their skis. I don't know. I see a guy that I think can have some of his best work in this system and playing inside, and we'll see where he winds up. But what the tape tells me is I'm watching him at both guard and tackle with the Eagles, and they're not
the same. In fact, in twenty twenty three, he had a nine point eight percent pressure rate at tackle and a four percent pressure rate at guard. Again, it's a small sample size, but it jives with what the tape and this live practice bullets have shown me. And when I think about the advantages that size and speed combo lends him inside this system. That is where the projection
comes from. We're gonna stay in the NFC East with another import from the Dallas Cowboys as Neville Gallimore is next on my list, and I like driscoll Or like driscoll I should say, I think there's more meat on the bone than what he gave in his previous stop. He's quick off the line of scrimmage, has a crazy motor that leads to clean up production. Like when you have a four man rush and coverage is very good, he can kind of find his way to get off
blocks and go wrap up a scrambling quarterback. And these traits that I think he has, I think you can harness as a rotational defensive tackle alongside somebody who is as good as Zach Seeler, especially when I think about how good I think we'll be able to play. Contain coverage, good coverage, don't blitz, and then just try to hem a quarterback like a Josh Allen, like a Lamar Jackson, like a Kyler Murray, Hem them inside the pocket, enforce
them to play from ento the pocket. Strong. You need guys who can find wins after initial rush fizzles and heavy hands. Those are the things that I think about when I think about Neville Gallimore and the ability to eddentially dent the last scrimmage off the snap. He can do all those things. I thought he was played out of position entirely in Dallas. The majority of his snaps were on the nose at three hundred and five pounds. That's it's just like not it's not his game. I
don't think that's you know, I don't know. I'm not sure the thinking there. But like driscoll, it's always nice to have that added versatility so you can play him in there. But I like him best's three tech, four
tech four I technique. That's all basically like between the garden tackle that those are the positions you're playing there where he can penetrate gaps, ride the wave on the outside zone runs and give you, you know, ballpark fifteen to twenty snaps per game of just pure gas, especially in this Miami weather. You know, last year he has most productive year in pressures, mistackle, rate, penalties, PFF great pretty much across the board. And that's with three hundred and
four snaps. Give us three hundred and four snaps, you're basically taking a third of what Christian Wilkins gave. Maybe tr Tart takes another third of those, Maybe your subpackaging takes the other third out and you're good to go there. So Chef's kiss find a way to get production from these guys a heavy rotation. I think I like Gallimore the best to earn substantial work alongside Sealer and tier Tart. I try to not let training camp or mini camp or OTA's whatever you want to call him sway my
opinion too much. But getting eyes on Jody Fordson live and watching his tape this offseason, I am proper intrigued size, long speed to run away from safeties and linebackers in an offense that's going to put him in those positions all the time. You're not going to put a cornerback
on Jody Fords. And when you have Tyreek Hill and Jalen Wattle and Odell Beckham out there, he's just naturally tough to contend with when you consider re routing and impacting the catchpoint because he kind of has like Victor Webbin Yama skills in terms of he's so long that, like this man, you just can't get into his frame.
I don't see guys get into his chest, not even the football he catches away from his body and he can kind of pluck it and hold up and make those contested catches like we saw him high point one football at practice last week. Ah, that's the real skill that he offers.
Man.
Like, that's where I realized, Okay, this guy, like I think he offers so much in terms of size down in the red zone opens up that back line throw he saw from Tua to Kasiki and Baltimore back in twenty twenty two. But I think he can be a great option to be the point man and stacks and bunches and clear out space for smaller wide receivers who run their routes off of him. He can set picks. I think he's good enough as a blocker to offer you flexibility and how your run pass and play pass
game kind of marries up together. And he also plays special teams. What's the rub here, Travis, Because why hasn't he been productive? Well, this is where the expectation thing comes into play injuries and ask any Chiefs fan and they'll tell you that he was celebrated when he first made when he made his first fifty three man roster out of camp. Fans fell in love with this guy at training camp, and I'm sure it has to do
with the fact that he practices a certain way. Tons of potential here that just hasn't been afforded the chance to bubble up to the surface. On top of the fact he's played behind some pretty damn good tight ends there in Kansas City as well. So those are my top four guys, and I mentioned him off the top. My fifth player here is Eric Azokama, And if you'll allow for it, erase the first two years in the NFL and just go back to his Texas Tech tape.
He was so damn difficult to get to the ground, incredible contact balance, and we're lotting Malik Washington or I Am for his fit with the separation skill set and run after the catch. That's who Eric Azukama was in twenty twenty two for the Red Raiders. And where I think you get most excited is we saw the proof of concept in two games last year and then we lost him for the rest of the season and you're forced to put any expectations for this player on hold.
But the ability to take the ball as a runner from the backfield to catch swings and screed to lead block as the point man on those screens. To go back to Maleak, he was kind of that same profile, but rather than being five foot eight, he's in a six foot two frame that kind of has some up sense, some ability to go get the football and pluck it. And we saw him use that frame in camp and in preseason games and make these highlight level plays. I'm so pumped for him to have a chance this year.
He's in his third year in the offense, which is always a big factor of me because again, like I talked about on the podcast last week with Jaalen Waddle, this offense demands so much of its receivers and his first year was kind of red shirt because he didn't know all the positions. His second year he gets injured and doesn't It is kind of it kind of reminds me Austin Jackson Man. That's why I said he was
the obvious pick here. But in year three with Wes Welker and Mike McDaniel and Frank Smith, he should have the mental side down. If he doesn't, then okay, wash your hands of it. I will not bring it up again. But if he has the mental side of it, down he's gonna have. I think he will. I think he has a real opportunity to carve out a role for himself. We saw a lot of wide receivers get run at
various points last year. There's no reason to think he will not get his Just imagine him ran that route instead of Chase, Claypool and Buffalo on the final drive of the regular season. So there you go. Jody Fortson, Ethan Bonner, Jack Driscoll, Neville Gallimore, and Eric Azukama. My three picks for guys that could drastically sway your expectations of how you feel about them today. In May and on September, we'll see a different player than I think
you expect. Those are my five picks. Get two of them right, We'll feel pretty good about that. Let's go ahead and take our last break. Right there. Come back and conclude with additional audio from media availabilities at yesterday's Ota practice. That's Next Draft Time podcast, your host Travis Wingfield, brought to you by Auto Nation. One of the really cool experiences about working for the Miami Dolphins is the access we get to a little bit of everything. And
since I work so closely with the video department. I have access to these really great shots at practice that kind of exhibit some of the things I can see from a live action shot at practice from up in
the stands. And the reason I always talk about the ability to evaluate a football practice live and how difficult it is and how challenging it is for someone that doesn't have a lot of experience in it, or someone that doesn't have the requisite football knowledge to be able to process what a play might look like before it happens, so you know where to look, what key triggers to
focus on. There's just a lot, you know. I think we get a lot of people that tweet videos from practice or come here and have takeaways, and there's value to being here no matter what. But to watch something and just be able to say, oh, a failed quarterback center exchange, Oh he threw that ball sixty five yards, like that's cool. But there are little nuances that I think that are valuable to search for, and I can't
see them all. I certainly can't. I'm definitely, you know, not a coach or anyone that has a McVeigh level recall, But in seeing some of these videos, I can piece things together like there was a play in practice on Tuesday where to I talked about podcast where he held the backside safety and gathered information from his front side read, came back to the backside and ripped this little bender to Durham Smith and the end zone for a touchdown where he's able to hold Javon Holland on the backside
hash and give the inside access to Durham Smith because of his positioning and in the video that I saw, I was able to glean more from this really good play and even make a bigger claim that was even better play than I originally had thought because in the play, you see to start working the front side of the formation and his helmet, his shoulders, his hips are all aligned in that direction and that's going to have someone
thinking the balls going in that direction. But you see his eyes roll back and the side of his helmet, and then as he begins to start his throwing motion, that's when the helmet comes over. So he's gleaning information on the backside of the throw without indicating to the defense that he's looking at the backside of the throw, because all they can go off if they can't see eyes from twenty five yards away inside of a quarterback's helmet.
They can see the stripe on the middle of his helmet move and that is how they read quarterbacks eyes. It's not the actual eyes itself, right, But Tua is so advanced. And again this is I was having a great time showing this to the videographers. Tua such a damn good quarterback that he can find out information on the backside, and before he indicates that he knows the information, his throwing motion has begun. He's got one of the quickest suggers in the National Football League. He's one of the
most accurate quarterbacks in the National Football League. And the more and more comfortable he gets, the more those tight window throws and those on point pinpoint type of shots are going to be even more frequent because he's going to have better knowledge of the system and how to exploit certain things. So I'm just telling you, I'm just telling you, and we're going to talk more about this
here with coach McDaniel's media availability additional sound bites. I want to play for you guys here in just one second. I'm just telling you, get ready, get ready for the season. Okay, you're probably got some expectations about how they fizzled the last two years, and that's fair. I'm I'm a little bit scared about it myself, to be honest with you, just because it's happened and you've got battered Dolphins syndrome
Dolphins fan syndrome. But I'm just telling you just get ready for it, because it's going to happen this year
and it's going to be freaking glorious. I want to go ahead and play some soundbites here from head coach Mike McDaniel who touched on the benefit of having key players miss practices and kind of the balance of guys being here for voluntary workouts versus not, And I want to go ahead and play this very long SoundBite where he talks about the benefit of being in year three of the program, how it can benefit guys who can take some time off the grass, but also the opportunity
that it affords younger players looking to make their mark here on the twenty twenty four Miami Dolphins.
There's probably two things existing simultaneously in that, you know, this is all voluntary, but there's ways to get better in a team environment each and every day.
So for me individually, you.
Know, kind of a asking each circumstance. You know, the good good news is with this team and with the players on it there they communicate with me very well, so I kind of know what's coming. As long as they know what's coming, you can plan for the opportunity. And we've we've i mean shooting the two seasons that that have been the head coach here.
You you see how much.
Your your roster's depth comes into question as the course of the season goes. When there aren't guys you know on a certain day attending practice, there are guys that supremely benefit from that. And you know, the the the biggest thing is as a team, I think the connectivity where where people's expectations on how we how how our standard of practice is, uh we we haven't Anybody that hasn't been.
Hasn't been at practice.
People getting more reps because of it, have taken advantage of it in that they've known their assignment and we're actually coaching them on technique and fundamentals within the play and not what they should be doing. So because the team and their mindset in the way they've really gone about it. This offseason, we've had a tremendous offseason of growth really in our schematics and our fundamentals because people have taken advantage of opportunities, So that doesn't necessarily.
That's not always the case.
So in situations where people don't rise and rise to the challenge or really understand the opportunity presented when they may be getting reps with the ones instead of the twos, or they may be getting reps with the twos instead of the threes. When people don't rise to those occasions, it substantially affects your team. Uh, I'm happy to say that we've had really a lot of growth in what we're trying to do in our practices.
And uh, the the guys that the.
Guys that haven't been here in an in a voluntary situation, I don't see it hurting our team right now.
And the follow up question or I guess the next question in this line of questioning was about the presence of one Tyreek Hill, Jalen Waddle and Odell Beckham on the field together. And have you seen those guys working out together just yet. Let's go ahead and hear from coach on that and why maybe it's not that big of a deal that they haven't been on the field together in the month of May.
Their individual processes through the off season where they're at.
We we haven't had.
That opportunity yet, but that that's uh, that's you know, and I'm not in any hurry to to see that there's a you know, each individual has to ear earn their keep and earn their targets, and so having all three at the same time isn't necessarily a big deal to me. It's each and every one of them understanding our offense, how to separate in the time of the play, understanding where where, how.
To align, and who and what to block.
All of those things are more the most important to me, especially as you are right live in the offseason.
This last one here was the follow up to the question about those three, and it was more about Tyreek Hill.
And I remember really kind of raving about this back in twenty twenty two how Tyreek kind of taught the Dolphins how to practice, and not that there was nobody that knew how to practice, but he set a certain standard that was kind of like, oh, that's the guy that is an ap All Pro every year and eclipse his fifteen hundred yards every year and leads the NFL in long touchdowns every year and is literally the bane of the existence of most defensive coordinators who have to
call defense to handle what he offers from a just dynamic can flip the game on its head in a moment's notice type of way. So the question about him taking less practice reps, and I talked about it last year. I remember being like, I don't see Tyreek out here as much as we did, even last training camp for instance, And all he did was go off and have a year where he threatened for two thousand yards before he had an injury. That kind of basically took that entire
idea off the table. But I want to go ahead and play this SoundBite as he talks as Coach McDaniel talks about Tyreek's ability to take some time down because of the knowledge in the system. Let's go ahead and throw it one more time here to Coach.
McDaniel, another great benefit of year three, especially with the guys that this is their third year. You know in this program, you know, with me as the head coach, understanding who they are and how to you know best serve those individuals is huge. So knowing Tyreek's all or nothing type of mindset on the grass. Yes, we do take that into account. There's uh, there's multiple times that he's you know, usually trying to talk us into it, but we're talking him out of participation on.
On the field. Knowing where his.
Uh ferrari horsepower is at and uh and making sure that stays that way. So uh, it is very helpful with some of some of the types of practice players we have, knowing them and being able to keep them out of harm's way as best we can.
And I know we're talking about receivers in this instance,
but it applies to most players. And you know, McDaniel mentioned this in a press conference I think it was last week before the first open OTA session to the media about to traveling from you know, South Florida to California to meet with John Beck, and I just I kept thinking about this because and this is why I gave you that preamble about just wait for the season and wait to see what this's off looks like, because it's going to be, in my opinion, the best in the
league by a good gap. But to not have to come in here and drill an offense and try to get the terminology down and try to get your favorites and your least favorites, and finding out which calls are preferable to your skill set and all the stuff that goes into learning a new offense. I refer to this all the day time in the podcast I'll Never Forget.
There was a Packers and Lions Monday Night game and they had the Manning Cast where they were talking about Jared Goff in his second year of the Ben Johnson offense and Peyton Manning. We had always heard that the first year was kind of the learning filling out process, and Bruce arians had made the comment about eight games how long it takes to kind of get things down, and Peyton's like, by year three is when I felt the most comfortable. And damn it, who is the quarterback
you're trying to kind of emulate the most. If you're to a tongue by loa, it's Peyton Manning because the skill sets are similar in terms of Peyton didn't have the biggest arm. He had a good enough arm like
Tua does. He beats you between the ears by being so maniacal in his approach to the game and being so studious and just downright smarter than everybody else in the field that he was able to do the things we just talked about with Tua moving defenses with his body position and beginning the throwing emotion before he's even delivered or conveyed to the defense, that he knows where he's going with the ball. Like these high level nuances
are what truly makes great quarterback play. And so for Tua to have not only this is what I like in the offense, this is what I don't like. I know how to work on the things I don't like. Now he can take all of that. And I knew he was going to get better because of year three. Where I didn't know I was going to see a better Tua was just improving the overall quarterback mechanic function
of his entire game. Because it was one practice. But I came away watching this guy saying, he's got more yardage on each club, He's got more shots in the back, if he has hit to draw, if he has hit to cut, he can do all of that, and just the overall easy efficiency is going to make it for a more repeatable swing or in this instance, a throwing motion for a quarterback because he's gone out west to work with a quote unquote swing coach, And so you have the benefit of the third year in the offense
and the increased knowledge and the increased familiarity with your teammates and your coaches and the system and the terminology and everything that goes into the evolving offense that McDaniel runs here. But now you've added a better swing, a
better stroke right on top of that. I just I think the sky's limitman, because as a amateur golfer trying to make these references applicable to the fan base out there, as someone who has worked very hard on the driving range the last two years to try to get a golf swing figured out, Man, when you can kind of step aside and really drill on the swing and get that thing more efficient and make it a more repeatable stroke that you can count on and give yourself a
better shot dispersion on each and every swing, it's the same exact thing for a quarterback. And Man, again, one practice, I'm telling you the quarterback is better. Physically, he's better, and we are knew that in year three the mental aspect of the game was going to be better too. So I'm beyond fired up here. On May the twenty nine thinking about how this Dolphins team is going to run rough shot on the rest of the National Football League, and let's go ahead and call it a podcast right there.
Friday's episode, We're gonna come back and talk a lot about the questions you guys post to me on the mailbag, some inappropriate questions out there that we're very funny, but I cannot talk about them on the professional podcast, but I see you out there. We'll go ahead and address everything you guys asked that it is appropriate though, on the podcast, and the next week we have three OTA practices, and then after that it is back to two times a week. We're gonna have the NFL preview of the
divisional guests. We'll do that again this year. We'll have some walking talks or some chats I should say, with players at the media day session this year that we'll play throughout the summer, so lots to come your way here on the Draft Time podcast, even though football goes away for a few weeks and then right around the corner training camp in the month of July and football we'll be back in no time. But in the meantime
that is going to be my time. You all, please be sure to subscribe to the podcast on Apple, Spotify, wherever you get your podcast from. Go ahead and leave us a rating, leave us a review. You can follow me on social at WINFLD, NFL the team at Miami Dolphins. Check out the fish Tank podcast with my guys Seth
and Juice. The Brian Hartlin episode very very good. I hadn't really heard Heartline speak publicly that much previously to this, but you can just get the sense why he was such an effective player and a really good coach and a great recruiter that he is now at Ohio State. The YouTube channel for med Availabilities, Dolphins Today, drave Time content, so much more, and last but not least, Miami Dolphins dot Com. Until next time. Fin's Up, Caroline and Cameron. Daddy, He's coming o.
