Drive Time with Travis Wingfield begins. Now, let me check your pulse if you're not for what is up?
Dolphins? And welcome to the Drift Time Podcast. It's part of the Miami Dolphins podcast network, covering your team, your Miami Dolphins.
How's it going? Everybody?
I am your host, Travis Wingfield, And on today's show, it is my favorite show that I do, one of my favorite Dolphins games ever. We're breaking down the all twenty two from Miami's thirty six to thirty four win key stats and snap counts, will revel in some apologies on a national level, and much much more from the Baptist Health studios inside the Baptist Health Training Complex. This is the Draft Time Podcastye, we have no time to waste. Let's get right into this here and start with our.
Big play breakdowns.
I have five of them for you this week, three on offense, no check that, four on offense, and an
entire series on defense. We start in the third quarter to eighteen to play first and ten at the plus thirty five yard line a twenty four to twenty game, and Tua throws a thirty five yard touchdown strike to Tyreek Hill and you get this look because of pre snap motion with Durham going to the boundary or from the boundary, I should say to the field, and you see the safety who's helping against Tyreek kind of walk down into the formation closer, and you've got press coverage
on Tyreek hill into the boundary and Tyreek, his release package all game long was exceptional. He gets another release on this rep with no contact from the cornerback within three yards of the line of scrimmage. Tyreek is even with the dB. The safety is flat footed, and partially because Tua's eyes start to the field safety on the
opposite side. And what's amazing about this As you watch Tua, he's got his helmet aligned towards that field safety, but his lower half is working to get aligned mechanically to the boundary, so he knows where he's gonna go. He knows he's playing possum on the defense to move them with his eyes. Safety, as a result, is camped out on his hills heels and the moment too, was hands
separate with Tyreek at the twenty seven yard line. The safety is already out of the play because Tyreek in a full sprint, You're not gonna get back there and get that depth on him, and the pass eventually descends at the one yard line in perfect position where he's three yards beyond the corner, six yards beyond the safety. The football is perfect. I mean, we're talking training camp one on ones level on the money location here from Tua.
You get absolute stonewall pass pro from Lamb, Williams, Hunt and Jackson all one on one, and Isaiah Win is the guy who does not have a matchup, but he goes and finds work helping out on Khalil Mack with Kendall Lamb and takes him all the way out of the play. Just elite execution across the board, and a quarterback who knows what's going to happen before the play and a wide receiver with the best speed slash release
package in the entire game. Those boys were cooking. We go back to the fourth quarter, now thirteen thirty to play for our second big play breakdown, Big play break out, third and fifteen at the minus twenty our own side
of the field. It's thirty one twenty seven and we have a seventeen yard completion from two a tongue of I loa to Braxton Buriers, and this is one of the most impressive throws we've ever seen to a make because the Chargers bring a blitz and you have Durham Smyth as the fourth eligible man into the pattern after he chips at the line of scrimmage to account for the five man pass rush coming, and Tua has Waddle to the boundary with Tyreek and Craycraft stacked to the field.
That means you're gonna have Tyreek behind River Craycraft stacked to create an opportunity for them to get press coverage. And the Chargers get what they want. They get pressure on the quarterback with mad coverage taking away the hot throw on third and fifteen. That typically means a sack or a throwaway and you get the punt team out there. But then Tua decides to create off script at the moment he at that moment exactly, he has to tuck and find a way to get out of the pocket
and extend to buy his receivers more time. It's on the quarterback. He's the only guy that can make a play happen at this point, and Waddle has cleared out the boundary again for those newcomers, boundary short side of the field field wide side of the field, and Barrios has stacked his man, which means he gets the dB on his back running that deep over out, but he needs at least another full second to fully clear, and
Tua says no problem. The Chargers game off. The stunt gets in, Morgan Fox actually splits Win and Lamb to get pressure on Tua, and Savon achmed It steps up for a great cut block on Kenneth Murray, but the game with Bosa and Joseph Day gets around that right side. Tua protects the football but has the quick feet to reposition himself to get off the spot out of danger. But then there's still pursuit and he rolls left and throws on the move with someone right.
In his face.
And this ball cannot have been handed to Brax and Barrios any better at the thirty seven yard line. A twenty eight yard dot on the move with a defender in his face on third and fifteen in the fourth quarter, no Less, trailing by four points. Elite Elite Elite fourth quarter three four forty seven to play third and ten at the minus twenty five. It's a thirty four to thirty game. It's it's do or die time. Two out of Tyreek for forty seven yards and we hit jackpot.
After two of the more disjointed offensive plays of the entire day, Tua and the offense hits their best. Unflappable as this group on this side of the football, they rush three and drop eight, So you're getting all kinds of looks here for Tua and he's dissecting all of them. Everything they had they threw at him, and he just continued to beat the Chargers defense time and time again.
And I really want to focus on Jalen Waddle on this play because he, Tyreek and Raheem Moster account for the three man route combination to the field the wide side of the field, and Waddle has to get to his spot quickly in order to occupy a safety, and
that is exactly what he does. He worked so hard to get that dig route to make that safety sucked down into the formation and create the open window up top, and I'm sure that was part of the progression and Tuas probably reading that safety four for the for him to come down and take away the pass to Wattle and then potentially go over the top to Tyreek and the part I love the most was there wasn't really pressure, but Tua knew that he had that clean pocket opening
up to step up into, and by doing so, it afforded Tyreek an additional second on what was a slow release. He had to time this stutter step release because he had to allow for Wattle's route first to dictate where that safety would go, and so Tua buys time to coincide with Tyreek's you know, intentionally slower release stutterstep takeoff, gets a step within five yards. Tua climbs up and throws it on the move, and when he lets this thing go, Tyreek is at our thirty eight yard line
and Tua's at the twenty yard line. Tyreek makes the catch on the other thirty four. So it's a thirty six air yard shot off platform to the fastest player in the world on a dead sprint have mercy Man perfect perfect rep rob Hunt gave us some help around the edge to keep Bosa off. Tua just a great job to peel out when he didn't have work initially to go help get a key block with Austin Jackson and then Kendall Lamb also anchored against the Khalil Mack
bull rush to make that play happen. We come right back a little bit later in the drive in the fourth quarter one eight, third and four on the plus four yard line.
You don't get this.
It's do or die time on fourth down coming up, but we do get it to a four yard touchdown pass to Tyreek and there's not much to it whereheem Moster is split out there with Tyreek and takes jet motion inside. This brings the only other defensive back over there in just one step, and that's all we needed to make it one on one for Tyreek. He steps inside, the safety comes down. All of a sudden, you have the back pilon to work with, and once again they
cannot get a clean press on Tyreek Hills. He stacks the defensive back and then has the quiet hands to not reach up for the football and alert the defender that is coming right until it's over his helmet, right in the bread basket. And you can only do that because of the placement from Tua, because he didn't really have to move his hands at all. He could show quiet hands the last second and you could not have handed this ball to Tyreek Hill better than where Tua
put it. On the money on this throw. Great play by two great players. Just wow, that's all I have here, two defensive plays in our big play breakdown. The Cater COOHU series really was capitalized by a sack, but he pretty much had an entire series shut down on his own.
Third quarter three forty to play third and one at the minus thirteen a twenty four to twenty ball game, Cater shuts down the screen on the first play, runs sidelined the sideline to force Keenan Allen out of bounds to force a third and one right at the sticks, then disguises a blitz working at the press point against trips bunched tight. There's got a trips formation in close to the to the line of scrimmage, and Herbert did
not see the rush coming until Cater was there. But then, the best part about this, we've seen dbs do this a million times in the past, Like I can think about a Nick Needam miss blitz or a Bobby McCain miss blitz in the past. He mirrored Herbert's escape route out to the backside, moved right with him, and whack got him for the sack. Great play in a great series is Cater Coo, who pretty much single handed on that series, got the defense off the field. Our final
big play breakdown is the entire game clenching sequence. With one forty five to go in the ball game, the Chargers get a first down on play number one, but then we go to work. But previously they had first and goal at the ten yard line and Andrew Van Ginkle makes a run stuff X and Elliott make a key stop after pressure forced Herbert to throw a short flat. Then Cator has fantastic coverage to pass somebody off and then go peel back and fold back and find more work.
Both X and Elliott locked up again in coverage and Phillips wins his pass rush and forces Herbert to put.
The football in the stands.
So that's critical there because now you have a lead instead of potentially driving for a touchdown and two point conversion to tie the game at thirty eight all. And that's if the Chargers don't go for two and make it a nine point game after this potential touchdown. So the final sequence Bethel on the first down play blitzes the B gap after capping a nasty split tight end.
What does that mean?
The tight ends in close to the formation Bethel's playing off coverage and convert this potential coverage snap into a rush.
Herbert never sees it.
This is why I love to a man like Herbert is not as good as to in a lot of these parts of the game that are critical.
And this showed up time and time again on the tape.
In critical spots where they know they had to pass the ball, Tuo played way better than Herbert in those situations.
They get this free run.
He gets in there, and you have great coverage downfield with x and Cater with man trail coverage, and Herbert just inexplicably throws the ball away while in the box, ten yard loss and a loss of down. Then Sealer on second down has his best pass rush of the day and wins alongside Jalen Phillips, and they get inside.
Seiler had a devastating dip and rip, and it's that length leverage creation, momentum creation that we talked about in his game where he just gets that inside arm, dips it underneath and rips through and gets a B line to the quarterback. And then you get the third down completion to set up fourth and thirteen, and you get exactly what you need from your top guys X cater Holland are all in really good shape at the sticks, playing right underneath their men, and coverage comes on the
exact same blitz. Phillips wins with speed around the edge, and the both of those guys meet at the quarterback and close out the football game. Fantastic work there. Let's go ahead and do our top five tapes here on this side before the break as well, and number one it's two a Tonga bai loa dan Orlofsky said he sees the field better and faster than any quarterback in the league going right now, and we got that early on here. He attacks post snap based on the information
he gets pre as well as anybody I've seen. Like the throw to Waddle to open the game, the safety to the field is keyed on Tyreek and it creates this pocket, this vacancy in the middle, and Tua doesn't only just know the ball has to go there before it's supposed to go there, he puts the ball right on the face masks. These guys basically are still running the route, just all of a sudden the balls jammed
in there and they never break stride. This one would have been in the big play breakdown if we did not have so many of them. The third and five completion on the first touchdown drive, the Chargers really won this rep again and again. Like you heard McDaniel the Play Callers podcast. Sometimes play calls get snuffed out, but great players make plays. Tua did it all day long.
They have a simulated pressure look showing five only four come, but they do get in with really good man coverage and that two man look that gave us issues in the game last year. This time they cover the rail and the little slant seam combination to the front side are typical bread and butter play, So Tua has to get away from pressure and get to the backside of
his reads. So you have to not only be able to evade a two hundred and seventy pound pass rusher, but also understand where to go in the progression with the football. This time it's Braxton Burios running away from outside leverage. It's also Michael Davis, who has Burios by more than a tenth of a second in his forty yard dashtime. Doesn't sound like a lot, but it is. It's the one rep where I thought Bosa really got
Lamb the best of him. He dives in and pulls at the face mask of Tua, but Tua's already put his feet in a position where he can stay on balance and quickly explode off the spot and escape. Man I talked about that back in twenty eighteen, did Night Alabama, how good he was at putting himself in position to flee quickly and make rushers miss.
It's back.
It's back, and you're seeing it in the best way. And so Lamb is crashing in towards Tua's legs. He hitches up, gets away, stays on balance and throws a ball right through the tire swing. He could not have put it better fifteen yards downfield off platform elite. I cannot get over these thirty yard rips. The receivers don't even have to reach for the ball just continues to meet them in stride through one. On our third possession from his own fourteen it hits tyreek at the forty four.
He never slows down, just takes it and keeps put a bit, keeps on trucking along wide open, but to a maximize the design by putting the ball on the one on the upfield part of his Jersey. We went through all the big ones, but even these ones that are open and in structure, the ball is just right on the money, regardless of if Tua has his feet set or not. This is the best quarterback in the league for week one, Like it's not even close.
He was so damn good.
I loved, loved how there are so many answers to potential problems and no one knows them. He's studied. He came to the exam ready. He's out in the car before he goes into the classroom, cramming the Q cards that he created.
That's what I did when I was in school, and that's.
How I took test. First play in the drive, they started with a with six thirty four. In the second quarter, they bring Durwin James clean on our bread and butter rail seams slide combination. The play right the rail route, the slant seam route and the slide to the flat. And Durham has the slide and he sees the rush
and instantly gives two of the mailbox. Hey, you gotta throw it to me right now, and Tua knows that too, fades back away from the free rusher and just finesses this little touch pass to Durham, it seems innocuous, but this ability to put the ball within three feet for a tap in when you're chipping from the collar of the green, like he missed the approach shot right the blitz came through and that was a missing our approach
shot from the fairway. But when you can put your next chip next to the to the hole and tap it in for a par, you're saving scores and you're keeping yourself on schedule. I put the timer on it between pulling the ball out of the running backs belly and the time the ball is out of his hand.
Point eight seconds.
That's the ball handling and decision making that he has to process all with an under a second. It's like hitting ninety nine milter hour fastball, and he does it with ease. Late second quarter, there's a throw the Tyreek from trips to the far hash where Tyreek is at the numbers and the linebacker the Tua is working is five yards inside of that, and Tua throws it before Tyreek even makes his move inside out of the break, and by the time the ball meets him twenty six
yards downfield, it's right on top of his helmet. He just catches it and keeps going once again, another insane anticipation throw. Two throws later, he speeds up the drop to rip one the tyreek again before he's even cleared
the defender into a soft spot in the zone. It sells him down right in front of the end zone to puss at first in goal at the one right before a touchdown past the river Craycraft elite, elite, elite stuff the throw to waddle before the Azukama Dpi Bosa is right in his face again fading back away from
this throw. No generation power to generate from the lower half of the base because he's falling back and it's forty thirty yards downfield to the forty five yard line and it hits watt on the face mask.
Unreal. Unreal.
Mike Renner from PFF pulled screen grabs from anticipation throws that were just unreal. That Orlowsky point the added movement velocity even better touched somehow than a year ago. The apology tour is real because what people saw yesterday was some of the best quarterback play we've seen in a long time in the NFL, not just the Dolphins, in the NFL last one here, since we already covered the
big touchdown plays. In big plays, the little swing route to Raheem, we must have blown an assignment because the B gap had a free runner coming into his face, coming downhill at to his face, and he bought time with the fade away and just tossed this little floater that gave Raheem room in space, and he makes a man miss from opening contact at the fourteen yard line. Can you imagine fourth and goal from the fourteen That's
a tough spot to score from. But because he gets it out early, Raheem can make a guy miss, gets it down to the four yard line, and then we get a touchdown the tyreek hill just a couple of plays later. There was a couple of misses in the game in that first half. The deep shot the Tyreek to open the second drive just left.
The ball too far inside.
But fortunately in how we're at the point where we don't have to nitpick every single miss and we realize that every quarterback has misses every game. We're just not going to critique it like at some definitive moment of his career. I think the important thing here is that Tua quickly recalibrated and was money attacking downfield the rest of the night, although he did have another one that was short on a deep crosser to Waddle and then a couple of plays tried to fit one to triple
coverage to Durham Smith and it didn't work out. That was basically it until the pick, which I still think was DPI, and then the I int he just had nowhere to go with it. Every guy was covered. He threw to the one guy who was not bracketed, which I like that, but J. C. Jackson pushes off and oh well, it's like what four misses on forty five throws. Obviously had more incompletions than that, but in terms of like open throws, he didn't make four out of forty five.
That's top notch.
Pro Football Focus had him with seven for fourteen passing for one hundred and twenty one yards when he was pressured and when blitzed twelve for eighteen with one sixty six in a touchdown. He had two point five three seconds to throw on average and a twelve point four to a that's an insane combination of statistics. Twenty plus yard throws, he was five for eight for one sixty one a touchdown and a pick and throws in the intermediate ten to nineteen eight for fourteen for one hundred
and forty six yards. That's your big plays. That's your top tape. To a tongue of I looa, We're gonna come back and do the other top five tapes. We'll alays talk about the offense on the other side of the breaker. That's next Drive Time podcast, your host Travis Wingfield, brought to you by Auto Nation. Top five Tapes continued here to a tongue of iloa takes. Our top tape from the opening game in Los Angeles thirty six to thirty four, Dolphins win number two.
It's Tyreek Hill. I just don't know what you do on this guy.
The motion they put him in puts defense as an immediate bind their rolling help because the head start prevents a dB from getting hands on him. The safety has to decide if he wants to take away the takeoff route or buzz the middle and cut off the dig route, and then Tyreek can just kind of take whichever one
the safety does not do. And then if you really want to have a chance, you're gonna have to pull a hook linebacker deeper than you want to, and man Tyreek is running every single route with intentional energy, crisp extending every route to better sell defensive backs on what he's doing. Two hundred and fifteen yards is no fluke.
He's obviously great. The very next play after this what I'm talking about, he gets Michael Davis to whiff on the inside release and just runs away from him for an easy twenty eight yards.
It was consistent.
Fourteen point three yards per target. We've mentioned this before. Eight yards per target is very very good. Six point one four yards per route ran two yards is very good. He led the NFL like two point eight last year, forty percent working in the slot, fifty seven percent out wide, some work in the backfield. He forced three mess tackles, had nine first downs, and a passer rating of one fifty four point nine when passing his way, fifty of
the two to fifteen came after the catch. That's four point five yards per catch, and for those doing the math at home, that's less than twenty five percent of his total yards. So shut up when you talk about two only having yak plays number three tape, Austin Jackson, what a game he had.
What a game. The Eric Azuokama end around.
He sealed the four I technique that's the inside shoulder of the tackle. Then he peels back out and gets back outside of Bosa and seals him there to create space for that big run for Azukama, insane athletic ability and the way he processed all game along was top notch. If you guys go watch this tape, watch the way his heads were moving back and forth. He's picking stuff up. He's matching the mental with the athletic ability. The technique
is so much better. He had a rep where he shortened the runway of on the Brax and Burrios catch that was reviewed where Joey Bosa isn't a nine technique and he just goes out there and attacks him and says, you're not going to get a free running start at me and ends the rep right there. He was fantastic finding his blocks, getting out in space in the ground game, holding up in pass pro. The best tape of his career and a tremendous sign going forward. Tape number four
is Kendall Lamb on the other side. Well, what do you think about that?
Guys?
He got it going early the very first savon achmed run down on high red zone, he climbs to Kenneth Murray throws him to the ground into another charger defender, taking both guys out. Excellent weight transfer redirect. As khalil Me tries to crash inside, then cuts it off and works back outside on Mac's secondary move, you will get no such luck today, sir. He also has again that te Stead shortened the runway play went out and got Bosa on that Tua scramble for a first down, just
like Austin Jackson did. Plus this two move combination he has is really tough to beat. That dummy punch that often draws out the move of the rusher, and maybe Mack was privy to it because he would drop the shoulder and bowl rush and then Lamb just drops the anchor and absorbs the power. Absolutely fantastic game, and my fifth top tape goes to cater Ko, who I just cannot get enough of this guy's tape. He's patient in the way he processes and then makes a decision and goes.
He goes quickly and gets it.
He does a good job finding work and zone getting depth after playing the flat like I've done my job.
Now I'm gonna go find more work.
No few guys do it like he does on this team right now, recognizing nobody's there, appealing back for depth to interrupt the deep over from the other side of the formation. It's Javon Holland level type of intellect we're talking about here, playing off coverage, breaking on the route before the receiver does. It's all films, and it constantly puts him in positions to make plays. Then the way he attacks the screen, game and perimeter runs literally never slumps.
He was six last year when run stops among corners, I thought he played excellent, including the series where he shut down the screen and had the sack on two of free plays, and really the third play was his as well. So he had three run stops in the game, forty five coverage snaps and allowed just thirty seven yards in coverage. If you're under one yard per coverage snap, you're doing a fantastic job, and he did in this game.
Some more notes on the offensive side in general. The Chargers defense started off in that two man look, and we clear out the perimeter for a Tua catch rock and throw speed out just like we saw all camp long find the vulnerabilities an attack, and Tua has the weaponry right now to attack every blade of grass. The very next play, they sneak a slot down and press on waddle and he just shakes with an inside release
for easy slant access. Tyreek's alignments were so varied across the formation Mike McDaniel in his bag, the Chargers had a hard time adjusting to that and taking away others nasty splits, backfield alignment short motion. They just constantly created indecision by moving Tyreek Hill around the formation, and he did all this damage on forty four snaps in the game.
The end to round play to Eric Azukama or Hunt pulls backside to sell the fact they might hand off inside the other direction to Raheem Moster and Durham Smyth bluffs the split flow action and then wheels back around to make a key block. McDaniel thinks about how to give the defense false keys to put them in bad positions and put them in bad spots.
For us to exploit. And it's a freaking thing of beauty.
It got all the Chargers defenders hemmed inside on that play that short motion, I talked about created these switch releases where one receiver would start outside and wind up going inside, which just causes confusion in your communication on the back end. And it had the chargers defenders in hell all night long. That rip to Craycraft had them all out of sorts as two guys ran with Azukama on the rail and opened up the dig inside to Craycraft.
All these false keys, man, it's those pulling guards in pass Pro. Those plays suck up that second level of linebackers consistently. That short motion was an adaptation from last year where they would bring motion all the way across the field and that allowed the structure of the d to get sorted. But this short motion made it happen
way too fast for those guys to handle. The play action roll out the levels flood concept on our first drive just so beautiful because you get ingled lined up as a wide tight end and he sneaks out across the formation against the grain of a fake toss the other way, and then Azukama runs over behind him, and all of a sudden, he's got a lead blocker form. He misses the block, but it's just a beautiful design. A few more individual offensive notes Waddle. You know McDaniel
mentioned Tyreek's better understanding of the system. We saw it on the first play for Wattle two. I thought he had a ton of big runs after the catch last year, but the way he attacked the safety and erased the angle to set up blocks for smythe, smythe, smythe and moster downfield. On that play, Waddle had the fourth fastest miles prower of the week in the NFL at nineteen
point sixty five thirty yards after the catch. Pro Football Focus had him with two points three six yards per route, ran thirteen yards per target, and he averaged nine point eight yards of YAK on each catch thirty nine total. Connor Williams snap was not on him doing what he does man, hitting key blocks on the perimeter where defensive backs cannot get around him. It's so rare, and I hope you guys appreciate it and stop thinking that he's a bad center because of a couple of snaps in
the preseason. The offensive line, what can you say, I don't think we have to go up and down here, just hit a blanket statement. They whipped the Chargers up and down for sixty minutes a clinic hat on a hat, putting guys on the ground, Connor so damn flexible rob highlight clips and finding extra work and hitting guys in the ribs and they have extra work to find. Win a snatch trap master putting guys in the ground, Lamb
and Austin locked in. What a showing ten total pressures allowed on forty five drawbacks, three on Lamb and Austin apiece, but zero hitching those guys not one. Hunt, Win and Williams all had one pressure allowed as well. Raheem Moster. You know it didn't get much run in the second half, but he made unblocked linebackers miss and that's all you have to do is running back.
That's the job.
Nice little lateral cut where he put Kenneth Murray into the wrong game trying to scrape behind it. Connor Williams reach block. He had twenty nine yards average after contact and average two point nine yards after contact. Eric Azukama, speaking of running backs, he has some running back wiggled to him, broken record on this, but his rack in college, contact, balance, acceleration, through cuts, all these traits pop off the tape and now he's taking toss sweeps and running for first downs
just another thing defenses have to contend with. Braxon Burios consistently opens up in the spot that maximizes the throwing window. The big play breakdown we did, catching that ball going to the ground is just not that easy. But then two plays later he digs another one off the turf. What a valuable asset he has become for the Dolphins offense. Alec Ingold that fourteen yard raheem run before our first touchdown. Ingle's in the I formation and he just goes and
wipes out the force defender. After the block, he's flexing and he starts smacking his head like a madman, clearly fired up about a massive play that he made that you'd love to see. Then in the fourth he gets a crack at the motion rail route matched up on Kenneth Murray and Tua puts it right on the back shoulder. It goes for nineteen yards. There's maybe one other fullback in the NFL that can run that route and make that play.
Maybe we're lucky to have this guy.
And then finally Durham Smyth, I think the second year in the system has done as much for him as anybody. He's playing fast and smart. He peeled back to Tua on a broken play mid second quarter where Tua escaped left, Durham ran the scene and then came right back down the stem and got on the same page with this
quarterback from the other big game. Then later the fourth and seven, patiently hits his chip and then releases out into the flat into space cleared out by Tyreek Hill for a love of the game route and Tua finds him for a first down.
So great stuff from the offense.
Let's go ahead and take a break and come back and talk about what went wrong on the defensive side of the football, talk about some snap counts, and we'll go around the web all of that. Next Draft Time podcast, your host Travis Wingfield, brought to you by I don'tation. We've done the offense, we've done the big plays, we've done the top five tape. Let's go ahead and talk about the defense. And I think the issue in the ground game was simple. I could be wrong, but here's
what I saw. Consistent access from the interior three to get to the second level and I'm and wipe out our linebackers. I think it was a combination of outmanned fronts and guys not getting off blocks quickly enough and against double teams trying too hard to make a play or split a gap and go outside the scheme opposed to just anchoring and holding that spot to create lanes for the off ball linebackers to come downhill and make
a play. Whether it was duo where they got those double teams on Christian and Zach or straight inside zone which often looks so similar to each other with a hat on a hat. And again we played this two I technique and three technique, which is basically you lined up different spots with the guards on either side of the football. That gave their all pro center Corey Lensley free access to go get Baker and Gink and Long and he's too good of a player to have those opportunities,
and they just hit him regularly. I think against a team like this with those weapons in that quarterback, it makes a lot of sense. But I wonder if we'd see more odd fronts, a bear front where you go head up over the center and two guards to basically take away those gaps up front to better contend with the run and force teams with less explosive weapons and
quarterbacks to try to win vertically against US. We did do a great job in coverage, running off the deep intermediate stuff, but credit the Chargers for taking the profit in the run game and short passing game, because the minute they became one dimensional, that's when our defense began to dominate. There was a bear front on the Long Eckler run and David Long fit the wrong gap on
the opposite side of the run. Ray Kwan got thrown out the club, which was pretty frequently in this night, and it was off to the races after Deshaun Elliot missus a tackle. It turned a twenty yard run into a fifty five yard run. So again, I think you planned for an offense like this and hope that you can win more one on ones to better defend the run. Because when Herbert had traditional passing situations third and longs, we competed really well in those spots and he missed
some throws. We just did not get enough of those. The next offense that we see that has that kind of firepowers week four, then not again until week seven, So I'm really curious to see what the plan looks like going forward. But with the fronts we were running Zach and Krishn are going to have their hands full. That's going to be the case all year long. We consistently had them in that three to two y combination with two linebackers stacked behind them, kind of like the
Jackville game. I thought that was going to be more of a one time thing, but it wasn't. It was this game as well. They would you know, duo and combo climb those two and just plays that are that nobody's going to make frequently. And Baker and Van Ginkle had a rough game. I thought Van Ginkle looked like he was in his first game in a new role, just frequently slow to react and if it's you know, tough for Zach and Wilkins. Raque was getting turned around,
throwing out of the play often. Not only was he not anchoring, he was allowing guys to climb off that in double team. Some individual efforts. I did like Phillips just kept working in this game. He had a slow start, but seven pressures and three run stops unreal production in a game where he wasn't given a lot up opportunities because of the Chargers plan and attack. I just loved how he kept on coming after it, bending the corner getting after it, Zach Seeler the eyes, the disengage as
clean as ever that first Herbert scramble. He did a good job keeping Herbert getting off the block, disengaging it, and just didn't finish the sack. He did have three pressures and two run stops, including some big time pressures
in that final drive. Christian Wilkins got things going in the second quarter, classic work a one on one blow, getting off and finding the ball carrier in the backfield to make a play, but I thought his game kind of wasn't very strong in the third and fourth quarter either, So not Wilkins's best showing, but he had a tough
responsibility in this one. Three pressures, one run stop. Jerome Baker I thought made one of the plays the day on that shovel pass where he scraped in tight to the block on Seiler on the left guard that helped him beat the split flow action and shut down the play along with his friends Phillips, Chubb and Seiler.
Deshaun Elliott, that was a rough debut.
I got on David Long for the big Allen play, but I think it was Elliott was the help there and he jumped inside on a slant route to Mike Williams where X had off coverage and was right there take it away. In fact, Williams kind of just dropped his shoulder into X to essentially run this rub route, and Elliott was the one out of position driving on the slant. And then all of a sudden, Keenan Allen on a wheel route on David Long. He's never gonna
win that matchup. He missed the tackle on the Long Eckler run, then gave the inside access to Dylan Parum on that touchdown pass as well.
Rough rough debut.
It's a touchdown on two explosive plays on the two touchdown drives to kick off the game. Javon Holland, whether it was the screen game or coming down in limited potential limiting potential big runs. I thought he was next in line on our defense for top tapes behind Kate Kohu. So consistent as a tackler, closes ground as well as any safety in football. Really good in coverage, Really good game for Javon Hall, and he had four run stops.
In general, I thought the coverage was pretty good. X outside of the three flags, which obviously is too much, was consistently in good shape. I thought justin Bethel gave you a lot of good reps.
Eli apples too.
Kyra reminds me that Week one game back in twenty twenty when the Patriots ran for a bunch but our corners played well. You just couldn't tell because there wasn't a ton of action. The rougher showings Long Baker, Van Ginkel, Raykwon Chubb, I thought didn't have much going on. To Sean Elliott Wilkins not his usual self, but he was put in the tough spot. Some snap count thoughts here, how about Durham Smyth joining the offensive line and quarterback
as one hundred percent snap takers. Well Win missed one snap and Eichenberg filled in, but you get it. Those guys all played the entire game. How about Raheem most of giving you forty nine reps seventy three percent when we came into the game with the banged up backfield. Just huge for him to give you that reliability back there. What's truly amazing about Tyreek is that he did what he did on forty four snaps. Waddle had forty three. This is why I love the makeup of our wide
receiver room. We have a diverse skill sets that can help give those two guys breathers that ultimately keep them fresh to run all the vertical stuff they do, all the motion. It's an exhausting job and those two men fulfill it, and we have weapons to allow them to
stay fresh. Speaking of that, Barrios thirty four snaps is fifty two percent, Craykraft checking him with twenty seven snaps, and Azukama a nice workload of nineteen snaps but in a clear specific role that has carved out for him, and then alec Ingold in the game for thirty snaps as well. Defensively, Holland, Elliott, and Baker with a distance of eighty one snaps. Coohu and x both played seventy nine. That's typical for your defensive backs and middle linebacker to
play the entire game. But what's crazy, Phillips gave you seventy three snaps. The way this guy conditions during training camp to have those late rushes is just very impressive. We see him after pass rushes out here in camp run down the field forty yard with Christian Wilkins to stay in shape. And speaking of that, Chubb Wilkins and Steelers same boat seventy one sixty eight sixty five snaps respectively.
We need those guys all year. Long Man, you saw the dB depth chart kind of revealed here for the first time, Eli Apple going seventy five percent of the workloads,
right on par with what most Nichols play. Brandon Jones had just two snaps, but I'm excited to see him continue to ramp up here because I think we need him, but also just how much more diverse we can get with those sub packages with a third safety that has good skills, Because right now Elijah Campbell obviously down and Brandon Jones getting worked back up, and then Van Ginkle fifty one snaps and Long just seventeen is very interesting.
I don't know the reason there.
We might find out more later on, but ye thought we'd see a lot more David Long around the web.
How about Connor or Riding?
We were wrong. That's the only reasonable conclusion we can come to at this point. After to a tongue of Ba Loa and Mike McDaniel did it again, after they outshot another great quarterback, broke your fantasy football scoring system and prove their offense is harder to kill than a plastic house plant. He says, we were wrong to doubt the quarterback, to paint him as injury prone, to diminish him as a product of the system, to take digs at his fitness. Did you see the game winning touchdown
he threw against the Chargers on Sunday? A goal line fade to a wide receiver the size of your middle school basketball league's power forward. That is not a throw for a puppet quarterback. That's a one putt through a windmill on whole eighteen of the world's most ridiculous mini golf course. He did it with time winding down on the road, with one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL sitting on the opposite bench. Find the rest of
that story on SI dot com. It's called the Dolphins should silence all their doubters with Week one fireworks against the Chargers. How about Peter King's Football Morning in America for Week one? The Dolphins putting up thirty six points in five hundred and thirty six yards wasn't the most amazing thing about the day. But what impressed me so much was this week ones, usually an adjustment week, a stop start week after primetime players skipped the preseason and
have not played in hard in eight months. But this is one of the best games of Tua's career at any level ever. That was impressive. This game just felt so significant, even giving up so much ground to the Chargers in a thirty six thirty four win at Sofi Stadium, because tungue I Lowa has been such a lightning rod here, tungue I Lowell was not sacked, wasn't abused through for four hundred and sixty six yards and three touchdowns.
He was in command. You could just see it.
And he also wrote in that column that he asked McDaniel what he told to after the game. McDaniel said, I told him, this is going to be a fun season. Let's learn from our mistakes, Let's keep pressing forward.
You know. That's really it, just because he's in a good spot.
The best thing in the world for a guy like that is to take control over things in his life. That's that's all he's done since last off season. People were scoffing. This is I think this is McDaniel continued, Here people were scoffing at him about jiu jitsu. He understood the value of it and really really put a lot of time into that. He put time into his body. He knew exactly what he wanted. He's taken control. He's in a spot where he's not vulnerable to too much
success or having a big head. I'm telling you, this is the most mentally tough dude I've ever been around, and the most coachable. It's going to be fun to watch him play, to watch them play and see what they're able to do with this season. End quote, McDaniel was almost done. Adversity is an opportunity. It is our mantra.
That was a good day to prove that. End quote.
There.
So there you go.
Go check out Peter King, go check out Connor or that's my time here on the podcast. Who guys forgot about that? One has a fun breakdown to do. We're gonna come back tomorrow or Wednesday, I believe, sorry, and preview the Dolphins and Patriots on Sunday night. As we turn the page here, we're gonna have Jeff Darlington on the podcast later this week as well as so keep an eye out for that. I think Taylor Kyle's from Boston c CNS coverage is gonna join us to break
down the Patriots and Dolphins game as well. But in the meantime, you all please be sure to subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts.
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You can follow me on Twitter at link for NFL, follow the team at Miami Dolphins. Check out the fish Tank podcast with Seth and Juice, check out the YouTube channel for media availabilities, Dolphins a Day and so much more, and last but not least, Miami Dolphins dot com. Until next time, Finns up call and Cameron Daddy just come forward. Oh M