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A wide Dolphin touchdown time, Riquel uncolievable, just blue fire for a second time.
Don't know where he was going right away.
I want to hit that man.
I'm wanna help you.
Someone will keep on his man.
Away Wattle, Wadle to a shotgun, back to throw, looking at them up Myers touchdown. It's Waddle his sixth touchdown, Parados the team. 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 Drive Time podcast, part of the Miami Dolphins podcast Network, covering your team, your Miami Dolphins. How's it going to everybody? I am your host, Travis Wingfield, And on today's show, I have some additional thoughts upon reviewing the tape from Friday's game. A couple of times we'll talk about some performances that deserve some recognition and supplement them.
With some data.
Plus, there were thirty one players who did not play in the game on Friday, but most of them are back on the practice field.
Sunday.
We'll recap that as well as media from coach and some players from the Baptist Health Studios inside the Baptist healths Training Complex. This is the Draft Time podcast Maggie Geff. Before anything else, some transaction news. Wide receiver Freddie Swain and cornerback Mark Gilbert were waved injured and two players added in their place, wide receiver Kiki Kuti and defensive back Jamal Perry. I know you all know Jamal Perry.
He's been here with us in the past a couple of times, giving us some work both in the defensive backfield and on special teams and CUTI is a former Texas Tech Red Raider who can flat out go four four to three speed at his combine back in twenty eighteen. Was a fourth round pick of the Houston Texans and waved just a couple of days ago. Didn't quite put it all together there, but he has some electrifying speed and a guy that can do some return game work as well. So there you go, all right. I had
a chance to watch the tape. I watched the broadcast version and the All twenty two from Friday night, and I posted this to social but I think it bears repeating here once again, because yeah, the nineteen to three final gives you one idea of how the game went. And I've been guilty of this in the past before, like, oh, the Patriots lost twenty to six, they must have not played very well, but you should know better than that
this time of year, more than anything else. But nearly six and a half yards per rush for the entire game and a first half performance that carried that average. That showcased to me a lot of really good offensive line performance is like not even just okay.
Very very good.
What happened was the offense failed on three critical plays or series down in the red zone, and they were merely a matter of inches away from cashing all of those in. And we broke that down on the Saturday podcast. Thought White was late on the interception. I thought the ball was behind Braxton on the one fourth down drag route. Also, I miscategorized that was not mesh.
It was just a drag.
Sometimes you can't see that when you're watching it live and you say things incorrectly. That's why you have the Omissions and Review podcast. But that was a ball that was if it's out in front of him, it's an easy touchdown. It was just behind and allowed the dB
to get back into the play. And then the interior pressure on the right tackle, which I believe in this instance was Tonstall, and then also a cut block that a Chain could not quite execute off that edge led to a tip pass to an otherwise uncovered, wide open Tyler Croft for another fourth down in completion. But thirty one players not in the lineups we probably saw, give or take players.
I don't know, thirty two through sixty or so in that first half.
I mean, there's exceptions here and there, but you get the point. You're largely beyond starters and into your rotational contributors and guys that you hope are largely only in a backup capacity, like a Mike White, who hopefully we
never see Mike White this year. And I say that loving Mike White as a person and as a backup quarterback, but you don't want to see him, right because you want to to take every single snap unless we're blowing somebody out, which I think will happen a few times this year.
Maybe wants he Mike.
White in those games, but I digress. But I think he showed you exactly what he's capable of getting the team into right looks against favorable box counts, you know, runs and protection slides, because in the second half that wasn't the case. We had tilted lines, tilted rushes, tilted blitzes.
And we didn't slide.
We didn't you know, account for different types of protections in Skylar. He copped to that in his press conference after the game, saying there was a few pressure looks that got me, and he's right they did. But in that first half you had drive lengths of fifty three, seventy two, seventy five, and forty four yards. That's really good. That's really good execution getting the ball down the field. I think the most telling stat that you can chalk up to execution football was that White was one for
four with six yards when he was blitzed. Now, you don't have your standard call sheet in preseason. You're not game planning good on the Falcons for a generating heat with their blitz package. But when Mike was on rhythm and instructure, I thought he was decisive and accurate, which again is exactly what you want in a backup quarterback and how you get you know, drive links to accumulate accounts for seven, seven and five first downs on those
drive that's a great those are great drive links. Come out and execute the offense for your backup quarterback. That's the plan when your quarterback once not available. I thought Mike White did that except for those critical areas. But again, we get down on the red zone. Hopefully you've got Tyreek and Jalen and Raheem and everybody else that will be big time contributors. I mentioned Tyler Croft earlier to
me that game swung. No position was swung more to me than Croft versus Sober and the tight end rotation. Then the game on Friday, it was not a good night for Eric saber beating pass pro whifted in a couple of run blocks and had some some pass routes that didn't really offer a whole lot either. But I thought that Tyler Croft was good and we have proof of concept of him in this offense previously right Ransom twelve personnel type of stuff in San Francisco as well
to the Jets. I think that's what he's going to be here, is a twelve personnel tight end who's more than capable of collapsing the backside edge and split flow and leading up into some you know A and B gap runs when he pulls across and has some of those trap looks and some of those you know scam and find your second level linebacker and go make a
down block on that guy. I thought we saw lots of that on Friday from Croft and from this offense as well, with some more man scheme, some more gap scheme, which add that variety of flavor to the running game, and all of a sudden you can do a little bit of everything. But back to the offensive line. Let's read some stats here, because these tell the story. I put them on Twitter, so you probably already saw them.
But in the first half, the Dolphins ran the ball seventeen times for one hundred and twenty nine yards on the ground, Like that's phenomenal. That's an average of seven point five eight yards per rush on fifteen dropbacks.
They allowed three pressures.
That's a twenty percent pressure rate, only one hit in one sacks, So that's a one for fifteen.
I don't know the math on that.
Let's see, one for ten would be ten percent, one for twenty would be okay, I'm gonna stop. They were one for fifteen hits in sacks. I don't know the math, but that's a twenty percent pressure rate, and across the NFL it was thirty seven percent in Week one, not counting Sunday's games at that tape this podcast before the games on Sunday.
Go so over three in the red zone.
Obviously not good, but that was a case where a process should you know out results anytime a year, especially in the exhibition season, and as coach said, use the results as a teaching tool. Let's talk about the offensive line and break down the games a little bit here, because I was blown away by two players, and let's talk about the first running play of the game. When we had a guard combo of Isaiah Win and Rob Jones. You had Rob Jones wipe out the three technique and
take him like two gaps over. You had Isaiah Win wall off and seal and find someone else. When constantly was getting to the second level and finding multiple players, I loved him searching for work and almost playing like he had something to prove right like former first round pick didn't quite work out in New England. Looked like he had something to prove to me. They both anchored well in pass pro PFF gave Robert Jones the second best run blocking grade of the entire weekend NFL wide.
He also had twenty two pass blocking snaps without allowing a pressure when had fourteen pass blocking snaps and no pressure. We'll come back and talk about those guys here in a second. I can see why Austin Jackson can be hard for coaches to quit because of the physical talents and skill sets that he offers. Man, when he gets it right, it is, it's beautiful.
I think to this point of his.
Career, establishing that consistency is gonna be the next step for him, and it's why I wish we could have seen a full year of him last year because I think that was going to improve for him.
I think it could this year.
Hopefully, if it does, maybe you have something and you can get him back, you know, on a second contract that's affordable.
But that's down the road.
But I think that there's something to work with and hopefully good offensive line coaching and a good offensive staff can kind of cultivate that out of Austin. There was one rep in pass pro where I thought he clicked his heels and got off balance, which can be a little bit of his bugaboo, but other than that, really good technique in a clean game with zero pressures allowed on nine pass blocking snaps. Leam Mikenberg had no pressures on nine snaps as well. Keon Smith too. I thought
that was the best game of his preseason career. He had a really good block in space on the big Aszookama run and some edge denting runs in the run or blocks in the running game as well. I do really wonder if the best five could potentially be. This is going back to my Win in Jones argument. Could it be Armstead, Win, Williams, Jones and Hunt. Now we
have some time to sort that out. And I do get wanting to keep Rob at right guard because I think he's a pro Bowl level right guard and maybe not so much at right tackle.
But it's an interesting debate for sure.
And speaking of run blocking, we talked about his work with the ball in his hands, how about Azukama in the running game like that Trent Sherfield role the absolute master class of forecasting what this wide receiver room could be last year and knowing you needed a guy like Sherfield and Craycraft that knew the offense to come in and kind of help communicate the challenges of this complex offense.
But then to have the force, I had to say, I'll get Azukama in the system and get him taught and learned up on the system for year one and then come back and get a souped up version of Trent Sherfield, which is what I think you have right now in Azukama. Cam Smith can play. He can flat out play. That was evident over the last two weeks.
I don't know what else to say there. We broke him down on the Saturday podcast, but it's worth re mentioning Kedrian Smith is going to make someone have a tough decision to make in the dB room, a very deep dB room. He looked good at both corner and safety. Hopefully, if he doesn't make the fifty three, you can find a way to get on the practice quads. I think there's something there with Kedrian Smith. Garrett Nelson's the type
of player that I want, man. I think you could harness that effort he plays with for special teams work, and that's what I mean by that, just pure effort and willing his way into plays. And that's not to say he's not athletic he is, but he's just a good player who typically wants it more than the guy across from him. I think Channing Tendall's between the ears acumen's way closer to what he's capable of physically than what it was as a rookie. His key reading to
get himself in the right gap was very good. He undercut one play and undershot it and missed the tackle and overran one play for a miss as well. But you could see how he was upset about that by how he reacted after the fact, and I think that he'll get that dialed and just get better, and having those plays on tape will help him get there. I'm very impressed so far with Channing Tindall man the four high draft picks the last two years, A Chan and
Cam and then Ee and Tendall. Those if those guys all hit, you're talking about really balancing this roster with contributors on cheap rookie contracts with the top of the market guys ideal situation. If that happens. I thought it was a tough going for a few guys. Aubrey Miller, Alama Yu Lave the Center, Lester Cotton Randy Charlton Skyler obviously, and Eric Saubert will have a chance to bounce back this week. I thought the tape for them was not
as kind as those other guys. Some additional PFF numbers. Ogba had two pressures on seven reps. He gave Caleb McGarry the business man, and that's at Landt starting right tackle right there.
That's good to see.
Jalen Twinman had three pressures read and Ogba had two apiece, and then a handful of guys had one. Josiah Bronson had three run stops a good day. Nelson Tindall, Peelee and Reid All had two run stops. Kedrin Smith eighteen coverage snaps, was targeted three times, just one catch for three yards.
So that's some number. Some tape breakdown for you guys.
I come away from this game impressed by what we saw with the guys that will be playing come Sundays in September. Beyond that not so good second half was not that good, but there you go. Let's go ahead and take our first break right there and come back and recap Sunday's practice here from coach McDaniel.
Much much more.
That's next Draft Time podcast, your host Travis Wingfield, brought to you by Auto Nation. I think we would all agree the most important thing this time of year is health and keeping guys available for week number one. And with that, we got some really good news on the injury front from head coach Mike McDaniel. Let's go ahead and go to the headman for the Miami Dolphins and get updates on Camp Smith, Braxon Barrios, and Jalen Waddle.
Well, first of all, I thought that, you know, he's got his feet wet a NFL game, and he showed his teammates a couple couple things and he made some good plays.
As far as his injury, uh.
It, you know, we're fortunate that I don't think it's long term at all. There's with regard to his treatment and his body. You know, the time line is a little gray, but it's not long term at all. I would you know, next couple of weeks could be sooner than later.
That of course, Cam Smith, next Braxon Barrios.
Yeah, he got some stitches and the really the only thing that's impeding him playing football is the stitches healing. It's just like right right where the helmet lining is, so instead of having that guy that every time he plays football bleeds all over his face, we have to wait a couple of days to let that heal.
And then finally the penguin himself.
Rarely misses time.
He's so tough, so we're just trying to protect him against himself and being conservative with it as far as uh, you know, like I said before, I'm not concerned he's doing he's doing well, but in terms of the timetable of it, you know, he's already moving around and doing doing exactly where what he should be doing. So when it exactly it is, hey, I don't really know, but I'm very happy where he's at.
So pretty good news all around there. Also want to go ahead and supplement some of the first segment breakdown with some more stuff here from head coach Mike McDaniel, And let's go ahead and start here with this takeaway from offensive lineman Austin Jackson and his performance on Friday night.
It was what I'd hoped for in terms of.
It's It's funny I saw in the hallway yesterday, Yester was that after the game yesterday, I can't remember, and the first thing I told him was like, dude, I was so fired up for that for an m A and I meant it. And the reason why is because you know, I try to we really collectively as a coaching staff, try to go along the journey with the player.
And this dude has gone all in.
And what happens when you go all in and you're putting your best foot forward, you tend to care a lot. So, you know, one of the functions of him playing, which were several, was that you get that feeling of competitive tackle football and what happens when something doesn't go right. And what was awesome is he kept his technique. He ended up responding immediately and had some really good it was on a run play and had some really good pass protection and then run blocks.
That that's what.
You're looking for to make purpose of you know, these these exhibition games, you're trying to figure out who's who gets what job, and then you're trying to have people develop within the preseason so they're the best selves in the regular season. And that was a hurdle that I knew was coming, and he didn't wait much time and then responded, you know it as good as one can in the game of football, which was my primary concern since he hadn't played in a minute.
So, as you can tell, as we go along here on this podcast, not going to really intertwine the media availability from coach here with today's work because there just isn't a ton of crossover there with so many questions being day after game or rather I guess day after tape rewatch type of questions, which I like the most from coach. I like the instant reactions after the game, but I like when he has a chance to digest the tape and give us the breakdowns from there. But
I found some stuff really interesting here. Let's do two of these back to back, and beginning here with him discussing the competition at left guard. I think that this obviously gives us some insight into that, but also really speaks to how McDaniel has his finger on the pulse of his football team.
You know, good litmus test is the locker room, and I pay attention a lot to what peers feel think, maybe say, maybe don't say, their energy.
And I feel like when.
When the locker room, I'll feel it from the locker room, I'll feel it from his teammates. Whoever that guy is will show his face, and it's not really up to my timeline. I'd like it to be sooner than later. But like, that's why you have to give guys opportunities to win the job on the field. And it's not necessarily a negative that there's a a rotation.
Listen, like.
Liam's playing as good at football as he's played like he's he's had his bumps, Sin's got better from them in this camp.
But there's other good players and so.
Those things have to be settled on the field, I believe, and those opportunities will continue, and then I'll know, you know, when the team knows, and I'll be able to feel it by not just how that person plays, but how his teammates play around him. You know, it's a you
know how it is. It's a collective group where you have to communicate and you have to players can make each other better, they can make each other worse, and we're looking for a guy that plays his best but makes other people better as well.
And then I also think this answer about Kendall Lamb being down on Friday night with the list of players who did not suit up, I think this one speaks to Kendall's camp. So far and how he's performed, but also to how the thinking behind some of the workloads this time of year goes. You're going to hear this over and over again this year, like you did last year with coach McDaniel, case by case. He takes every situation individually and assesses it accordingly. Here he is talking
about Kendall Lamb. I just really love this answer from coach about why Kendall lam did not play on Friday.
Night, Especially when you have.
When you're fortunate enough to have a good amount of NFL players on your on your team, more than a roster can keep you. You're assessing, Okay, what is this game going to do? And who else needs opportunities? And you know, I've loved the way Kendall has approached his job here.
I feel very comfortable with what you know.
Consistency allows people to forecast, you know what it would look like, and you know the guys need opportunities to try to win jobs, and so you try to spread those out over three games, and you know there's so there's multitude of reasons, but it's all in the interest of creating fair, balanced competition where football can be the deciding factor. No I think it's monumental. Is my favorite
part of preseason. I enjoy the that whole aspect, and I thought I saw that with them both specifically and and a lot of guys.
On both sides of the ball.
That's where my excitement and from a game that you lose by sixteen points, it is because they're I'm looking not at maybe there's one or two players that are off which very much dictates the result, but what about the other nine on the field. And there was a lot of guys that were exhibiting just what you're talking about, really across across the on both sides of the ball, offense and defense, and then special teams. There was some guys that are are new to positions that did some
really cool stuff too. So that's that's what I gained from preseason. The second that two thousand and eight happened, I cared a lot less about preseason games.
What happened two thousand and eight.
Detroit lines at four and oh and then you go on and sucteen and you're like, Okay, well there's correlation. I mean, I don't see the corel it, so uh and vice versa happens every year.
And uh, so.
I think the biggest thing is is that guys continue to get better and learn to learn to worry about the right stuff.
And those two have.
And of course a little bit closer to home comparison, they're the seven Dolphins who went one in fifteen earned more victories in the preseason going too and two that year. And I recall funny story for you guys. I used to obviously DVR those games, and that was back before you got them live on like NFL Plus or before NFL Network, you know, aired pretty much every game live or close to it, and you would have to wait until,
you know, four o'clock in the morning. The next day, you'd find your Dolphins and Falcons rerun, and there would be two or three times without the course the next week and you have to find it on there. And I would DVR those additions and come back and want them. And one time the game was going to air at like one o'clock in the morning, and being the cycle that I was, I was gonna stay up all night and watch it live when it reair, not live, but
the reirs live version of it. And my buddy and I went to a breakfast spot that would go to on late nights, you know, after a night out on the town, and this server there was a Dolphins fan, and I was probably wearing Dolphins gear, not very uncommon for me in those days or these days, and he was talking about how excited he was they are undefeated in the preseason. And my one friend who lived to troll all of my loves like a best friend does,
with the Dolphins being the primary one. In fact, he was the guy that was there and just reveled in the stunned look on my face when Brady Quinn's name was not called and instead Ted nit Gin's name was called on Draft Day that same year, ironically, but the server came out and said like, I'm so excited they're undefeated, and my buddy Josh just lit up. He was like, I'm so happy that you got the game spoiled for you.
I'm so happy to see your misery. And I was like, I guarant to you that guy does not know what the score of tonight's game was.
He's a casual. I promise you, Josh, I promise he does not know.
Sure enough, the Dolphins lost that game that night, and so I was able to maintain the secret and watch that game without getting spoilers, which is funny to think about because that's what sixteen years ago.
That doesn't happen these days. But that's my quick aside.
And so let's go ahead and hear from Connor Williams here next we you know, we saw the run game get cooking in the game on Friday Night and really get their hooks into the defense of the Falcons. I want to go ahead and hear from Connor Williams here and how he assesses where the Dolphins run game is right now, especially in year two underhead coach Mike McDaniel.
Yeah, I think I think it's just establishing identity. I mean, obviously every team's got a different run game, in a different style of running, and come in here my first year, I mean it was it's a completely different world of just run game, and so just being able to get in it and understanding where the ball is going to cut, understand what you want from a schematic standpoint, and just from I mean just from your stance and from your weight and from where how you want to run off
the ball and everything. And so I think I think we're improving, and I'm excited about this year.
Let's go ahead and get the assessment of a guy who did play in the game on Friday night, one of my favorite performances of the entire offensive line team in general, Rob Jones. Let's go ahead and first ask them about coming back into the same system. Similar question about how much more comfortable comfortable you feel and how the impacts of having that familiarity make for a tangible result come game day or really any time on the football field.
Oh just made me help me be confident, you know, just really knowing what I'm doing, you know, going out there and not have to guess like what we're doing a certain plays and everything, and really just not having to hear center speak and just having confidence with myself and what I can do.
I wanted to play that sound bite for you guys because I found it very interesting. One thing he said there about not having to hear the center speak, and to me, that second nature the understanding of how to you know, come off in certain call, certain looks, different protection slides, different running schemes, and not having depend upon
hearing it, especially in road environments. For a team that struggl last year with operations so much, that seems like a big big uppportunity to get better in that regard this year. Let's go ahead and go back and hear from him on how Connor Williams helps this offensive line get aligned with all those calls in the middle of the middle of the offense.
Oh yeah, you know, centators, I got to talk in generally, you know, everything we do comes out the center. And you know, when us going into our second year in his offense, a lot of all of us who were here last year, we know exactly what we're doing. So it's just that you know, confidence at all of us on the same page. And you know Connor's going to speak regardless because he sees it from a different you know.
I And then real quick here on Rob.
I've mentioned before that we get a close up look on the offensive line during the indoor portion of practices, and I was just watching the guys on the bag and Rob's technique and fundamentals really stand out to me, Like his his hands and feet work in unison, and he does a good job of getting his base under him before he punches, which creates a very strong punch and obviously helps you stay on balance and allows you to redirect if they swipe or put your hands down
or your punch initially does not land at the right target point. I just think that he's really taken to the style of offensive line play they want to run here, which we've obviously heard a ton about firing off the football and playing fast and how guys kind of like it here. He's quickly near the top of my list on the much must watch list at this point the rest of the month, because I think he's a chance to carve out some playing time and carve out a
big role on this offense. Let's go ahead and take our last break right there and come back on the other side and do the practice notes and hear from Chang Tyndall and Eric Azuokama. That's Next Draft Time podcast, your host Travis Wingfield, brought to you by aunt Nation.
And then we had a football practice, which again was in the indoor facility, always a fun chance to see the game from a little bit different perspective behind the goalpost, a post to the sidelines, and just helmets today not fully padded, and all of the work pretty much exclusively or it was all of Tua's reps as far as
the quarterback position goes. We did see some alternate lineups though, and even seeing two of play behind like the offensive line number three, which is interesting because the pass protection in those instances, as you can imagine against Chubb and
Phillips and Seiler and those guys not great. But we heard coach address the thing behind adding a practice to get those guys some work after a few day layoff without on field work and something I'm kind of tracking here as you know, a big tu a believer, and it's not out of like fam boying. I think, I just think he's a good football player. But something I've kind of noticed is like there's a trend of layoffs
and downtime. You know, week ones have not been good for Tua off the bye weeks have not been the sharpest performances I think for Tua last year of the Pittsburgh game after the injury, not his best showing imaginable. So I'm wondering how they can kind of foster, you know, more game like situations to get rid of that rust, because he snaps out of it within a game or two most times.
You know.
Obviously, game two back last year was Detroit. Game two after the start of the season was Baltimore, so you kind of get the sense there that it does click after a short amount of time, but how do we get that up even quicker and not have those two three or four quarters. That's kind of slow start to that way. But anyway, I was really enjoying the red zone portion, both on air and at seven on seven
also in team period. It seems very intentional They worked on red zone after that was the big failure on Friday, and coach talked about, you know, using the results of the game to you know, teach teach moments or teaching moments within those moments, and I thought it was very crisp.
I thought the route concepts were awesome.
Not going to talk about that, but man, I really thought that it was just sharp in that portion of practice. And one thing I noticed more than a season ago is the times that Tua has to tuck the ball and live to fight another day and extend or just straight up eat the rock and move on to the
next play. And that's really where my notes start today, because between you know, more eyes in the quarterback from the defense and those zone looks and you know, kind of just reading what the offense wants to do and reacting a post to playing straight up man coverage and between what I think is a much upgraded roster both in the front and back, which obviously helps coverage, you know,
rush and coverage. You know, last year, there were a lot of explosives in practice, Like every day there was these one on one situations where someone had to cover Tyreek or Jalen or even Azukama or Sherfield or whoever it was. And Tua was attacking those vertical shots and cashing in on them repeatedly, which is good for the offense, but I think it's had a lot more about the defense last year. Right, We know the offense can do that, but the defense couldn't really stop it most of the year.
But I really noticed today with that vantage point of behind the defense, how coordinated it is and really seems to be coming together and getting better as we go along. In camp, the entire red zone period was great work for the offense because it was either dead plays like the ones I mentioned, or it was touchdowns. There was like no in between, no like you know, I guess balls that were dropped or you know, balls that were blown coverages. It was either tightly contested or a touchdown.
And the touchdowns were tightly contested as well. You probably saw the Tyreek Hill and Cedric Wilson touchdowns on Twitter from a team account already.
That's what it was all day.
Those very tight coverage, tight window throws it to a put on the money, and that's how they had to get it. They got one to Choseen working on a second move against tight coverage to a jam, went into River craycraft on like a double INDs like double slant from the backside where he was the secondary man, secondary window, and he jammed that thing in there between two defenders. Two was finding the backs and tight ends for tons
of work there. I had Jeff Wilson, Savon Auchman and Devon a chain, all with touchdown catches again off the hand of two, but only to it today. A Chang's was another fun reminder of just how fast he is and how much faster he is than everybody.
Else on the football field.
And obviously he's going to you know, beat any defensive lineman slash edge. But he made Jalen Phillips look like slow. And I don't want to say slow, because he's not slow, we know that. But when he's chasing Devon a change there's a big difference there. He got he caught one out in the flat and just raced around the edge of the pylon for six right around fifteen, again no pad, so I was sticking mostly the routes and coverage and quarterback play today looks to me like Tyreek is in
mid season form. I know some folks were like, for some reason worried about that a couple weeks ago. But he is open all the time. He's playing a lot, catching a lot of passes. And that extended into a situational period where two it had a bunch of completions to set them up in field goal range at the end of the game. In half they would reset it and bring it back to the starting point every time, and he got them into field goal range three consecutive times.
Tyreek Wilson and Craykraft against that off coverage defense kind of protecting against the hell mary protecting against you know, field goal range, whatever you might call it. Probably my favorite part was the creativity in this practice of the screen game and the yard they got from that. Very
impressive work in that area. Also, I think it was another day we talked about from early in camp where they were kind of working on the perimeter stuff to kind of react to how the Chargers played them a year ago, and you know, funnel things away from the inside part of the field and get the ball to the vacant seeds where the teams want to clamp with that inside leverage. I thought there was some good execution
in that regard, but then the tide completely flipped. Twa missed a few throws that you just don't see him miss very often, and again the defense made their plays and they had a chance to make them as well.
Like Noah Igbinoghni's pick was.
A ball to the perimeter that was on the back shoulder and Igbo Drove made a great play, but it was mislocated. You know, easy pick six there, not easy pick six, but it was the quarterback made it a possibility.
I wanted to shoehorn the throw to Julian Hill down the scene that I saw in here real quick, because Tua had an absolute seed with really good anticipation where he moved the safety out to the corner to follow a corner route and then pumped it right back into the seam down the middle to Hill for a what would have been like a fifty yard touchdown if he broke one tackle at very at least thirty yards all in the air catch down the middle of the football field.
Then a couple more.
Iont the picked by Javon Hall and was really good anticipation by the snowman had a great angle behind it as he tried to layer a deep over route to Tyreek coming across the field, but halland broke on it before the balls even in the air and cut it
off for the pick. And the third one was a ball that looked like there was some confusion with Cedric Wilson and Savon Achmed in what looked like a like seven you know, seven flat corner route flat route to the pylon, and they were both in the same area and it got deflected off Wilson's hand reaching back behind him right to Deshaun Elliott.
So I think there was some miscommunication there.
Truthfully, low that the play that I thought looked like the least like to was this off platform thrower. He just flat out missed the receiver. Those four throws will Shroud was otherwise a pretty crisp practice, but also, you know, four misses when three of them are picked, that's something to gloss over. But it's also like, hey, the defense looked pretty good as well. So it's always difficult in
training camp. But I thought the two had a down day, but you're going to read about how bad it was, Like, yeah, those four players were bad, but there was a lot of good players in there as well. I think this defense might be pretty good.
Man.
We'll find out come regular season. That's my takeaway from the last week plus is that we you know, we haven't seen anybody Dolphins or Falcons do much on this defense really since that scrimmage, and so it's been impressive to watch them some quick hitters. To finish up here, Channing Tendall had a really nice pass breakup where he maintained depth on a play and got his hand in the passing lane. We asked him after practice, how's this game slowing down for you now? And you're number two?
Here's the Miami linebacker.
Well, just from last year, we have a new defensive coordinator, so it's just kind of like it's completely different this year. But one thing I did take from the game is just like I'm getting a better I feel like I'm getting a full understanding of what exactly I'm supposed to do like on the field from a playbook standpoint. And then just a little anticipation is there as well, I just need to work more. There's a little bit of anticipation,
but I know it can be faster. So those two things I took from the game.
I like his game, man like the way he talks about his game too.
And then Eric Azoo comment had another fantastic practice, caught a ton of balls and has just a little more burstless year out of his breaks. He talks about how he feels faster in that way. But I also wanted to ask him, how do you kind of look at the way this offense can create space with Wattle and Hill and do you get pretty excited thinking about the opportunities you might have in the offense?
Definitely, I'm really excited to get on the field with Tyre and Jalen, knowing that most defenses are gonna try to stop them and probably not worried about me too much, and kind of just being under the radar, being underdog kind of gives me a little boost of confidence. Knowing that you know what my numbers called. I'll be able to showcase my ability, probably just one on one you know, knowing that I have to be one person with them trying the double team Tiger.
Jalen, let's go ahead and close it out right here. Jalen Phillips was an absolute menace. He was in there frequently and beating around that right edge, which when they had Austin Jackson not in the lineup, it was a long day for that offensive line for the Stars in general, but Phillips in general really got everybody, but mostly the number twos and threes were pretty easy pickings. And then ray Kwon Davis was also back there a lot. He's had a very nice camp so far. That's all I
got for you guys today. I know the practice notes were short, but lots of breakdowns on the game I thought I thought were good, and you guys can tell me if your thought so or not. I thought they were. That's all I got today. Let's go ahead and get out of here. Another show tomorrow covering practice on Monday.
Then it's wheels up to Houston. So here's the programming for the week show Monday, No show on Tuesday, it's travel Day, joint practice coverage from Houston Wednesday and Thursday, and then Steve Goldstein will joined me for the Friday show, and then I believe the game recap pod'll be out early Saturday.
No check that Sunday morning.
After the Saturday four o'clock kickoff here local time three o'clock out in Houston. There's always the training camp notebooks up on Miami Dolphins dot com. Until next time. That's gonna be my time. You all, please be sure to subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcast, Leave us a rating, leave us a review. You can follow me on Twitter at Wenkfold NFL. Follow the team at Miami Dolphins. Check
out the fish Tank podcast with Seth and Jews. Check out our postgame show on one oh five nine I believe it is the FM station also on iHeartRadio on the app there. You can also check out the YouTube channel for me Availabilities and Dolphins Today, and last but not least, Miami Dolphins dot com. Until next time, Finn Up, Caroline Cameron Daddy Music covering up
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