Drive Time: Anthony Weaver Hired as Dolphins Defensive Coordinator

your Miami Dolphins. We're going to do a comprehensive look at his career, where he's been, what he's done, the impact of his hire, his aligned vision with Coach McDaniel. We'll get testimonials and a whole heck of a lot more from the Baptist Health Studios inside the Baptist Health Training Complex.

both team building and sustained excellence. Through conversations with him and those who have worked with him, it became clear that we have aligned values in football philosophies and coaching

end quote. So I want to make sure that I'm not just spewing blind positivity and just telling you this is a great hire for reasons X, Y, and Z, and that this will make everything right in the world and the Dolphins once again here in February, we can champion them as real title contenders because of the moves they make. Right, That's what we kind of buy into

whenever you make a move of any sort. And my coverage has always been that way, even before the team, that I try to identify what I think could work, what I think will work with people, coaches or players, and attack it accordingly and bring up and address the potential negatives without harping on them too much, because I think that's the best way to do this, because you're all fans of a team that you have no control over, and why would you volunteer your emotions to something in

a way that you're going to constantly dredge up negativity.

to both team building and sustained excellence. And it's time for me to die a tribe off of that a little bit because I was referred back to Stephen Ross's end of twenty eighteen press conference when the whole organizational structure, the whole approach and mission statement in philosophy of the Miami Dolphins kind of got flipped on its head, right.

the man like the Grand Pooba. And at that press conference, Ross referred to the idea of sustained success mission statement of the undertaking of a rebuild heading into a miserable Bowl twenty nineteen season where we had all kinds of big money contracts tied up into bad players who were on the wrong side of thirty and we're no longer performing anywhere near the level of the compensation they were paid, were they ever? Like Keiko's contract, like TJ's contract, like Andrea Branch's contract.

the future. You get your high draftick by losing a bunch of games, and then you go after in your number two. And since then, only four teams have more wins over the last four seasons than your Miami Dolphins. And now we have not enjoyed the playoff success we would all love to have had over that time, not

even close, not even one. But I think that there should be some appreciation for the fact that this team has played made one game in the last four seasons that was meaningless, right in terms of playoff viability Week eighteen versus the Patriots in twenty twenty one is the only team this game, only game this team whoops has played since the pandemic season that didn't count.

that have had that. Seven teams can can say they've played zero or one meaningless games over the last four years. So there has been sustained success, even if the tip of that success has not been reached yet yet. But I think that's where you start. That's the mission statement, and then from there you have variables good and bad bounces, and then of course the ability to overcome the next obstacles.

For us, the bad bounces outweighed the good. Neither of our top two quarterbacks available for the playoff game last year, and a defense full of brand new players and an offense that were struggle together by duck tape and bubble gum in the playoffs this year, on top of bad

performances from a couple of your key players. But by consistently putting yourself in contention, that's the only way you're going to ever potentially break through, right Because We've seen a lot of most of the greats struggle to break through more than once or twice. I think about the Farv led Packers all the time, the Manning led Colts, the Breeze led Saints teams that combined for thirty two

playoff appearances. With those teams and just three rings combined, the Saints had Breeze for fifteen years, and they made the playoffs nine times, won a single championship, the only one they went to a nine and nine mark in the postseason. The Colts had Peyton Manning for thirteen years, made the playoffs eleven times and one one championship, went to another one lost that one to Drew Brees's Saints. They were nine to ten in the playoffs.

both as number one seeds. Food for thought there about Manning's playoff success and his perception as an all time great for the Packers, they had far for sixteen years, made the playoffs twelve times, won a single championship, the only one they went to a twelve to ten mark

in the postseason. For him and the Packers, this is a roundabout way to describe how difficult it is to not just win championships, but how hard it is to win once you get into the postseason, and it shows you how alien like Mahomes is and Brady was right.

a push into the postseason. But like for us, we thought we had a championship caliber team this year until things got kind of wonky.

previous three quarterbacks. If the Dolphins do that, if they win one championship in the next twelve years under Tua and McDaniel, you're gonna look back in this era as the most successful as franchises has had besides a blip on the Raidar on the seventies. Right, And to tie

it back to this idea of player development and consistent contention. Well, that's what coach Weaver had to say about his time in Baltimore and why I put together this entire nearly ten minute die trib right here about his time in an organization that shares the exact same philosophical approach that we hold.

philosophy about sustained success and how you create that. Here's the new Dolphins DC on just that again. Turn the speakers up and they'll go back down after his audio ends.

incredibly clear once I got back within those walls. There's always been some alignment issues in some of these other organizations, and that's why they have the ups and downs and fluctuations through time, because in a lot of ways, you have too many like chefs in the kitchen that all have different ideas. When you get to Baltimore, because essentially the hierarchy and has been there for a very long time,

they have a very shared vision and shared belief system. Right, they know exactly what they're looking for in players, they know exactly the type of coach that they want to identify and bring him to help develop those guys, and then they know exactly how to acquire them without essentially putting you in cap purgatory. And once you see that alignment, that is what I realized is like, oh, okay, Like

this is how you do it. You find a bunch of people that ultimately care about service and want to want the best for the team and their guys, and then have a shared approach on how to get there and then stick to it. Yeah, are you gonna adapt and adjust and evolve a long way?

year after year after year. And I think ultimately, whether you're a coach or in any organization, that is what you're chasing, right, the opportunity year in year out to not only be relevant but to give yourself a.

whole agenda about non negotiables for Cam Smith and Channing Tyndall. Like, that's not a collaborative, you know, open door type of philosophy that the head coach has. So if your DC

doesn't have that, it's conflicting messages. That's why I like the idea of getting a guy that sees the game the way you do, and it sees the modern approach for athletes the way that you do, because we're going to hear some testimonials here on the third segment, and I just don't think that old school way of doing it works anymore, and we have guys that can tell

you proof of that. Let's go back to twenty twenty when with the Houston Texans coach Weaver again more talk here about his philosophy as a football coach.

what we're at. Run four. We got to do better, but there's twelve games left to play, and these players in our staff, we're gonna do everything in our power to try.

people down because you want to. You want to make the team one dimensional and know that you're not going to come here and push us around and try to bully us. Where the bullies you better put the ball in the year.

conference and just hear him talk some football. I'm betting I'll get more words from him when I see him in the hallway than the four wards I got from coach Fangio over the eleven months that he was here, over the twenty five passings in the hallway, the courtesy of the sub coach and just a grumble back to me. I look forward to getting actual human responses from that. Let's go ahead and take our first break right there.

Come back on the other side, explore coaches history, the schemes I think he might institute here in Miami, personnel usages, all of that, and a heck of a lot more. Draft Time podcast your host Travis Wingfield, brought to you by Auto Nation. Dolphins hire a defensive coordinator, Anthony Weaver, formerly of the Ravens, Houston Texans and a few other clubs as well. I want to go ahead and break this portion here as we take a look at these schemes and systems and I ideas of what it might

look like here under Anthony Weaver in Miami. Let's go ahead and start with a broad introduction into coach's career. Who developed six Pro Bowl players serving as their particular position coaches with said teams. So in Buffalo in twenty thirteen, Mario Williams, Kyle Williams, and Marcel Darius all those guys had it happen under the tutelage of Anthony Weaver and Darius might recall was a bit of a miss early on in his career and developed beyond that into the

stud that he was supposed to be. Kyle Williams was always awesome, and then Mario Williams kind of had a little bit of an up and down time, but he played some of his best ball there in Buffalo as well.

And then he goes to Houston, where Mario came from, and has Jadevian Clowney go to three consecutive Pro Bowl sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen, and JJ Watt in twenty eighteen as well, and most recently justin Matdoweke in Baltimore this past season at Mattawik was a third round draft pick who started off kind of slow, but really developed him to the player that he has become with Anthony Weaver as his

position coach. And so I look at him, I look at Javian Clowney's evolution as a player, and it is certainly an interesting study because the ultimate feather in the cap of Weaver, I think is Clowney, who came into the league with more expectations than almost anybody at that position.

Ever had, and it didn't start off that way for him, But then he gets under coach Weaver and gets back to back Pro Bowl years, and then Weaver leaves and then Clowney joins him years after that after a couple of down seasons and ties his career high this past year in Baltimore under Anthony Weaver with nine and a half sacks. In fact, the three years with Weaver nine

and a half, nine and nine and a half. He did have nine sacks with the Browns in twenty twenty one, but the next highest total was six, and besides that four and a half. So Weaver always means more sacks for Clowney. Why, what's what's the reason that happened? Right? Like? And I swear I just accidentally stumbled upon this. Maybe I should even admit this and just say it was all playing for the theme of the show, and that theme being that Weaver is a natural piece that slots in perfectly.

check this out from Baltimore beatdown dot com. The difference in Jadevian Clowney in other places is that he's developed his skill move but also add inim he has the complimentary pieces around him that he's not Jadevian Kline, the first round pick, the number one guy.

the widespread production. So Weaver did a good job. It sounds like of cultivating the team mindset that we have here, is what I'm trying to say, especially in that defensive line room with coach Austin Clark, who just loves his guys to death, and they reciprocate that by working their

butts off for him. Now, we've spent the past three seasons or twenty one through twenty three with the Ravens where he served one year as the run game coordinator defensive line coach and two years as an assistant head coach slash defensive line, but was still doing run game coordinations. So in twenty twenty three, the Ravens led the NFL

in scoring defense. They went thirteen to four, they were in the top seed in the AFC playoffs, and Weavers three years they allowed ninety five point three rushing yards per game. That ranks third in the NFL over that span, and their four point h six yards per carry was fourth during that span. So run defense, he kind of brings that with him most of the places that he goes. I love the idea that we now have one of

the game's most innovative run game designers on offense. Like just watch other teams, only us in the Niners have more creative, exotic wrinkles off the original original type of run you might act, run action you might see, and it changes every damn week. Like it's fun to watch practice because they're drills on air. Just the quarterback exchange with the running back. It changes like every single week.

Non defense, Weaver is pretty well known for a tough nose defense that does not give an inch against the run, so prior to his time in Baltimore. Weaver served as defensive coordator for the Houston Texans in twenty twenty, after spending four years as the team's d line coach. During his five seasons, They're the team won the AFC South title three times, and his defensive line produced four Pro Bowls,

a three from Clowney and the one from Watt. In twenty sixteen, the Texans produced the NFL's top ranked defense for the first time in franchise history. Weaver also spent time as the defensive line coach in Cleveland and Buffalo. That was thirteen for Buffalo, fourteen and fifteen for Cleveland, and was the assistant d line coach for the Jets in twenty twelve. He had the three pro bars in

twenty thirteen. He also began his coaching career as a graduate assistant at f Florida in twenty ten, before linebackers at North Texas in twenty eleven. As a player, he appeared in one hundred and three games with ninety eight starts for Baltimore two to five, his entire rookie contract there and then Houston six to eight. He told two hundred and sixty tackles fifteen and a half sacks in a seven year career, and he picked off three passes,

forced five fumbles, and had five recoveries. He was a second round draft pick by the Ravens after an All American career at Notre Dame. That's who he is, where he came from. So another day in Baltimore. Man like toughness, that's what I think of those two teams. Let's go ahead and narrow our focus here about his scheme to really two ideas here. Number one, the DC work in Houston, and then two the last few years in Baltimore. So back in twenty twenty, the Texans defense they were terrible.

I mean, even looking at the end of year roster compared to the opening day roster, all the guys I'm about to mention have eventually wound up on ir and quite frankly, that's the only way you ever get these bottom out seasons when you have like good players, like a good quarterback or a good offense like the Texans had Deshaun Watson all of twenty twenty before he became what we now know of Deshaun Watson, right.

They were fresh off the tunnel trade and all in type of approach that we saw them have to pay up that tab on and endure three seasons of ten wins combined over the following three years and as a result of a half baked all in surge that really went belly up just a few weeks into the second year of it. A team that had Watson, DeAndre Hopkins, Brandon Cooks, Will Fuller, Randall Cobb, Kenny Stills, the aforementioned Tunzel,

they traded assets for a declining David Johnson. What I'm telling you is they put all their eggs in the offensive basket. In fact, here are the top snap takers on that Texans defense. The first round pick in JJ Watt was the snap leader, but he was thirty one

years old. A former first round pick who got cut by his first team, Vernon Hargraves, got signed and started for the Houston Texans, a second round pick in Zach Cunningham, who I've always thought was pretty limited as a linebacker, a fourth round pick in Eric Murray, a third round pick in Justin Reid, who was the best player on that defense and is kind of the one that sticks out of this entire group, a UDFA and twenty sixteen turned journeyman linebacker Tyrell Williams, a second round pick in

twenty nineteen who had been on three teams in three years, and Lonnie Johnson. Thirty year old Whitney Merciless was also the next snap taker on that team. So eight players I just listened to you that basically were either at the end of their career or just never played good ball in their career. And it showed twenty seventh in points, thirtieth and total defense, last in takeaways, and last in yards per carry allowed.

and Dean Pas and Wink Martindale. He played on Ryan's line for three years and then his last year in Baltimore was Rex's first year as DC, so Rex said, hey, get over here, I need you after your great playing career. Mike Petton was on the staff for the entirety of his playing career and would move on to the Jets where coach Weaver arrived there under Rex. And that was in twenty twelve, after two years in college at Florida and North Texas. So first year in the NFL with

two coaches he played under and Ryan and Pettin. Then a one year stop in Buffalo with Mike Petton again before following him to Cleveland, and Doug Marome was the head coach of Buffalo, someone he had not worked with yet.

It makes me think that Peton probably had some good words say about coach Weaver and Maron said, okay, you can bring him in, because again he followed Petton to Cleveland, where he took the head coaching job in twenty fourteen, and then Pettin was fired after the twenty fifteen season and Weaver headed to Houston under Romeo Crenell in twenty sixteen. Then Cronell gets promoted to assistant head coach and they

bring in Mike Rabel to coach the defense. Rabel had been coaching linebackers before getting the promotion there to DC, and that lasted just one year before he took the head coaching job over in Tennessee. Then Romeo goes back to DC for two years defensive coordinator before reverting back to associate head coach and ultimately becomes their interim head coach.

And that's where Weaver earns the DC job. I mean it was when Bill O'Brien got fired in like the first was the week five of that year, So it was toxic in Houston at that point, right, And that was when they had the chaplain who was like running things and doing this weird like Christian retreat routine that was like for twelve year olds. But just think about all those guys. The common themes across the defense that you can conjure out just from memory. A lot of

odd fronts odd means odd number of players. Typically it's a three to four, but you can get different looks from that as well. Lots of stunts and games, twists the things that we've run very successfully here for a long time now, and a heavy heavy blitz count that's kind of the jumping off point. But again, coaches don't just copy and paste their systems from what they know and they adapt them. They put their own twist on it.

They adjusted for personnel, right. But what I really noticed about these connections is that there's also connections to guys on our current staff. A lot of the stuff is rooted in early Patriots lingo, you know, pre twenty tens, which is shades of the systems the guys that we have here, at least for now.

same route, and who knows what it will be. But for coach Austin Clark, for coach Anthony Campanelli, they cut their teeth under Flores and Boyer, which is the most direct line to some of those Patriots Tree concepts, right, So you feel like they should be up to speed quickly on a lot of that if they are the ones that are in these positions and two of the star coaches in the organization to boot in those in those guys Clark and Campanelli, that have been through multiple

coaching staffs, and I think that speaks to their performance and their competence. Let's go ahead and look at those systems though, starting with what was most important what coach himself and Houston that one year they had thirty six percent rate blitzing, which ranked seventh.

about Kyle Hamilton. We talk about analogs in that defense versus this defense, and if we have that analog on the roster, Oh yeah, we have a guy named Javon Holland, who I don't think he's really that close to what Kyle Hamilton was this year, but He's in that echelon of top safety is in the National Football League. His best traits is versatility, and if you know those Ravens playoff games, Hamilton's the straw that stirs that drink man. They funnel things to him in coverage, in space as

a tackler. They utilize his knowledge, his anticipation, and overall skills to put him in position to come downhill and make plays. I tend to think that's where it starts. So Javon Hall I think benefits big time from that. I think Zach Steeler has a lot of the Mattabueke and side type of physicality that he won with peer

brute force. I think the next analog you look for are the edge rushers, and Clowney matches up with Phillips's play style quite a lot power, some speed, a good rush Arsenal Bradley Chubb kind of has some of the odafe O way off the other perimeter edge or off the other edge, I should say, with his skill set. But I think the position you kind of look at in terms of what do we have what do they have is the middle linebacker spot. I like David Long's gam a whole lot but I don't think he's as

big or as physical as either Smith or Queen. But that's an risking analog to find there. But I think in general you do have lots of those. I think where you need to find a new one is probably the slot position, whether it's Caters reverting back to his rookie year performance or a new player. In general, I think Ramsey is better than anything the Ravens had at the quarterback position. But it kind of fits that physical mentality to get up, press, up, play in their face,

disrupt timing, disrupt routes. I think you'll see that with lots of blitzing to really make quarterbacks have to be quick, make them have to elude and escape, and then hopefully the rush plan is as good as the Ravens have had it for so long, because.

Ravens fifty six points, or the Bills. You know, if it wasn't for four red zone turnovers or pointless drives in the red zone, probably scored forty points in that game. So Dolphins defense, I thought was kind of propped up a little bit this year on some you know, feasting on bad quarterbacks, on the Daniel Joneses of the world, on these Tim Boyles of the world, and Zach Wilson's in the Sam Howels of the world.

Football League. If you don't tackle in this system, or what I think will be the system, you're going to be really bad. And that's kind of the case for most systems, right, that's a recipe for like execution, A coach can can rep it throughout the week or the year, but if you don't execute tackling in the game, like nothing else really matters. So that twenty twenty Houston team had a bunch of hybrid fronts in base twenty three

percent four to three and twelve percent three four. So right there you see a bit of a departure for some of the previous influences that ran that primary three to four front in their base packages, right, And that's a very substantial chunk between two. Like most teams with a decent amount of both, you never get your secondary

front over like ten percent. But this team ran at twelve percent of the time thirty four and twenty three percent of the time forty three double amount of that, so I think he'll adjust what we have, and right now I would say it probably don't have a true nose tackle, So I think probably right now it's even front.

But there's lots to be done, lots of signs to happen over the next couple of months here and draft picks obviously that will run out this roster and ultimately give you what becomes the Dolphins defense in twenty twenty four. Speaking of twenty four, what's also cool about this is you get access to these coaches quite easily. I mean, I don't know where I would have found this stuff

ten years ago. But to the point of versatility, here's what Weaver said in his press con conference once upon time when he was asked about adapting your scheme to the players on defense.

all those layers. From an execution standpoint. It's also a very small amount of too high, just thirteen percent, which is kind of what you've seen from this defense in the past couple of years, where they just let Josh Allen go down the field slowly, played by play by play right, And that number is actually lower than their use of zero coverage, which is seventeen percent. So we

should see more cover zero back in Miami. And when you've got Ramsey and Holland and Cater and cam Smith, something I think he can do very well.

to them player empowered. It sounds like some of the stuff that I've read and I'll get into this, but also the shared vision of coach McDaniel collaboration, taking input from his guys. I'm excited about what he can do from a developmental standpoint. I like what this could mean for Cam Smith, realizing the potential that I think he has, and it's vast. I think he's one of the best cornerbacks in the class last year. I think it really

opens up Holland. I think it really benefits a player like David Long, who will now have even more freedom in terms of not being responsible for so much free space upfront. And the proof is in the pudding everywhere he's been. They found a way to get matchups for their past rushers. The Ravens, the league in sacks this year, extracted nine and a half sacks from Justin Houston his

age thirty three season. Last year, that defense also had five plus sacks from madap Week, Kalayis Campbell and Patrick Queen. All three of those guys played different positions, and they also had the leading rookie pressure rusher in odafe O way back in twenty twenty one and got seven sacks Tias Bowser.

them off this way. So Lewis Riddick, who covered the Ravens Week eighteen game on the Call for ESPN, said that John Harbaugh could not say enough things about Anthony Weaver when we met him late in twenty twenty three. He thought Weaver was ready to be a head coach. This is a great get and a great opportunity. So by back and found what John Harbaugh had to say and he said this after he got and this was after the season, so kind of a follow up there

to what Riddick said. Maybe I'm speaking out a turn here, but he'll be a great head coach. He didn't get hired this cycle, and great coaches did get hired. But someday some people are going to look back and say, man, we had a chance to hire Anthony Weaver. I guarantee you that they're gonna see that they miss their chance, and the next time around, somebody's not going to miss their chance. That's how I feel about Anthony and for us, God is about that is if that happens, the Dolphins

will get two third round draft picks compensatory picks. If that is the case, let's go ahead and finish here with Jerry Sandusky.

guys that just sit back and cover two shell. Anthony's gonna be a guy who's going to adapt personnel games down and distance in the philosophy of Look, you've got a very athletic group on your defensive side, he's gonna cut them loose because like all great coaches, Anthony knows how to adapt scheme to personnel. And I've seen this question pose on the podcast or on Twitter about why would Baltimore pass over Weaver for Zach Orr. Sandusky had

some great insight into that as well. He says, quote, John knew Anthony was ready to be defensive coordinator, but he also knew zach Or was ready to be a DC. And knowing how John thinks, I'm sure John felt like if he makes Anthony his DC, now Zach doesn't get fulfilled. But if he makes Zach the DC, he knew Anthony was getting another job because he was so ready. So the Ravens were lucky they had two guys ready for the job, and the Dolphins are lucky because they just

got a great defensive coordinator. More on this, Anthony has presence you'll see him every week at the DC Press conference. He's got a smile that lights up a room. He's got a physical presence that commands attention. But he's also you're fresh off this is like he kind of was parsing his words. You're fresh off the memories of Vic Fangio, not one of the charming, lovable guys. And Fangio is

your classic grind grind grind doesn't work anymore, guys. Today's player is not going to be ground into a dust. You have to bring the excellence out of players. You've got to go inside and get them to volunteer it. And I've watched Anthony do that as a defensive line coach here in Baltimore. He has the ability to get guys to work ten times harder than they wanted to work, and they're doing it on their own.

We'll have more coverage for you on Coach. We're going to have Kyle Krabs on the show to give us an update on the draft content post Senior Bowl week. I'm also going to have I believe Sean Sayed on to break down the Weaver scheme a little bit further, and we'll cover his opening.