Drive Time: August 3 Dolphins Camp Report

tonguea by Loa, and Devon eight Chan. Another day of trading blows, the tight ends getting involved in a big way, a game winning drive with some tempo, a big day for the linebackers and the interior offensive line. All of that and a whole bunch of practice notes from the Baptist Hill Studios inside the Baptist Hell Trading Complex. This is the Drive Time Podcast. You know, I think the best part of doing this every single day is how

in tuned. It makes you with the team and the content and the players and the overall operation because of the callback ability it gives you me and how it can reinforce things that you may be thought or at least pontificated on back in late winter early spring, the time of year where we speculate and try to formulate what things might look like from a scheme perspective, from a personnel usage perspective, just everything that goes in to what you wind up seeing on the field on Sundays

in September and how it's constructed in the winter months. And one of the points that I kept making was when we signed John new Smith before free agency had kicked off, because he was a released player and free to sign with any team before the new league year

window opened. We brought in Odell Beckham and Malik Washington, and we brought in Jalen Wright, which is a little bit different from this theme I'm perpetrating here, but ultimately this collection of skill players that was acquired seemed to

be puzzle pieces to some of the elements. The offense was I don't want to say lacking, but where there was room for growth from a season to go because as you hear, you'll hear coach, You'll hear two of every player will say like, even in this league, Tylery excid if you can score or you can get up to two thousand yards or close to it, and that still doesn't mean you are perfect and you can still find ways to get better. I mean, you know how far have we come?

number one offense in the NFL last season. And for a guy that used to get drafted highly and pick up football games for one the way I catch a football, but for number two, because I was the offensive coordinator in Sandlott Football and drew up cool plays which I know kind of goes against the s of Sam lat football, but all I wanted to do was call plays back then.

I freaking love offense. And for a young kid to watch Chad Henny and John Beck and Khleil Lemon and Gus Farrott and Sage Rosenfels and Matt Moore and Tyler Thigpin and Dante Culpepper and it just was rough, right, But now you finally have one of the top offenses, and you still thirst for more as you compete for

the ultimate prize. And what a treat it is, what a payoff it is, what an earned right it is to watch to Tyreek and Waddle in this entire operation go after twenty five years of rather futile offense of production. And so today we got two sound bites, actually let's go ahead and call it three, two from McDaniel, one from Tua Toungovailoa that I think really illustrates that point. And look, I'm far from the only one to speculate that this could be the thinking just based upon the

tape and the opportunities the tape showed help. McDaniel has said as much at various points throughout the offseason. And before we get to those sound bites, I want to tell you why it was especially relevant on this Saturday, because the last period of practice was a situational drill end of Game one five on the game clock down by four points, two timeouts in your pocket, a ball on the minus thirty five yard line and Tua took the offense down the field for a touchdown, leaving eighteen

seconds left for the Buffalo Bills. Let's call them U to try to win the game at the end, And that included a third down conversion and fourth down conversion with the game on the line. High pressure, high leverage situations. You're trying to simulate those practice, and the offense in those moments stepped up big. On a August the third

here from the Baptist Hill Trading Complex. The first play of that drive was a twelve yard ripped to Sanders on a little glance route that we've seen to execute time and time again, and we saw him drill this in individuals and it showed up throughout the course of team drills as well, where his footwork to be able to execute a fake with his feet like to the right side of the offensive formation, which for Tua puts his back to the left side of the formation right,

And for a left handed quarterback, that means if he wants to throw left, he's gonna have to flip the body one hundred and eighty degrees and get back over there and make that throw. And I haven't seen anybody ever. I've never seen a quarterback better at quickly putting himself from a non threatening throwing position into a position where he can rip the football and do it with high level ball placement and accuracy. He's the best I've ever

seen at that. And why he was the best rpo quarterback in college football, and why you see some of the stuff we can do here from an offensive standpoint with his ball handling and footwork and how quick it all is. So he hits that to Brilin Sands for twelve yards to get the drive going, and then they got to the line. And here's what really got me

fired up. And you guys might hear me on the press conferences asking players about tempo, and they didn't really talk about it, but I was impressed by how quick the tempo was. It was the fastest time from end of play to the next play snap I've seen in this iteration of Dolphins football. Because I know, like even the Baltimore game from two years ago, that slow, methodical drive, like call all time out, go faster, like they knew

what they were doing. They milked the clock. But the ability to get to the lion of scrimmage, and we know this offense is verb heavy, right, it's syllable heavy in the play calls. I'm excited to see how that plays out as the year approaches, because I think if they can go more tempo and have a better quicker streamline calls in certain situations, it's going to reduce penalties, it's going to give you more plays. It has me excited.

So they get to the line of scrimmage and they throw this little dump off to John new Smith after Tua kind of had some wiggle and move in the pocket, which was a theme again today, and he dumps it off to John neuw Smith, who didn't really have the angle, but he still won the corner and got out of bounds for six yards where it looked like it was gonna be like two yards, and tackled inbounds. And this prompted this, yeah, that you could hear from Mike McDaniel,

like one hundred yards away. We could hear that up in the stands, and I think you're going to hear that on a micd up episode of Mike McDaniel here, dropping either today or sometime this weekend. He says it a lot, but I heard it on this one, and he loved the run from John U Smith. I think

he loved it so much. On the second and four play, they throw him anow a now screen catch rock throw, get the ball out there, and this time the cornerback overplayed the outside and so John U jab steps outside and cuts back across his face and leaves him in the dust and runs into a safety for an eight yard completion and tackle for a first down, which that

allows you to get into the timeouts. You've now chewed up, you know, twenty five yards of field position, and you've changed the dynamic of how this drive can play out as far as your ability to go tempo or not to run the ball, to throw the ball. Getting those quick yards and putting the ball in plus territory. That quickly put Miami in an advantageous situation where a first and ten from the forty yard line with fifty three seconds or no check that it was a minute in

three seconds and a time out in pocket. So that was impressive. And then the defense kind of got into the bag with what we've seen all week long here with the pressures and stunts and different coverage principles and

bluff blitzes and all that stuff. They run this three man stunt and Austin Jackson picks it up beautifully where he kind of sorted through the trash and stayed on his you know, tight to his guard and then you know, regained depth off the edge and they just all picked it up really well with Austin Liam and Aaron Brewer

and Tua once again on this play. It's it wasn't pressure immediately, but the coverage was pretty good and so he wiggles around more pressure and gets this dump off to a Chan for seven yards, and then they go a second and four and he throws back to eight Chan and he drops this pass. There's a third and four and now we have a big time play we have to convert on even though we know we have

fourth down because of this game situation. But this play was really impressive, and I'll tell you about it later because I want to get to the main point here where Tua ripped it to Malik Washington for twenty yards in a first down. I'll come back to that in a second. The first and ten play from the plus

fourteen yard lines a three yard eight Chan reception. Timeout tempo has been so quick they now have like thirty nine seconds but no timeouts for a second and seven from the plus eleven, so that's a good spot to be in. And on the second and seven play, they pick up six yards on a dump off to eight Chan that creates a third and one at the plus five as a Chan got out of bounds on the play, and once again Tua had to escape to make this

throw happen. In all these plays, I guarantee you there's going to be beat writers and reports that tell you that he was sacked on those I promise you it was. And double check with Kyle Krabs and Al f Artiego from the three Yards per Carry Unlockdown Dolphins podcast, because I watched practice with those guys today only and we were all in agreeance. And those are two of the guys that I think you know taking these practices as well as anybody else. So I promise you they were

not sacks. So now it's third and one at the plus five yard line, and this is where you're gonna get mad, and I kind of am with you on it. They throw a fade to Devon h Chan and it goes out of bounce. So now it's fourth and one from the plus five and they throw the exact same play to a Chan that they threw to Tyreek in the Dallas game on that critical third down conversion, and he winds up scoring a touchdown, not just a first down, but a touchdown, working behind blocks of Kendall Lamb and

Rob Jones. So they go down convert eighteen seconds left from the clock. You just won the game. Very impressive of some tempo, some running back, some tight end playing off the overplay and on nine plays all passes. Five of those to eight Chan, two to John new Smith. Take what the defense gives you, right, And by the way, did you know this? Tyreek wasn't in that drive and nor was Jalen Waddle. So game winning drive without wreaking Wattle. That's why you can pay the guy fifty three million

bucks a year. Not bad, But the reason I wanted to emphasize this drive is the aforementioned other options in the passing game, right the eligibles, but also a handful of these plays were coming from Tua, creating beyond his original hitch up in the pocket, which I continue to see as a massive improvement in his game from a

year ago. He looks very comfortable climbing cutting, you know, making a decision to not step up if the middle of the pocket is closed, and trying to find avenues left or right, and then impressing the lion of scrimmage with urgency and sprinting speed, but also the knowledge for where I can pull up at the line and be way more dangerous with the throw than I can with the run. In fact, one of those completions to e Chan came as a result of him pressing the line

of scrimmage and dumping it off to h Chan. Give it to him. Don't you don't run the ball if you have h Chan give it to him. And then comes the general concept here that I'm trying to communicate with y'all, this idea of overplay and where there are

other options in the passing game. I refer to this all the time, especially you know, with Kyle Krabs here with me, because we watched that Titans tape together at one point last year and tried to figure out what the hell the issue was and what is the solve to it. And the issue was defenses would sort of discount a portion of the field on certain looks where they kind of gambled the Dolphins wouldn't throw and in that game, they just wouldn't go to the backside out

route that was kind of there all night. So they defensively would neglect that and then use that corner back to that side and insert him as a quasi weak side linebacker to fit the run game and give another hat in the gaps in the running game and just gamble. You're not going to throw the ball to the backside out And that second throw to John new Smith is

exactly what that was. We have him in this y isso which go back to the early Mike Kasiki days back with Ryan Tannehill and Adam Gaze or don't you

probably don't want to do that either. And I see all this attention that's you know, given to the field upside of the formation, the you know, wider side of the field with where you would have the combination of wreak and waddle where you can stack those guys, And that's going to cause a lot more attention on that portion of the field than what you would get from

John hu Smith on the backside. Why I soow, And so let's go ahead and force this backside corner from this look, who's peeking inside at the run game or possibly crossing routes from the front side make him tackle John hu Smith one on one in space. We didn't have that option last We didn't have a big, bruising guy that could run after the catch and make you miss an open space with also enough speed to execute a route down the field. They probably won't make that tackle,

and they didn't. And John who got on the outside shoulder and got out of bounds than that second one the corner trying to protect the sidelines. So he turns it up and makes it an even bigger gain. Something that you can do when you have that tight end or that that timeout, I should say in your pocket.

So you spend you know, all week. What did wink Martin Dell say that year that he didn't sleep at all during the Giants and Dolphins game week because he was trying to figure out how to get ready for this offense with Tyreek and Wadall and Tua. So if you spend your whole week preparing for that, what do you do when we nickel and dine you down the field with our backs, our tight ends and our slot receivers. I mean they're productive if they are productive as their

resumes in the past would suggest they could be. That's a lot to contend with man and so we'll go ahead and go to Tua here first, who talked about that drive.

those two guys. And so we go back here to coach McDaniel from this morning, who talked about that tight end room and how it was viewed as coming into the offseason as an area of opportunity for this offense to get better.

the types of things we're asking people to do. You know, you're always looking at getting better and improving, and I think one one way for us offense offensively is really to add an eligible in the past game that's extremely important in the run game, and that's the tight end position, so that you know, you don't just say that to do that, that takes an off season of emphasis of working the craft and techniques.

for you. And speaking of that, I think Julian Hill has taken perhaps the largest stride from a player year to year from last year. I liked his work as a primary blocker. Last year he was kind of limited in his capacity with that regard, But the receptions are starting to pile up and the blocking looks way better. It was already really good. I saw him crack a linebacker today. I saw him take out a defensive tackle on a wham block. I saw him bust some chops

as a ball carrier on a screen throw. To me, I think he might be tied into right now the way I'd stack it. In fact, Travis Gowe ahead and stack him up. I would go like this right now, John new Smith, Julian Hill, Durham Smyth, and then tanner' connor drops a ball every day and I'm over it. And Jody Fortson has had a camp that I will and expecting in the wrong way. I thought he was going to be a lot more productive than he has been. So that's how I'd stacked that room. And then Rouchie

would be the sixth tight end there. And that was a follow up the tight end answer there from McDaniel to a great question from the great Kyle Krabs who asked coach about the diversity of the playbook. You get from having such a melting pot of talent in that tight end room plus one of the game's most dynamic fullbacks in alec Ingold.

I think as a general Cognizani, I mean think about that. Think about the improvements from year one to year two in this offense. The run game got a lot better, There was better connectivity in the deep passing game. Two was deep shots at Tyreek were more on the upfield shoulder opposed to the back side shoulder. Just overall efficiency. Why should we not expect another step? I don't know.

This is one of the top guys, maybe the top guy in terms of cutting edge offensive architecture, and he knows this team better than anybody else in the world, and we're not gonna trust him. I'm not saying like all of you feel that way, but there's discrepancy out there on social media. I don't know. It seems less than smart to me to not trust this guy with how to best approach this offense going forward. I see it play out every single day.

it's not my first time. I'll see if I was new, like you know, Okay, this is like kind of new to me.

or more guarantee money, I should say. And what better way to have a happy cheetah than to have him get the number one player for the first time ever by a wide receiver. This new contract and all these good vibes. I mean, Wattle's done, Two was done, Riek is done, cap Opolypse is here.

reiterate the elusiveness really stands out to me. Also wanted to point how good he's seeing it right now, because going back to the Malik Washington throw that I've promised more commentary on, you could see him working the front side read on that play, and as he picked up information from the front side, I believe that it informed him on what he had backside because as you saw his helmet flip back to the backside, which is how you view where his eyes are going, he also began

his throwing motion simultaneously, so you can glean from what you have from the front side defense to what the backside will give you, and then you have to trust your receiver, which his rookie receiver earned that trust on this throw, a cool full field progression rip to his rookie receiver for a conversion on third down on a game winning drive. It's big time stuff man. Back to

eight Chan. We know what he offers, We've seen it play out in a full season, but he just continues to make plays in a wider range of ways, and off of that, like gosh, this entire backfield has been productive all camp long. Raheem has a couple of those vintage Raheem runs each day. Jeff Wilson's had an awesome camp so far, and quite frankly, I don't think Jalen Wright is out of the conversation for the most impressive back in all of training camp. Every damn day he

hits those holes fast, with conviction and zero hesitation. He's not getting stuffed, he's pushing piles, he's finding the end zone. I think he has fantastic vision between the tackles that produces this lightning fast decision making on top of lightning fast track speed. And you know we were searching for an inside zone counter to the wide zone stretch stuff last year which I think didn't wasn't available to this offense. I think this is the guy for just that he's

also a mid low red zone fixture. He's getting all kinds of carries down there, and a Chan is a guy that you probably don't want to load up three hundred touches on. So I think if you get more two hundred to fifty range from him, dog geez rick, do we think that maybe that's why we drafted Jalen Right to reduce the overall workload of Devon eight Chan and you know, supplement raheem Moster and then if you lose one guy, that solves the problem in itself, even

though we already have two top tier backs. I think he's going to be a big factor this year. Very impressed so far with Jalen Wright. Last thing from the offensive perspective before extra points, Odell was busting his butt out there with conditioning.

every human being he met that day. And you know what they say, the true test of character is how you treat people that you don't have to give the time of day two, Like we don't control Odell's money or what he can and can't do at all, Like he can tell us to piss off if he wants to, but he didn't do that, and he seems to, you know, really be true to a guy that treats everybody with a similar level of respect and to a test to that. Let's do a couple more themes here before getting to

extra points and the rest of the notes. So Jalen Ramsey's kind of a dude, right, I think we've kind of established that by this point. Tua said as much. When I asked him, I said, can you describe the impact of having Ramsey out here when last year he only got one and a half practices in before that damn injury. Tua was succinct in his answer.

time getting the pick right. So yes. McDaniel was asked about filling the void by Christian Wilkins with energy and leadership, and he gave us this lengthy answer about how the locker room and the guys that choose to dictate the terms are the ones that can you know, supplant that role.

it's unique to a lot of varied individuals. And in this era, it's very rare to have over fifty percent of returning players on your on your ninety roster when when you're in training camp, so it's a it's a new team and your and your eyes are wide open to see what they want to be and how they're going to be it, you know, and you have different people step up that that decide that their voice is going to be a dictating factor, uh in the direction

you're going. So for instance we have. Do you guys know who the orange jersey is today?

its own identity on every day at practice. One of the reasons we're getting such good work is the players are are determining what they want their team to be like. And you know, I yesterday it was Jalen Ramsey that was dictating the terms. He has an orange jersey today. Quite honestly, Uh, with the competitive team that we have, I have no idea who's going to be that guy today.

he has wont to do. Zeke Vandenberg played super quick and physical. I love the way he scrapes and stays tight to the block so that he can not get exposed and get himself caught on the block. I thought Duke Riley had his best day, flying around all over the place, the hair flowing beautifully frequently in the backfield. And I thought Channing Tendall had the best day I've

seen him have so far. And it was funny because I told Kyle right before he made a playoff, I was like, I don't know if it's going to happen for Channing Man we were talking about linebacker depth chart. I'm like, I think I have to keep Zach and that might mean, you know, so long to channing. But then he went off and made like eight plays the rest of practice. He played on a downhill track all day and was there with the cavalry for a handful

of stops at or around the line of scrimmage. And of course this happens because of plays on the defensive tackles. You know, Zach Stealler was an absolute minest today, took on blocks, got off a couple times for some plays that he made. He and tr Tart I thought played really nicely together on the interior inside helping those linebackers

get those runs into the backfield. Okay, last break right there, Come back and do segment three and land this plane with a couple more soundbites I think I have, and then we'll also do extra points. That's next Draft Time podcast to your host, Travis Wingfield, brought to you by Autoation.

I heard Mike McDaniel allude to this, and I heard Twua talk about it three or four times in his press conference on Santayday about how hard they want to make it on each other from an offense and defense perspective, and this emphasis to make these days the hardest they'll see all year long how they want to simulate trash talk and urgency and this chirping and creating pressure with all of that to hopefully best simulate game like situations that gives you the sense of real in game pressure

and how to come through that pressure and high leverage situations for your teammates to go win football games in critical moments. And as an observer, it just I keep thinking about this because McDaniel is so great at assessing what went wrong and emphasizing it in the next year, and also obviously honing in on the things that you do well. But I just feel like under this regime, we're never going to bang our head into a wall with like, oh, well that was bad, Well maybe it'll

be better next year. Like they're always gonna find ways to attack it and address it head on. And I love that. And it seems like this this year, it's about like going one and six against playoff teams, right where that record was last year. Let's make it hard, let's make those moments seem like the norm for us.

And it seems like one win, one unit wins, not just the day, but like every other play, it goes back and forth and so while you have all these interior defenders making plays, I had good interior surge and a handful of the plays that did work, particularly some of those red zone runs and conversions that were in full field drives. I thought Aaron Brewer was excellent today and really all week long. He ever since snap again or whatever I want to call it, like, he's been fantastic.

His quickness shows up on wide runs obviously, but his ability to get off the snap and then wall off the a gap defender or the you know, the zero or the one technique and hold that gap, to me, that's been a big factor on some of those explosive, impressive Jalen Wright touchdown runs. I think that he's reading the butt of fifty five, you know, see butt cut. It's the old way of football teaching, and quickly making his decisions based upon you know, Brewer's ability to dig

out that nose tackle or one technique. I thought Rob Jones was again very good today, and I thought Austin Jackson was awesome both in one on one situations as well as working through games and different things the defensive line through with these guys from a rush standpoint, his mental aptitude is such a benefit to this offense. It's like young Trn in some ways with how he sees the game. I thought Patrick Paul had a really good day today. I thought Kendall Lamb had one of his

best days. I thought Emmanuel Ogba had another very solid day. The one time I saw Austin give ground, it was a nice swipe or cross face from Emmanuel Ogba. I thought Mike White had his best day. And at the same time, I thought Scaler Thompson kind of had a revert back to previous ways, So maybe some closer competition there, which by so far I think Scaler has been the

second best quarterback in camp. Braylen Sanders has put together a good string of practices here, made a couple of plays today and then two more notes just on things that I'm not ready to draw final conclusions on because that's disingenuous to the process. But don't I don't think the Leam Eikenberg thing is happening, just on my take from today. And then Jack Driscoll at center also is not my favorite thing in the world. Maybe guard, definitely

not tackle, but maybe at guard. But it just hasn't really clicked for those two guys. For me so far, my Orange Jersey predictions are Channing Tindall, number one, can you believe that? Number two Jalen Wright, and number three Aaron Brewer. I don't feel good about this one, but we'll see what happens on Monday. Speaking of that, tons of fun this week. Let's go ahead and take a day off. I spend the day with my kids. I haven't had a day off in like nine days now,

so looking forward to that. We'll come back on Monday and do it again, and then it's a trip south for the Falcons. On Tuesday and Wednesday. We'll have a general takeaways from camp so far slash who to look for, what to look for in the Friday game on the podcast on Thursday, and then the game recap early Saturday morning, and then we'll do something similar next week for the Bucks. But until then, you all please be sure to subscribe to the podcast from Apple Spotify, where you get your

podcasts from. Go ahead and leave us a rating and leave us a review. You can follow me on social at Linkfield NFL team at Miami Dolphins. Check out the fish Tank podcast with Seth and Juice. The YouTube channel for Media availabilities, Dolphins Today, draft time content, and so much more, and last but not least, Miami Dolphins dot Com Until next time. Finn's up, Caroline and Cameron, Daddy's coming home for movie night, watching, Lucas and that baby. Let's go