Drive Time: Defense Dominates in Dolphins 20-13 Win Over Raiders

two ninety six. The Dolphins ran the ball for almost three times as many yards as the Raiders, ninety nine to thirty six. And the Dolphins also ran nine more plays in Las Vegas. So fifty nine plays for your defense on a short week is always nice to have. That both teams turn the ball over three times. Bit of a sloppy game the Dolphins took one sack and got Aiden O'Connor to the turf two times, both by

Jalen Phillips. Both teams had five penalties forty four yards for Miami forty one for the Raiders, and the Dolphins had the football for thirty two minutes and fifteen seconds in this game, and it started off not great. The Dolphins defense got a stop right away a first down on the opening play that I thought was a good job by the Raiders of kind of playing into their tendency breakers. You know, Antonio Pierce has come out and told you that they want to run the football and

be physical and be that team. And all they do is pull the ball out on the first play and run a little play action boot and get a wide open tight end on an under route for seventeen yards. But then it was back to what we expected for

the Dolphins defense with some stops. David Long anticipates a screen and helps get a tackle with Raykwon Davis on a tackle for loss, and then Andrew van Ginkel is in great position for a coverage play on Michael Mayer and punches the football out and Javon Holland scoops it up and it looks like a defensive touchdown to get things going, and you're thinking, yeah, fifty burger today, but

they overturned it. Ball was never quite secure or caught, so it goes right back to the Dolphins offense and they move the sticks on their first three plays their opening series. But Tua gets hit as he's going to the turf head first after picking up the first down yards with his legs, and the ball just does come out before he gets that knee down to the ground. So the Dolphins turned the ball back over to the Raiders,

who then kick a field goal. And that was the story of the day for the Dolphins defense, defending short fields and keeping the Raiders out of the end zone except for one big play down the field to Devonte Adams. But you saw more of what I've been talking about from this defense right away in this game. Chob Bradley

Chubb had back to back run stop. Zach Steeler consistently reset in the line of scrimmage by getting that knock back and push, and they did convert a long third and seven where it looked like maybe there was not a coverage bus but somebody got turned free on what looked like a banjo where you have, you know, some one guy takes inside, one guy takes outside, and Mayer's able to get yardage to put themselves in position to continue to drive. But then they had offensive pass interference.

You get an awesome play from Cater Kohu to make a tackle after a short game to get the Dolphins or the Raiders offense off the field to just kick a field goal after getting the football at the plus thirty two yard Lindes, that's pretty important to get that. And then it goes right back to what you expect from this Miami Dolphins offense. A critical defensive holding call on Jalen Waddell, who gave the cornerback all he could handle on a little double move that extends the drive

on third and eleven. And then I liked how Miami was able to get back to what has been their bread and butter since McDaniel's arrival, right that fifteen to twenty yard and sometimes it's eighteen yard. In that range of fifteen to twenty incuts like the deep dig, the route that they utilize, the space they create in the running game to capitalize with and put those hook linebackers and ultimate conflict. They get one to Tyreek for I think it was like nineteen yards and then the very

next play is a thirty eight yard touchdown. On that exact play and the balls right there, Tyreek goes up and gets it runs when he hit the turf like the way he took off. I've said this on the podcast before. You know those car those toy cars you have when you're a kid, that you pull back and that creates the wind up and then you let him go. He is like already wound up when he hits the ground on this play. In any play that he goes in the air for the football, it's just fun to watch.

And the frequency of hitting that play this season to come back to after the bye week, what a great sign. That was seven three Dolphins late in the first quarter. But then Vegas answers back and this was a play I did not expect to happen in this game. It looked to me like quarters coverage where you have four defenders kind of birds on a fence, basically defending the deep shell of the field. And what I thought I saw it we'll find out about this layer in the leak.

What I thought I saw was they tried to kind of buzz a route in the short part of the field and that got the attention of both Holland and Deshaun Elliott, and then DeVante Adams, one of the best in the league, got behind him and a great throw from Maiden O'Connell, long raider touchdown. You're thinking, is this gonna be a shootout now? But it was not, because the Dolphins get the football back and they do turn

it over on downs after a long drive. But you could see the Dolphins offense continuing to put up yardage and get first downs.

fourth and one situation. And that's a no brainer for me for this head coach this team, like every time they get in that situation, they're going to try to go score seven points. I tip my cap to the idea of the play, but the it was a two on two screen essentially, when they threw the ball out wide to Tyreek Hill and River Craycraft kind of had to make sure two guys couldn't get to him, and they both triggered on Tyreek and flew Downhill and the one guy got him to the turf for a turnover

on down. So tough look, tough call there in terms of, you know, not getting the right look for what your offensive play was and they turn it over on downs. Then the Raiders take back over and you're thinking, just get a quick three and out here, get the ball back and plus territory and go score some more points.

locker room. He misses the entire drive. And what does Tua do besides wattle for nine raheem for a first down, run for four yards, wattle for twelve, wattle for fifteen. So wattle, wattle, waddle for thirty six yards on four plays. Then Robbie Chosen gets called back into the fray, and good for him for keeping his head in a good headspace to go make a play when you were released and then added to the practice squad then elevated tough

week for Robbie in that sense. But he gets himself in the right headspace and I'm sure the Dolphins communicating with him like, hey, here's the plan to get you back here and all that stuff, but still it's a long road to get there. Right, He makes a big play and then Raheem gets a first down and then we get the third and down. It's pretty much the same call to Savon nakbad. This time the Raiders blitz the crap out of it. Great call at a great time in low red zone, and that's how you put

points on the board. A little Texas route behind the rush, you get some offensive line out in front. Great work by Liam and Connor and Lester Cotton to get out in front to lead Savon in for a walk in touchdown there on that play. So the Dolphins take a fourteen to ten lead, a lead they would never relinquish.

balance to save time off the clock. Then Julian Hill makes it catch it a nice move up field, and I was thinking to myself in the moment, that's a pretty athletic move to catch it, spin, get vertical, and get extra yards. But they punch it out take over at the plus three two yard line, and then the Raiders kind of settle for a field goal there, which I don't understand why you would do that against this team,

but that's what they did. They ran the football and milked off forty seconds off the clock and kicked the field goal there at the end to make it fourteen to thirteen. Then the Dolphins get the football back and again, to tell you what you're thinking here right, you're thinking to yourself, they're gonna go score a touchdown, They're gonna get the ball back, they're gonna scoregain, They're gonna put game where it belongs on ice. But it didn't happen

that way. And this was the rarest of misses I thought for Tua that I've seen from him, where they had that Tyreek and Waddle run that two man route combination with the vertical. It takes the defense, you know, takes the roof off the defense, and then Waddle runs that deep over out to take advantage of that space, and he was wide open and he was running kind of horizontally and Tua throws it vertically and he misses and it gets picked off, and that's just something you

want to see in that spot. Would have been a big game, but a rare miss, but a miss. Nonetheless, the Raiders get the football back and they go right back to three and out thanks to a Christian Wilkins third and one run stuff where he just stifled his man, no gain, massive win, put him on the ground, get a stop, get the football back, and then the Dolphins get a field goal or I'd rather a missed field goal on the next drive where they got the ball again to Tyreek Hill down the field, and then Tua

had a just another one of these rare misses where I thought he had a chance to make an improvise play, a scramble play where he got pushed off of his spot and he threw to Cedric Wilson to the perimeter and it was just high and outside, and you saw him on like after he went to the ground because he got tackled and he kind of like clapped his hands in frustration, like you knew that he felt he missed that one.

diving grab. What a freaking play that was. Let's go ahead and cue up some sound to hear from Jalen Ramsey, who was asked about the idea of being a defense that generates takeaways versus a defense that just holds teams off the scoreboard. Here's his intellectual mind thinking about which one's better.

Obviously you will want both, right, But and that's what we'll strive to do on our defense, and then the offense deal correct some of their mistakes and they'll be explosive and do what they are. I mean, they are who they are, so we got all the confidence and faith in them.

He just couldn't make this one. And then Tu had a third and seventh throw to Waddle that was a little bit low and incomplete, and I thought had a chance to complete that at the plus twenty three kick the field goal, go back out, get another third down stop, and like Ramsey, Ramsey had four plays in this game to me, the two picks. Obviously, we'll talk about the other one here in the moment, the fourth down coverage on DeVante Adams.

So Tyreek just snaps the route off to the perimeter, makes a big catch for like thirty two yards in that play, and that puts them in position to go go ahead and kick the field goal after a miss third and one completion to alec Ingold, who was open on the peel back with the ball hit him in the chest and kind of scorted through his lower half and just went incomplete. The Raiders punked the football right back after a sack from Jalen Phillips or forces O'Connell

to the ground or force him off the spot. Rather he teamed up with Bradley Chubb for a hit on the quarterback, but Phillips gets the sack. So you're just hearing three and out, three and out, three and out, and all the time the Raiders are within one possession of going and taking the lead or tying this football game, and it's not happening for them. But the Dolphins get the football back and they go.

over on downs again because of Ramsey. In a fourth down coverage snap fourth and three, they throw a vertical to DeVante Adams, and Adams is running the route on the white perimeter on the boundary of the field right the sideline, not a good place to be. Ramsey presses him, pins him, and holds him there and runs the route

for him incomplete. After a great play by Cater Kohu to get in against an end a round and force this receiver to bubble deep, and that allowed Javon Holland to come from deep and make a tackle seven yards behind the line of scrimmage there, So kind of that's a little play before the play there from those two guys. Dolphins get it back, get one first down then give it back over to the Raiders, and then the Raiders

move the chains a little bit. And there was a play that Christian Wilkins made where Hunter Renfro made a catch and got down the field and Brook seventeen tackles and Christian Wilkins came from about forty yards in the wrong from the defensive line the pass rush and makes a tackle on Hunter Renfro. It is insane, insane level of retrace down the field and effort and the love

for your teammates. After I saw Phillips do it earlier on the play that XC got beat for the DPI slash game of twenty four yards, Jalen Phillips made that tackle as well. So the defensive line retracing downfield huge, huge part of this game. More on that than just one second. Dolphins get it back, punt it back over to the Raiders and then the Raiders drive about half

the field and you're kind of worried about it. Then they throw it up into the air into the end zone and Jalen Ramsey skies over and makes another play on a football and insane catch, a receiver level mossing catch. He makes the play and puts the Dolphins in the winner circle. Let's go ahead and hear from Jalen Phillips on how Ramsey is able to make these plays and the professional approach that the rest of the team can learn from with Jalen Ramsey.

to see us out here playing. Obviously, you know all the hype during the offseason and he doesn't even get a chance to come out during the regular season, and so you know, for him to come out and then perform that way, man, I just it's a huge credit to him because I know how tough that can be, and he really had that fortitude and showed up.

brought to you, Bye Autnation. I usually save the play before the play for the final portion of the podcast here, but I'm gonna go ahead and talk about Christian Wilkins one more time because you I don't think I've ever seen that before. A defensive tackle forty yards down the field tackling a slot wide receiver who's made a bunch of moves back and forth. But turn on any NFL game, turn the game on tonight Monday night, and watch guys that are not around the football and the way they

run after it. It's most guys do run after it, but you will see some guys that don't, and guys that do what Christian does that is rarefied air. Let's go ahead and hear from Mike McDaniel on that Christian Wilkins hustle play, which again Jalen Phillips did the same thing earlier. This entire defensive line group, an entire defensive front, prides themselves on how they retrace the football.

they had the same kind of mindset. But that that's what happens when you have players like that that have standards with which they go about their game, that you raise the level of everyone sometimes that you know, players don't like to see that. You know, they're all competitive, so you know when when you get somebody pursuing past you, that sticks out to them. So hopefully we'll get better from it. But it's you know, he he has continued to regress in his game all season, something that he's

done his whole career. So have been very happy with him and what he brings to us is is very important.

dude is playing right now. And the Dolphins got this guy for a third round draft pick. And Hunter Long, who was a third round pick in twenty twenty one, who for all intents and purposes, are probably tied in three or four on the team last year in the same position this year on this Dolphins team.

Not a bad draft class man. It's actually pretty dang go to you think about it. But back to Ramsey, they didn't throw at him, and when they did, they got picked off. In fact, in three games, he's been targeted thirteen times, allowed five catches, and picked off three passes. Since he got back, Miami's allowing seventeen points per game and have upped their takeaway tolls from four in the seven games without him to three in the three games with him.

Javon Hollind's always been awesome, cater Co, who's fantastic in the slot when you can just kind of mix and match and pick his spots to play alongside those two corners.

Just a stellar performance? And when the offense wasn't as buttoned up as they normally are, how nice is it to have a defense that you can just put the lights out for you in a game like this. Again, nine consecutive possessions with either a one score or less lead in their back pocket, and they never once relinquished it. Also, the tackling off the perimeter extends beyond Chubb and Phillips and Van Ginkel.

That was on offense. Right, let's go ahead and start here with Mike McDaniel's perspective, because I think this is important to keep in mind that Dolphins fans have become spoiled a little bit, and that includes me.

a to another level this this week. You know, I think that our team in general UH has kind of captured the idea of worrying about ourselves and and each opponent is very threatening and you have to you have

to bring your best. You know, I think there's some stuff that would will really see in the film in the run game that we could have had more in you know, that was they were just kind of playing soft and and really really why their alignments were different, So there was some space there and I thought we could have had more. But overall, I'd just like to see us hang on to the ball and not have some of some of the mistakes that really kind of

cost us. But you know, it was the first game that I can remember not playing with Durhams durham smythe and you know, we lost eight chan early and and Braxton wasn't it wasn't up. So I thought overall, guys in different roles stepped up and you know, will continue to progress.

and look at the stats. But when you give them two short fields at the plus thirty two and plus thirty yard line and then you turn over on downs at the plus three yard line, I mean, if the Raiders had capitalized on that, that's twenty one point swing right there, and it only wound up being a six point swing because they kicked two field goals, or I guess thirteen because you didn't score a touch on yourself. Maybe nine points because you could have kicked a field

goal on fourth down instead. I digress, but you understand the point. It's how you keep teams in games when you should have probably won by more and making a habit of losing the turnover battle. That's been the difference in the losses too. Like, if you think about it, that's kind of the last thing this team needs to do to take that next step. I would say, convert shortyards at a higher rate and win the turnover battle

battle more frequently. But it's you know, I think it's fair to wonder why it's a problem ten games into the season, and it's funny because Ramsey flipped this on me here, But at one point it looked like Miami is going to lose the turnover battle, you know, two to nothing at least, and at that point they would have been one and six in the to battle in the last seven games, with twelve takeaways to four takeaways.

of character. I thought he missed Cedric on that one scramble play I mentioned the improvised play just looked a little bit out of rhythm at times in the second half.

version of yourself. If Miami buttons those up down the stretch here, they are going to be so so difficult to beat because it does feel like a lot of times their errors are self inflicted. And once they can correct those, man, the sky is the limit in my opinion. Man, let's go ahead and hear from Tua on why he can be tough on himself and the standard that he holds himself to. I think this is one of the best answer I've ever gotten from QB one in a press conference.

to myself. It's just understanding, like, you know, you can do better, and it's to a place where I'm not beating myself up as much as I probably would have my rookie year or my second year, you know, just just because of the people that I've had to help me through that. So that's what I would say. I understand the state of the union, and I'm not blind to the mistakes that I've made. But it's not me.

It's not more so that I'm hard on myself. It's more so I know my expectation and the standard of what I can do, and it can be better, and I want it to be better. And that's what it really is. It's being real with yourself.

So Devon hen goes down the first rush attempt back from ir and Coach McDaniel said that Hchan had many pleased with coach to put him back in, but they decided to protect himself from himself because it was the same knee he had the injury on earlier in the season. But he goes down after the first carry of the game. Savon achmed gets dinged up at one point in the game. Did have three carries, the touchdown and the effort on the fourth down before the tod was all very very good.

But because of that, now all of a sudden, you have one running back you've dressed, and that is Raheem Moster, who I suspect the plan was not twenty two carries for Raheem Moster, but he goes twenty two for eighty nine. And those were tough tone setting, physical chain moving yards that we had to have in key spots, especially that final drive where you know, putting the rares back at the six yard line was done in large part because Raheem moved the chains with some of his rushing attempts.

So just really appreciate the type of pro that guy is. And then our fifth takeaway kind of bleeds into that or stems off of that, is that it's nice to have.

both those guys at your disposal for this offense. I wanted to talk about three players I mentioned. Let's go ahead and do that real quickly here. I'll watch the tape and get this for you guys in the podcast Layer tonight. I think Austin Jackson might have given Max Crosby all he could handle. And think about that statement for a second, like, what a game for Austin Jackson, what a year he's had? Just tip of the cap to him, there was a third down conversion where he

erased Max Crosby. He kind of got into his chest play, but then he reset it and anchored and just stopped him right in his tracks. That is not many folks for doing that these days. Also, Cedric Wilson has return game work and tough contested catches. He's become a nice key player in this offense and special teams here down the stretch and we're gonna need him going forward, so that's great to see. And then alec Ingol just a

couple of crushing, punishing blocks. Some plays in the passing game just can never appreciate that guy's work enough.

you guys. We'll be back with you guys for the All twenty two review tonight, the game preview on Wednesday as well, and then we'll have the postgate the recap show after the game on Friday. So check back for more scheduling updates on that one of one hundred percent sure before I get it out to you guys, but in the meantime, that's gonna be my time.