Drive Time: Dolphins Blown Out By Bills 31-10

I looa, and we'll unpack some of that. All of that and more here from the Baptist Health Studios inside the Baptist Health Training Complex. This is the Draft Time Podcasts.

And you know, he'll he'll drive the drive the ship when we get the appropriate information. But it's day by day health is what you know of, you know, really, uh, try to approach all.

reflect what these numbers tell you. But Miami had seven more first downs twenty compared to thirteen. They were seven for fifteen on third downs compared to Buffaloes three for nine. The Dolphins were one for five on fourth down compared to my or compared to Buffalo's one for one, which was of course a touchdown on their opening drive on the fourth down completion of James Cook. Miami had three hundred and fifty one yards to Buffaloes two forty seven.

They out passed them two twelve to one to thirty nine. They out rushed them one thirty nine to one oh eight. They had thirty more plays offensively, but where the game was won three turnovers for the Dolphins they were sacked twice zero and zero for the Bills in those categories, and seven penalties for Miami for fifty yards one for five for Buffalo. The Dolphins had the ball for thirty six minutes and nineteen seconds. So yeah, the story of

the game was the turnovers, right. You had multiple drives that resulted in either interceptions or turnovers on down short fields and Buffalo did not fail to capitalize upon those. Let's go ahead and go back to the beginning though here and start with the opening drive of the game, A six play drive that goes nine yards two and a half minutes, and it looked good. They were getting

some wash down the offensive line. A quick shot to waddle for a completion, another third and one conversion where Rob Jones has a nice block and Aaron Brewers seals a lane for another alec Ingold first down, and then you get the negative plays loss of three to Julian Hill or a loss of three in the running game.

I should say when Julian Hill Rasul Douglass beat his block to make a stop, and then a deep shot the Tyreek for no gain, and then a third and fourteen ball off the shoulder pad of Grant to Boss. And if I can explain to you how this offense operates, shannonhan Tree or otherwise across the you know, Kyle Shanahan, Mike McDaniel, Matt Lafleur, Sean McVay, on and on and in,

on and on again. The concept behind this passing game is you want to hit the receiver the minute they come out of that break because the cornerback, the defensive back reacts to how the receiver comes out of the stem, and they are late to react because the receiver knows

where he's going, the defensive back has to react. And so the idea that from a philosophical standpoint is the maximum separation occurs when the receivers first out of his break, you have to catch that football and for it's a bounce like that and get deflected and get picked off. It's just really really bad luck. But that's part of you know, that'll be a takeaway talking about playing with receivers that just got here in the depth of the receiver room being so far that the numbers throwing to

those guys have not been very good. And it starts that way here off the top. It gives the Bills a short field. The Dolphins defense bows up. I mean, they got some good plays there. They got a third and two stop with David Long shooting in making a big play in the backfield, Zach Seeler shedding a block and making that tackle along with David Long to get a loss on third and two, and that creates a fourth down play where then the Bills get a perfect

call into the cat blitz. The cornerback comes in off the edge, David Long can't get out there to get James Cook who has a walk in touchdown, and quickly five minutes into the game, it's seven to nothing. But then Miami response and you kind of feel like there's that medal, there's that you know they're not going to go into the tank and let this thing get out of control, because they go ten plays, seventy yards six

and a half minutes. They get the ball on the perimeter with some of the end of round stuff, the jet sweep stuff. Tyreek has a kerry for twelve yards. Devon eight Chan gets plenty of run as he did all game long to have made two awesome throws on third down conversions, the one to Jalen Waddle for seventeen yards where he stepped up out of pressure, attacked the line of scrimmage and threw a good ball over the middle.

And then we got the touchdown throw on the escort swing to eight Chan with alec Ingold making the key block and on that play to a one Wattle originally and scan the entire field and made a really good decision put the ball right on target for a nice

touchdown there for the Dolphins. So they got crankin, got that ten play drive to tie the game at seven apiece, and then they get a three and out three play drive nine yards with another short yard stop there from David Long sifting and wrapping on a James Cook run. And then Kalays or rather that was the second down play, and then Kalaias Campbell was the one that on an

errant snap that got free. He kind of gets some depth and falls into the hook zone and gets his big paw on a football and swats it back into the face of Josh Allen and the Dolphins take over and they're again moving it around. They get another play to Tyreek Hill for twelve yards. It goes for a first down. They throw this they get a first down at the end of the first quarter, I should say, and they throw this ball to Robbie Chosen where the ball is over his head and it looks like he

runs a route that two wasn't expecting. I think maybe that ball got away from two a little bit as well, so kind of some you know, air on either side of that thing. But again, you're throwing to receivers that have just gotten here, you know, in the last couple of weeks, and some miscommunications and understanding of when the ball is going to be on you that I think can be expected. So the Dolphins three possessions in two picks for QB one, it was the first time in

his career he had two first quarter picks. The Bills pay it off with the field goal. So the defense bows up for the Dolphins on seven plays nineteen yards and yeah, I mean they forced Allan off of his spot. He kind of short hopped one of those throws to the sideline with a good job mixing the pressure, looks the linebackers coming and putting more pressure on Josh Allen.

So they take a ten to seven lead at that point early in the second quarter, and the Dolphins go back to a three and out and it's that the third down play man. They had double slants off stack with Tyreek and Waddle and to a shot one to Reek off the first part of the slant and then Wattle came underneath and it looked like he was going to be open, but the ball never got there because

it went to Tyreek hill. And that was after they almost overcame a second and seventeen, which will be one of the takeaways we talk about here is the Dolphins when they don't hit the big plays, these longer drives. They had one early in the game. These long drives are tough to come by because you can get these penalties, a drop pass, a negative run that puts you behind the sticks. The case. For whatever case, that seems to be what happens for the Dolphins on some of these

long drives. And that's what happened on a second and a second down in Jalen Wright run for a first down where he looks sharp, but to Ron Armstead gets flagged for holding. You get behind the chains. Then the fourth down play can't go complete, or the third down conplay I should say, goes incomplete, and the Bills pay that off with a touchdown of their own, an eight play drive that gets down the field pretty quickly, third

and twelve from the thirty four yard line. The Dolphins had a had him in a good spot at that point of the drive, but Josh Allen creates and you saw Jalen Phillips was the rusher off the right side on that play and he lost his footing, which gave Allen the ability to break that contain, which you know you can't let that happen. But it rained all day here in South Florida. Feel was a little bit wet.

Guys were slipping a little bit throughout the night, and he got to the perimeter and made a good throw around Jalen Ramsey, who kind of got lost once the play was you know in the second phase of the play with regards to you know, him going off script and creating that way. So they get that play down to the one yard line on third and twelve for

thirty four yards. Then a walk in touchdown for James Cook off the b gap off the left side for a seventeen to seven lead, and the Ofphins get it back and they start driving down the field once again, a big lane for eight Chan for seventeen yards. Thought Austin Jackson got plenty of washdown. The whole offensive line created lanes all throughout the first half. They ran for

one hundred yards in that first half. You got leam Meikenberg climbing up to the second level Julian Hill with a key block, and then they got more runs from a Chan to get him to a third and one. And finally, after I think four successful conversion to the first two games, Ingle gets stuffed and then Rob Jones gets beat by Ed Oliver for a sec on fourth and two, goes right back to the Bills and it's a one play drive. The forty nine yard run for

James Cook where we're in a light box. They had a double team a catch and climb, and they caught the stack linebacker who was David Long in that same position. Kendall Fuller came in and I thought took a bad angle to the football and that got behind him and from there it was show him your tel lights for James Cook. A forty nine yard drive on one play,

twenty four to seven. Tough spot to come back from there, but Miami's offense takes it back and drives thirteen plays fifty four yards and three and a half minutes for a field goal. Just kind of taking the short stuff there, taking what's underneath, going to John new Smith and going to to ahead to scramble on the drive for twelve yards on third and eleven, just kind of trying to milk the clock and not let Josh Allen get the

ball back, but also find points. But ultimately in the first half, Tyreek and Waddle had five catches for thirty six yards on seven targets and finished the game Tyreek had Let's see, Tyreek was targeted six times with three catches for twenty four yards, Wattle four for four for forty one yards. So if you get seven catches for sixty five yards from Reek and wattle probably not going to be the results you want at the end of the night. That's what happened here, so rough start to

the game, it would get worse. Let's go ahead and take our last break right there. Come back on the next side and do the second half of the game. We'll get the five takeaways. Short episode tonight, not to love to harp on here. That's next track Time podcast, your host Travis Wingfield, brought to you by Auto Nation. So the Bills take a twenty four to ten lead into the break, They get the football back to start

the second half, and the defense bows up again. They get a five play seventeen yard drive a third and seven where Chop Robinson, who I think continues to show some good stuff in these first two games, ran a little stunt there with Zach Seeler and Sealer splits the blocks and as the pickman gets in there and creates the air and throw, but chops speed on the quarterback.

The closing speed on that looping role I thought was pretty impressive and shows you some of the mixed bag that he can offer as an edge rusher and player in the middle of the defensive line to put an impact. These opposing quarterbacks. But then that's when things really got out of hand. The Dolphins get the football back, they get a little swing route to a chan for twelve yards and a first down. We get a corner slips over there and create some space for him. Then a

couple of plays go backwards. They're third and behind the chains again, and then Tua makes a decision that I just haven't seen him make in his career before with trying to throw the ball away, doesn't get it out there, it gets picked off and goes back the other way. Even if that ball gets completed, what are you looking at there? A couple of yards and you're still punting the ball like you gotta take the sack there and just move on to fight another day. But that's kind

of what happens in these Bills games. Right that they get up, they start putting more pressure. The passing game becomes all you can do because you're behind on the scoreboard, and then they find a way to turn you over and it turns into an avalanche of negative plays. That's kind of what happened here. Yeah, Pick six just can't do that and then turn over on downs in the

next drive. And that was when Tua Tongua Bai Looa had a third down scramble to move the chains or fourth down scramble rather, and he gets knocked to the ground. His helmet collies at the mar Amblin's arm and he doesn't look right and they end up pulling up from the game and it's a concussion. And we finished out with Scalar Thompson and I stopped noting the game at that point because thirty one to ten quarterback goes down. It was kind of just playing out the string at

that point. I thought the Dolphins played hard and did a good job competing in those circumstances, considering everything that had happened there, So WorldWind of a week man, lots of emotions on Sunday, the absolute last result you wanted in the game here on Thursday against a team that it felt like this was the best chance to kind of go get that Buffalo team, right. I mean, they were down Matt Mulano from back in training camp. They didn't have Taron Johnson who was hurt in the opener.

They lost Torel Bernard early on in the game. They were down some key parts. Not to mention, you know, not having Hide Employer and Trey White and all these critical guys that have been a big part of that defense. Even with backups and different guys, they still found a way to make the Dolphins offense slow down and get off rhythm and off timing. And for two games now it's looked that way for the Dolphins offense, even with

QB one in the game. I mean, they had seven points at halftime once again, right or no ten points at halftime after a seven point first half last week. That is just not the team we're used to. They scored thirty points in two games. That's our per game average last year, so half of that so far just hasn't looked sharp through the first two games, and losing the quarterback makes it a lot tough for going forward, depending on his timeline there. So let's go ahead and

get into the five takeaways here. Like I said, it's going to be a brief one. But before we do that, McDaniel spoke at length about the concept of narratives and what's going to be written. And obviously Miami doesn't have one of those teams you know coming up on the schedule until Buffalo again. Really, I mean the Seahawks the Titans, the Patriots, the Colts, the Cardinals. All of those teams were not playoff teams a year ago. So you don't have a chance to really, you know, change that until

you face Buffalo once again. But of course you need to win games in the meantime. But I thought it was important to hear from coach right here about that and how no one outside of this building is going to think the Dolphins have a chance to win in those types of situations.

I don't think you can win. You might be able to win one out of a hundred with with those the nuts and bolts of that, and and I think that's the main thing that the football team is feeling is supreme disappointment because it's uh they've they've put a lot into it, they have high expectations and you can't even you can't even evaluate appropriately when when you're uh, when you're playing football that way and giving it to the opponent and you know, so giving them actual possessions,

especially a quarterback like that.

a gut check for the for the team. Early in the season, I I look at things like, uh, if we would have won by thirty, what does that mean? You know, I think that puts the game perspective. It's one loss that's you know, that really cuts deep, but that that can either be a good thing or a bad thing depending on how you respond to it.

forty in the morning. Here at the Baptist Health Training Complex. I have five takeaways from this game, A thirty one to ten loss to the Buffalo Bills. Yeah, I'm also pretty sick of that. I thought this was a chance to really kind of to change things, to get early season narrative buster out of the way. Of course, it won't be that way. And here's five reasons I think that is where we are right now. Number one, I mean the injuries at the receiving position and the lack

of depth beyond Reak and Wattle. With what we've seen from a production standpoint, it continues to provide issues. It was a big issue last week. And you know, we through the quick game kitchen sink, if you will, at the Jacksonville Jaguars, and some of those plays work. Some of those plays get you behind the chains because when they get privy to it, they can cut you down for a loss. And then you wind up in second

and thirteen. Then you go incomplete on the second down throw, and then you have a third and thirteenth throw where Tyreek and Wattle come off the field and you throw this ball right on the target to Grant Dbos and it hits them off the chest and goes deflected for an interception. The same thing I talked about with the chosen play. Different pages there. You know, I don't like assigning blame to players, but I don't know the progressions

or the calls and all that stuff. But you tend to lean towards the quarterback that's been here for three years the system and probably knows where you know, the different stems off the top of the route are. But just cycling through, you know, a practice squad call up and a signing that was claimed off waivers a couple of weeks ago. It's tough living man, especially in an offense that is so so critically dependent upon the timing and being on the same page and the chemistry with

those guys. You know, I think Tua was certainly responsible for his own, you know, misgivings in this game. But I think the dolphins inability to win outside of freak and waddle has been an issue through two games. That's my first takeaway. My second takeaway is just the general operation has been sloppy offensively, and that extends to the penalties. I'm talking about when they had way more penalties than Buffalo had tonight. The drop passes again, getting behind the chains.

Through four drives, they had two picks and a three and out. They would turn it over on downs again later in the game, throw another pick later in the game. It's I mean, it's just consistently the same issues that prevent them from getting you know, those long sustained drives down the field. And we've seen it through two games so far, and it goes back to last December. So is it concerning? Yeah, I think it is until something changes and you know, we'll see what the offense looks

like even in Seattle. But beyond that, you know that Craycraft is going to be on IR for a couple more weeks and Obj's not coming off pup until he's eligible after the fourth week of the season. So some questions exist about how this offense can find those answers but also just play sharper football and be the offense we got so spoiled by the last couple of years by going up and down the field. We haven't seen

that so far in twenty twenty four. My third thing is kind of a takeaway off of all that, is that I think the Dolphins are just a little bit too dependent right now on the big plays and I love them, don't get me wrong. It's the best part

about football. In a league where there is sixty five percent two high shells, which is double the rate it was a couple of years ago, they're trying to prevent big plays, and the Dolphins again just cannot sustain these drives because of the previous issues we talked about, whether it's a blown assignment or a holding call on a second down run that goes for a first down, but

because you held, now it's second and seventeen. And the depth of receiver creates this issue where when we spread you out and we get into this dime defense and you have sub packages and you're playing a three high roof and you can rush the quarterback with four and you know bracket, reek and waddle, it's tough to convert those You're not really built to convert those plays. And you tried a couple times and they got you picked off. So these inability to stay ahead of the chains and

be consistent and milk out these drives. We saw Buffalo do it all night long, just the one penalty and didn't really have the arison mistakes, and they just kind of came out here and took it to us by having those long, sustained drives, whether short fields or long fields. Jacksonville Jaguars last week had long drives up and down

the field. So I think right now the Dolphins have to find a way offensively to be able to score and be effective when it's not an eighty yard touchdown to Tyreek Hill or a sixty three yard play to Jalen Waddle or a forty yard play to devon ah Chan. They have to find a way to be more consistent when they don't have the big plays. My fourth takeaways, they just couldn't hold the point in the run game. Defensively,

I talked about the James Cook touchdown. That was really the one that got on my radar because they were light on that side in the running game. In the count, they took some bad angles. They got, you know, down blocks that took out critical pieces of the potential stop on James Cook, and they just between that run that was like a man power run. There a man gap scheme. They had some good backside cutbacks from James Cook where they would wash us down or find gaps off the outside.

I just thought the Dolphins didn't consistently hold up the point of attack in the running game, and that allowed James Cook to have the big night that he had. And then the fifth one, look like, this is what it is right to put the bow on McDaniel's point, you just can't consider yourself in the same weight class as the other AFC powerhouses right now, and I'm not gonna tell you that you are because they haven't proven it.

They haven't beaten the Chiefs and the two Chances last year, or beaten the Bills in the last three Chances, or the Ravens last year. They did get the win over the Cowboys, that's a great win they had. They lost to the Eagles early in the year as well, Like, until they can prove it that they can show up and compete in those games, then it is what it is. And that's just kind of the big takeaway here tonight.

I thought that a new season, some reinforcements could change that right away, and I'm not saying it can't change later this year, but as it is right now, you can't consider yourself in the same class as those elites because you haven't proven it over the last couple of years. And then the sixth takeaway is just hope two is okay, that's the number one thing that comes out of tonight. Man Like it's a great dude, great person, great family.

Man means everything in the world to this organization. And we really really hope to is feeling good and feel in, you know, in a good place, because we heard coach talk about it and he was trying to chill the guys up in the locker room after the game, thinking about number one is the number one thing tonight. All right, we'll get out of here.