Drive Time: Dolphins Down Patriots 15-10

might be possible. Was this some sort of statement victory, No, of course not. The Patriots have struggled immensely this year. There's plenty of work to do. But can a win like this change the complexion of your season? To the Jets and Bills and the Pats for that matter, lose each of the last two weeks, are we now just a game behind Buffalo and tied with the Jets at two and three. All of these things are true, and

both of those teams have been very healthy. We've dealt with about as much adversity as one team can stomach in an entire season, and we've done it inside of let's call it four weeks, because this week was actually pretty clean. Well I guess not because Jelen Phillips also went down last week as well. So who the hell knows what Week eighteen looks like in January? Who he knows what even week six looks like for that matter.

But here's what I do know. And as someone who went and the record starts to get lopsided, I become a little bit more interested in college football and seeing what's going on with the prospects. I know this that the football season is so long, and you can go back over every single Dolphins season back to when I

first started doing podcasts in twenty sixteen. One of the first podcasts I did was me and Kevin Dern, my former co host on the Finalysis podcast, was we would go down the list after the Dolphins are one and four and just find out who we thought were keepers for the following season and look at where that year ended up. Not only did you make the playoffs, the quarterback towards ACL and missed the next year as well.

So like so much can change in a small snapshot of time in this league, no one expected us to be where we are today, right. We all thought three and two, maybe four and one at this time of year. Worst case would be probably be two and three. Are the hopes of a record breaking offense gone?

you have time to do. You don't have time to you know, self evaluate and reformulate everything you've done to

that point in the season. You now have a week to prepare for the Colts and to self scout and see what kind of adjustments you can make in the you know, post to a tongue by Lowe injury type of offense you want to run and hopefully for one more week right and realistically implement them since there is no opponent this Sunday, you're off the Sunday, and sometimes early bye weeks you're like that, I don't love it,

but this year kind of need it. And real quick, I had my own thoughts written out on this next part here, but let's go to the pro here real quick and just hear from coach McDaniel on what the bye week does look like for him, for Tyler Huntley and for his team, but most importantly the growth of the quarterback who's still just been here for three weeks.

You have to orchestraight, you know, a lot of moving parts. And I thought he did a good job handling all that. He's done a phenomenal job really since it's been here. But it was a step forward today for sure.

win column. As the fan that I am like, hey, sue me, but I'm excited to go into Indie with the thought the concept of this being an approach that works with the current makeup of the roster and thinking ahead that if that is the case and it produces a win and you get to three and three and you get to five hundred and you weather the storm well then all of a sudden, quarterback one is eligible to return from the ir list for the Cardinals, and after that, who knows, but that that alone is enough

to at least, at the very least get me back to the point to where Seth and Og and the post game were show. Today we're saying we got Travis Beck. He's back in the saddle. So for now, yeah, I definitely am. So that's my die tribe. Let's go play by play and break this game down, because as much as it was kind of a slog, it was pretty

fun to watch as well. Dolphins kicked off the game with a fifty four yard field goal, a seven play thirty eight yard drive, and it began the way the last two games have begun, with a dig a rip to Tyreek Hill after some play action success on first down that sucked up the two linebackers and created that

window in behind that second level of the defense. And I thought we saw that today like at a level that was maybe near or closer to to a tongue of Iloa and this offense than what you saw, for instance, back in the Week three game where that element just did not exist. I'm talking about that eighteen to twenty one yard curl like deep hook range, and we saw several passes in this game go in that zone. We also saw several passes on the catch rock throw concept

to John Husmith for first downs. Catch the snap, fire the ball to your tight end off the line scrimmage.

knowledge to be able to get to this point. And I think I can't say for certain because I'm not in the huddle, I'm not in those meeting rooms, but I think what we saw on that first sack on the opening drive, when Liam kind of got beat across his face and that forced him to open that b gap up because he chased the defensive tackle inside and then Austin was put in a situation where he had two rushers on either shoulder and he had to make

a choice. And last week he made the choice to squeeze inside and let the outside rusher go, which is what you should do because the immediate threat is going to get to the quarterback quicker. And this week he went to the outside lane and he probably assumed he had more help inside than he did, but it created a free run in the B gap, and you can't play successful offense from that position on the field.

guy can break tackles. Throw it to him, and he got you back into range for a field goal and it led to a fifty four yard field goal because of that catch and run. So that was good to see Dolphins take their first lead of a game where the game was not over of the entire year right there. And they come back out on defense a three play negative five yard drive for the Patriots where they go back to back sacks. There was a green dog blitz from Jordan Brooks with a running back staying in protection.

His job is to cover that back and then if he stays in protection, go blitz because there's no one to cover in the field. Right and then Benito Jones and Emmanuel Ogbaugh and Zach Seeler all deent to the line, pushed him back and they converge for the sack on Brissett,

and then a third down play Sealer wins again. He slides right before the snap, a quick rotation pre snap from the one technique on the outside shoulder of the nose tackle or of the center, rather over to the inside shoulder of the guard, which is your two eye technique, and he dips and rips and makes quick work of that new Patriot center filling in for David Andrews, and it becomes a sack. Dolphins get off the field and

push the Patriots back. But then Miami throws a pick on the ensuing drive after they had been gifted a rather a nice situation because first of all, the way the Dolphins ran the football saying we'll get to this it was more conviction. And this is something that OJ harps on all the time with when we're watching the games, is like he wants to see guys get more north, north and south. And I know that's how it's taught in this system, particularly to kind of split defenders and

get upfield. And there's been a lot of kind of you know, running parallel to the line of scrimmage in this offense. And what I thought you saw it to say with Raheem and Jalen Wright was if it's not blocked up for the big game, they found a way to get extra yards. And the first play of this drive, which is a five to play fourteen yard drive, was Jaalen Wright getting stacked up at the point of attack.

Reek does dig it out. It creates a fourth and one situation, and the Dolphins punted, which I was so glad to see because normally I might go for it fourth and one, you should convert all of those, but in a game that was going to take on the shape of this game, great decision to punt the football, and you get reward for it because they have twelve guys in the field, But then we get the ball back.

And I thought Huntley's mistake in this game, the one big mistake he made, was he double clutched throwing a slant across face on Christian Gonzalez, and that guy is never going to let you have that pass because he's so damn good. And he jumped it on the first clutch and it created a situation where he could run under the route and catch it and make the pick. And then that's where you're thinking, I don't know how's

this game going to go? Because the Patriots get a five play forty no sorry, forty seven yard drive that results in a Ramondre Stevenson touchdown run. I noted in this thing that we had Marcus May playing really all over the field and I thought was probably one of the best Dolphins safety performances of the season so far this year, where he kind of played that Rashad Jones weak side seed gap would close it down and flatten back to the line of scrimmage and make a stop

and created a third down situation. But then this was gonna be a takeaway if a game continued this way. We just started missing tackles like Carico who had a chance out in space to make a tackle on a little swing route and he didn't make that tackle, which normally he does, and he did later in the game, but he missed this one and it turns into a

first down. Then they seal the edge on that Stevenson run Marcus May miss as a tackle, Javon Holland overruns it big time, and it just was kind of a sloppy looking player for the Dolphins defense who got hemmed in you had a bad fit from the linebacker two miss tackles in the defensive backfield, and that is the ingredients for a thirty three yard touchdown run. But it would be the only touchdown the Patriot to score on

the entire day. To take a seven to three lead, Dolphins come back and miss a forty one yard field goal, which we can't miss field goals from that range. Right, there's guys making sixty sixty five yards here in this league, and the fifty yard field goals have become like pretty routine for guys. At this point, we've had two now forty yard or forty one and forty two yard field

goals missed. This one came after a nine play forty seven yard drive where a chan got on the end around for an explosive play where Aaron Brewer peels back and bubbles the line of scrimmage and then goes and hooks the slot cornerback and pins him with a really impressive block on a run that goes for twelve yards and gets knocked out of the game right there, and pursuing with a concussion protocol, he does not return, so hopefully he'll be okay. There is a key that I

thought showed up in this drive. It was the rush land integrity where Huntley had a drop back where the Patriots rush fanned out and there was nobody in the B gap, and then the edge rusher took off upfield and Austin just obliged him and ran him around the entire formation, and Huntley was able to attack the line of scrimmage and throw a ball downfield into this massive vacancy for a wide open.

to the missfield goals. So that's what I'm talking about her this offense, and kind of where I took from this game was there was a lot of progress and of signs in this game that this Dolphins offense can maybe find out what it looks like without two a tongue.

the best players in the National Football League. The Patriots do get back on schedule for a third and six play, but we get a Chop Robinson looping twist inside to put a hit on Brissett. And you have Jalen Ramsey, who was awesome in this game, playing the point man on trips. So he's gonna take the first release to the perimeter, and he takes that route and he goes right in the hip pocket and creates this minuskill window that Brissett has to hit while he's being hit by Chop.

Can't do it. Punt the ball back to the Dolphins. Miami gets it back. We'll go ahead and continue of the podcast after this, because we're.

good runs. But then we get a four play sequence where Aaron Brewer gets hit for a hold. You have an illegal shift that gets declined, an illegal blindside block on Leak Washington that maybe I don't understand the rule well enough. I thought it was pretty cool football, but he was going back towards his own line of scrimmage, so I get the letter of the law there.

didn't and it almost costs us a possession there. And the week before that there was a thirty seven yard net yard penalty that was on duke and special teams. So he's had a rough run here and on this one it causes a block punt that put the Patriots back in position to score points.

the Dolphins, again Zach Seeler causes another holding call. Benito has a free run on the A gap and can't quite get Brissette to the ground, but it does cause an eight yard completion, and then cater Kohu bounces back after the mistackle and makes a tackle for loss on a loss of three to create a third and fifteen play, and they just go give up with the draw call and then they missed the field goals that was great

to see. Miami gets it back and continues to pick up more yards on the offense with a John wu Smith catch and run on a glance, a play action rip to waddle off of the face fake toss action which I thought was again more in corporation of what's working, and then wrinkling off of that off the overplay with the play action game. So I thought for coach McDaniel, his best game was a designer and play caller in this one. And they're also getting pushed off the line of scrimmage, moving.

he was. It would have been at least twenty yards if not more, but they miss and then we get I think the best throw from Tyler Huntley is a Miami dolphin when they send a pressure package and Raheem runs an angle route, a Texas route, and that's where he starts in the backfield and runs towards the perimeter and then angles back inside. It's called an arrow route.

There's different different for a beach for different offenses. And he runs across the face of the linebacker and Huntley under this pressure kind of falls off the throw and buys extra time. Every tenth of a second matters when

you're hot against the blitz like that. And he throws a ball with anticipation right on the upfield shoulder for a completion and we get that first down and then we end up not converting after that, so we end up stapping the ball of the quarterback's head and coach said that Aaron Brewer had heard a cadence that he thought was Tyler, it was not, and he snaps the ball over his head. We blow that drive as well, So it's like Miami could have blown this game out.

And I think that's the encouraging part is you got the win with the mistakes, because now hopefully with the bye week, some more familiarity for the quarterback in the offense, maybe guys kind of set it out a little bit and realize where we are and kind of go forward from here. Maybe you can start to patch together some of those issues and the way the defense is playing, maybe you can go on a run and win some football games. It's kind of how I view this whole thing.

The Patriots get the ball back and they go three and out right away. Again, defense is playing awesome. Right There was perfect coverage by cater Coh who I thought had his best game of the year, where he pins the man to the sideline and we get good coverage and the rush shuts that play down for an incompletion.

with a raheem block off the edge. He catches that out route and I don't know what the heck gulyant Tovao was doing there because he jumped inside like a pick and roll on basketball and just let John new Smith go up the sideline. It puts us down the twenty eight yard line, and John who's catching passes, he's chip releasing, he's running after the catch, looks like the guy that we were all fired up to sign back.

ground too. Like sometimes coming out of the locker room break can be tough on either side of the ball. Sometimes it just as who makes the better adjustments or maybe who's more ready to play in those moments. I don't really know how to track that, but Stevenson had a twenty yard run, and then they had a third and five conversion right on the edge of field goal range with a pass from Brissett to Pop Duck because I think it was. And that was after you know,

Ramsey had drawn a holding call. Who played really good by the way he was playing off the edge and kind of reset the blocker on the perimeter and they held him. And then he ran by Brissette on the next play and like reached out and kind of like slapped him across the face and it got flagged for fifteen yards and that creates a Patriots field goal on that drive to go ten three up, and you're thinking, like, ah, gosh, offense has been so hard to come by. Can we

recover from this? And that's a legit question when you're only scoring ten points per game, right, But Miami would still find twelve more points in the game, including three on the next drive and eight play fifty six yard field goal drive for a thirty two yard kick, and.

gets horse collar tackled. Then he makes something out of a run that looked like it had nothing where he gets five behind a good block from Toront Armstead, but the interior pressure made it look like he was gonna go nowhere on the play, it is really good to have Raheem Moster back in the field, and then we tossed out to john Us Smith and it's like I kind of felt like it was working there with Raheem and even Geelan Wright, and then he tossed the tight end and he goes for a loss. It's just like,

go back to that and they would later on. So that was good to learn from that mistake. I thought in that moment it was a mistake. Third and six, roughing the quarterback extends to drive, so we had a twelve yard drive that had thirty extra yards of penalties, which was nice to see. But then we get back to third and nine and Huntley scrambles and throws for Tyreek probably should have been picked off in the end

zone by Christian Gonzalez, it was not. They kick a field goal after Tyreek almost catches the fade route up the sideline.

that play and rolled right into pressure. You heard the broadcast talk about like you have a trust your offensive lineman sometimes and again that's communication and time with guys that I think will get better as time goes along. Here, then third and thirteen, twelve yard passed to Waddle on the comeback.

and get that ball back for good field position. They rip a big run, and really the big runs they had were on the perimeter where they would steal the edge.

Ramsey's all over the receiver. We Blitze heated up make it incomplete. And that's how the rest of the game kind of went for the Dolphins defense. They get it back to the offense down by one and they go fifteen plays eighty yards, seven and a half minutes to the football, capped off by a two y yard alec Ingle touchdown run. And this is after a leam Meikenberg hold makes it first and twenty. But then we rip

that comeback route. It's that you can run the nine from there, you can run the post, you can convert it to a curl on the deep hook, and that's exactly what Tyreek Hill does for twenty yards. A big conversion there to move the chains, and then we get

more Jalen Wright Pyle pushing. He creates a third and five on a second down run that was not there, and then Huntley moves a little bit and rips this pass to john Us Smith for a first down on that little like check chip release route that he ran after Huntley had created a little bit with his legs, So that was great to see catch and run for a first down.

the minus forty three. We missed the speed out to John WUIs Smith on the next play, so it's third and thirteen and then the third and thirteen play is a quick hitter, but they're not lined up right and the linebacker was a slot receiver for a fresh set of downs of defensive pass interference well shore of the sticks, and I just wrote down, you have to go capitalize here. That's a massive mistake. You have to make them pay

for it. And sure enough, Jalen Wright hits another big run behind an alec ingole block gets out the gate. Then Raheem hits one then back to right for a ten yard run down to the two yard line and from there, Ingold takes it in for the touchdown. So they've had this mix of writing and most hurt. That was really cranking all day long, and the common theme there was behind alec Ingold, who had the touchdown, almost got the two point conversion, but just could not get free of that edge rusher.

Locked up the Jalen Polk touchdown. I knew that rule in the moment, and then I kind of forgot about it there as it happened, and then they quickly overturned it, so that was obviously an out of bounds play.

it's pretty good, right. The Dolphins had no runs of plus fifteen coming into the game.

we haven't even done statute. Let's go ahead and rectified that real quick, live here and get you the Dolphins stats.

We were sacked three times and only had two sacks, and the Patriots had twelve penalties for one oh five compared to our six for fifty four.

thirteen for eighty six, Moster had nineteen for eighty. The team had forty one runs for a buck nine three. I think you can build upon that going forward. In fact, let's go ahead and hear from this from coach on this, because the general takeaway is the run game and something to build on here. I think that this commentary from coach about to me everything looking sharper.

Let's go ahead and hear from McDaniel on something alec Ingold said about command Tyler Huntley has in the huddle. Here's coach following up one that sentiment after the game.

leave certainty from the huddle. And then on on top of that that, you know, every single play his technique and fundamentals, you know, I think you know I'm connected with So when after the ball is snapped, whatever coverage is presented, you know you have an idea where the ball should go, and you're watching his technique through to the defensive structure, and you know, I you I can tell.

I could tell all week that he was going to operate in a high fashion, but I could feel during the game simply through his teammates and how they're approaching each play even if it was run, and it was with conviction to the line of scrimmage on almost every snap. I think we did have one pre snap motion penalty, but beyond that, it was that was much proof from the week before.

possible completion, and then running that thing off. I thought Jordan Brooks made some have all big plays. I thought Jaylen Ramsey was fantastic, Kendall Fuller as well. I thought Cater had his best game of the season. And I just thought the defense was really really good, especially with how they mix their coverages and their pressures up front. That third and fourth down call on the penultimate drive just Chef's kiss baby, keep it going. Number three is

the operation can still be better? Right, clean some things up the sequences. I talked about illegal shift, illegal blindside block, block punt after a hold, we had a first down and plus territory, then got hit with a hole that resets the entire drive. That big Jalen Right run of the fourth quarter comes back on a holding call that

I didn't agree with. But man, I just think there's so much talent that shows up every single which I think kind of adds to the frustration of kind of getting stuck behind the eight ball because this team has shot themselves in the foot too frequently this year, and I think that the upshot is, man, they can clean that stuff up. There's a lot of talent here and a lot of wins to be had if they can do that. Number four special teams have been have just been a problem. Man.

one yard attempt. There was a tweet by Marcel Luis Jock from ESPN that had some stats since twenty twenty two on Dolphins special teams twenty fifth and yards per punt twenty sixth and yards per kick return sixteenth and yards per punt return, twenty eighth in field goal percentage, and tied for second on field goals blocked, and at the time of the tweet, the Dolphins had forty four penalties on the year, and twelve of those came from special teams. So that just has to get cleaned up.

Because if we're gonna play these games with good defense and a good running game and a quarterback that man the game, you have to win on special teams. And we did not do that today, and this game could have been a much more comfortable win had you done that on special teams. My fifth takeaway is it has looked a certain way. I get trepidation, but just look at where you.

Ingle was more downhill. I thought Raheem Moster brought back a certain attitude to your running game.

it all in front of them. If they can build on what they did late in the game offense and keep being what they've been doing on defense all year long, and get special teams going in the right direction as well.