Drive Time: Dolphins Jets Week 12 Preview

on one the ten scale. I thought that they talked more than any team that hadn't accomplished anything and anybody else ever in National Football League history, I thought.

winning the AFC East. But then the Jets fans on Twitter talking about the Dolphins like they were also rams just did not sit well with me because now as we move on here and the Dolphins have dealt with their injuries and they lost Aaron Rodgers, but that rest of that roster has not carried their team the way you would think a good football team would, right, So it always stuck in my craw that way, and right now they're reeling jokes on them, but also the games

on national TV, on a game that most people are going to watch as they're coming back from their shopping spreeze and setting in for another round of turkey Sandy's and firing up their prime accounts to watch some professional football. Who cares about some of these college games? You want to watch pro football every week. I want to blow a team out, but the smile that will be ingrained on my stupid face for the next nine days if we go up there and win a game thirty four

to six. Have you guys seen the horror film Smile. I think it's a twenty twenty two vehicle, perhaps twenty twenty one. You know, it's basically the premise is the demon possesses your body and then you smile at people and that's how they kill you or something.

I think is going to be very special. I think this could be one of our favorite footnotes in the Dolphins and Jets rivalry. Let's go ahead and meet these guys real quick, and we always start at the quarterback position, where it just didn't pan out for this team in any sense, and in fact, it derailed their entire season. But I do want to make the point that the offense had plenty of issues outside of the quarterback position.

In fact, somebody on Twitter wrote back to me I said that they think the offensive line is the bigger culprit for this Jets failure on offense. And I agree with the premise that the injuries and their production has been awful.

didn't work. It was I never had more conviction on a negative draft grade on a player than this guy, especially after watching him last season and for the Jets to bring him back as the backup guy and then to not make a move to go get somebody in four plays into your season. When you lose Aaron Rodgers, thanks, you know, I mean, you gave the keys to the franchise to a narcissistic, ego maniac quarterback who makes all the decisions for you. And I'm sure you guys have seen,

you know, ghost of Adam Gayze on Twitter. My buddy, right, I don't even know his real name, but that's my guy. He posted a theory about Aaron Rodgers. He got that from me. We were having a conversation in DMS. That's my theory. If you watched Hard Knocks in the summer edition, you saw how Rogers is the owner, the GM, the head coach, and the quarterback of that team. Right, there was a moment on the sideline where Rogers had the

headset on. Salah did to and Sawa said something kind of lightheartedly and Rogers like disagreed, and Sala immediately changed his position to agree with his quarterback, because Aaron Rodgers surrounds himself in his entire life with yes men. Why do you think they didn't get a quarterback after Rogers got injured? Why do you think they would do that,

Brian Winhorse, Why would they do that? We couldn't have a new guy come in and spark the team and lead them to the postseason, right, Because if that happens and it takes Aaron Rodgers two or three games next September to get back to being the former version of himself, then you're gonna have Jets fans who are not hesitating at all to boo Rogers off the field and call

for Josh Dobbs or not Joe Flacco. But you get the point, right, And that's something that his vanity would just simply not allow for so really, like Farv giving us Pennington was the best thing that happened to this franchise in the eight years post the Marino retirement, Rogers going to the Jets is maybe the next best thing the Jets have done for us because it caused them

to sink another year of any defense. And if you've got time, go ahead and check out how often elite defenses in today's NFL, even in the century, sustain their production over the course of three years. You're lucky to get too, very lucky to get too top notch defensive performances, and back to back years. You almost never get three unless you're talking about like Baltimore two thousand, but even that was different era. Tampa Bay two thousand and two,

that's also a different era. Seattle and the Oughts. That's about the closest you get to that, and the Niners are pretty good right now. But defense is hard to sustain. Right My friends listen to the show can confirm this. I've been saying it since well I'm not sure when exactly, but anyone that had eyeballs, that's most of you, and a baseline level of football knowledge. That's a majority of

a minority of football watchers right on this podcast. Though that's not you because you listen to this podcast because you know ball, but casual watchers don't have that, right. But if you had those two things, you knew you knew it was so obvious. You knew that Zach Wilson was not capable of leading an NFL offense.

clue with football and who does not. Because people that think that a no look past here and there or a cool, you know, frozen rope shot.

bottom five. But you've seen Dolphins teams that had really good defense and really bad offense, and what happens annually to those teams, the defense wears down. I said that was coming for this Jets team. I hoped it would happen before this game, and it happened the game before this game Sunday in Buffalo. Effort was down, the Levy broke these guys.

Angeles Rams. They go Gore for three, Gore for eight, first down, Gore for four, Gore for no gain, third and six, dump off to Frank Gore breaks two tackles and gets to the first down marker. They go into victory formation. They won the next week as well, but they already had taken themselves off the first pick of the draft with that victory and that game. Right there is the difference between pick number one and pick number two and Trevor Lawrence and Zach Wilson.

lot of successful teams. I think we'd be in real trouble. Not in trouble, but we would have a real fight for the division on our hands right now. If Justin Fields was a quarterback of the New York Jets, but they Joe Zach Wilson and now he's QB three after they stayed with.

They built a top flight defense using a combination of the draft and free agency. Like in free agency DJ Reed, CJ. Moseley, Quincy Williams, and then in the draft with Michael Carter, Bryce Huff, Michael Carter the second off the running back. They cut Quinn Williams, one of the best in the league, John Frankly Myers in the draft. All those guys have been fantastic for them. It's just been the complete opposite

on offense. And I have very little doubt that Mackai Becton would be a Pro Bowl caliber player if his health did not betray him annually just got Carter off versus Buffalo. But luckily for him and I'm brutin for the kid, just won the two weeks for his injury, so he'll miss this game, but he'll be back this year for the Jets.

had his own health issues. They brought in Billy Turner, who's been in fourteen camps since last year. Seems like Dennis Kelly was in season free agent signing as well. They signed Dalvin Cook to par with Breeze Hall. He averages three point three yards per carry and the lowest yards above expected.

had available to you. He is right next JaMarcus Russell, and I'm taking him because at least Russell, you know what, never mind, Yeah, it's very close, but I'm taking Wilson as a bigger bust vera Tucker second straight year on season ending, ir that's just bad luck, Elijah Moore if they traded him away for pennies, Michael Carter, you cut him for what, I don't know.

badly about that because I was wrong too. Jabari's and Ninga remember he had like a crazy bad workout or something like that, and he dropped all the way to the third round. They still drafted him and he got cut like the next year, the next season, and then with five Day three picks, only one is still around their cornerback for Bryce Hall. So yeah, that's what bad drafting looks like for all you weirdo Greer haters up there. Let's go ahead and get to the storylines for this game.

First ever Black Friday game, and I keep hearing people ask because anybody who played on Friday before, Yeah, it's happened a lot. Actually, In fact, Dolphins fans. You should know this. Two thousand and five, and I'm weird. I remember these dates like Mike McDaniel does. Two thousand and five, there was a hurricane in town and they pushed the game up to Friday night, and I'll never forget following the game on my like flip one of those like flip phones on the Little Dots game cast against the

Kansas City Chiefs. Fronnie Briden had like a sixty five yard touchdown run, but we lost by like two touchdowns. It was a bad game. But it's not the first ara of Black Friday or not. It's the first ever Black Friday game. It's not the first Friday game. But short week on the road is always going to be a test. That's the biggest obstacle. I think this week you're most likely just walking through. They'll have one practice

this week. Coaching matters even more in these games, so a big test for McDaniel, Fangio and the entire staff. I am curious to see what the environment's like. I know what it will look like. If they were six and four, it would be tough. But these last two losses, the quarterback change a holiday, I wonder what the crowd noise situation is going to be like up there. In fact, let's go ahead and check out the weather report. I think it's supposed to be like forty five degrees. Sorry,

I'm doing this live, guys. My apologies East Rutherford on Thursday. Oh nice, the rain subsides by Thursday. But yeah, it's forty two low, fifty two high. So yeah, right around forty five degrees. It's that's a little chilly, but they'll be all right. Next story line two of versus the Jets. He's only two an ONUS career.

two to zero. It was a sweep in twenty twenty one, and I thought his best game that year, Pampa game was pretty good. But I thought the way he can, you know he can torn it himself against the Jets in that road game was really impressive.

over and over, go get more stops. It is challenging. It wears you down. They held up as one of the top defenses in the NFL through the first nine games, then the Levy snapped right. I am very, very very curious to see what the Jets look like in this game. I'm inclined to think it will be bad. I think their performance here will dictate what this team is in the final seven games and ultimately decide if Robert Salah gets another year. I think Joe Douglas already has a

very tough, uphill battle to come back next year. Too many bad drafts, too much Aaron Rodgers GMing going on there to survive that.

in your Week two road game. Week one was back and forth, and that was a different game because our defense wasn't what it is right now, but we had the explosive offense. But two and zero on the road, can we get back in the win column there? And I would love to see a clean operation, no wasted timeout, it's no false starts, no pre snap stuff. Just be clean on the road and you should have success in this game. Let's go ahead and take our first break right there and come back on the other side and

talk Dolphins offense first Jets defense. That's next Drive Time Podcast, your host Travis Wingfield, brought to you by I don't Know, Segment two on.

played twenty percent. Also on the edge inside the guys against the Barrioses of the world, Durham Spice of the world is Michael Carter the second sixty three percent of the snaps and Brandon Eckles has played thirteen percent. If you add those up, it equals their entire nickel defense basically, so there's your two guys that have played pretty much every snap of every game when they're in that nickel package. And then up front it's pretty good too. Quinton Williams

is just a beast seventy percent of the snaps. John Franklin Myers is also a beast fifty nine percent of the snaps. Quentin Jefferson's played fifty percent, and then Solomon Thomas has paid thirty six percent of the snaps. It's good, it's deep, it's strong, it's aggressive, it's one gap penetrate.

our running backs is CJ. Moseley, who does not leave the field every single snap. And then Quincy Williams has really blossomed into a good player for them. So I mentioned the injuries at safety's there. Michael Carter missed the Buffalo game. He's like, it's a big drop off from him to the rest of their slot cover guys, so if he can't go.

the entire team. I would say that Gardner, Reed and Carter is the number two cornerback trio for me behind Ramsey X and Coho. The scheme is a lot like what you get here what you got in San Francisco. I should say where Sla cut his teeth as a defensive coordinator.

And that's why I think it's important that Miami makes them do that, make them get out of their their you know they're too high look and force them to bring somebody down to play the run extra hat in the bucks. I think it's important for this Dolphins offense, not just in this game, but for the rest of the year, to get the perimeter run game going. Make

those corners tackle. Sauce doesn't want to tackle. DJ reads pretty good at but Sauce doesn't want to tackle, make that one gap rush, hesitate, just one step.

it was forty to seventeen. It looked like a blowout, but the Dolphins were kicking a field goal in the fourth quarter potentially take a lead.

you want to run man coverage against this team. I think the Jets will want to generate pressure with four and get their backers into those hooks, those deep hook and deep curl flat zones and make Miami push the ball to the perimeter. So attacking the edge is not just a run game focal point for me this week. It's a passing game idea too. In fact, some splits that tell that story. Buffalo ran why off either tackle

last week nineteen times for seventy five yards? That will go a long way if you can get that production, and then you know, if you have one more run that pops like a fifty yard or all of a sudden like that changes the entire game. Right, and Raheem Moster and Devon a Chan if he plays both very capable of that. Vegas the week before sixteen for fifty seven. Not crazy. It's still better than four yards of pop, right,

is it? I don't know math fifteen thirty two for no, it's just under four yards of pop. But you can see that's where teams have had their success. Both Vegas and Buffalo had the less than thirty percent success right run of the football inside against this very stout interior defense of the Jets. As far as the passing game, O'Connell went seven for ten for ninety two yards and a touchdown throwing the ball outside the numbers against this

Jets defense. Josh Allen last week was eleven for fifteen with eighty five yards, and both of his touchdowns came on throwing the ball outside the numbers. I think you can get that with your matchups I e. Waddle and Barrios on those speedouts if Bracs can go. Of course, those longer developing over routes cont will be missed for the pick against the Raiders in that game. Working off the play pass and those, you know, you kind of stretch the roof of the defense then sneak that over

out in their underneath vacated coverage. I love those concepts. We can get them cranking and if you get your run game going. You can get to those plays, of course, the comebacks and deep outs to Tyreek, and then of course the screen game. The key names to focus on here for the Jets, Bryce Huff will rush the majority of the time against Tarron Armstead.

was an issue on Sunday. I like it when Rob and Austin can deal with you know, JFM and the rest of the boys they have up there who want to reset the line of scrimmage.

next week, Debron Payton, Jonathan Allen, then Jeffrey Simmons and then Quinn Williams again. So it's gonna be a run of good dtackles here for Connor Williams.

to all fields like downhill sidelines, getting depth. That's why I think it's imperative to get them moving side to side to the mixture passing game from the inside out stretch it wide stretch at verdegt or horizontally space them out and then hit those you know, timing routes over the middle. Raheem is great at doing this at those guys out with speed, but also having the vision to get certain gaps and catching the football and the perimeter.

And then Devon Hen obviously hopefully we have him for the same reasons. Also, I think we're gonna cook sauce. Sauce is gonna be cooking up his own sauce in

this game. He's too grabby. Use our motion. Maybe they do a little bit less study this week as they are in f it mode, Like that's kind of how I think they're gonna come out, get our motion, going test their communication and their will and how much they actually put into game planning this week on a short week, and get some clean releases to get explosives and get flags. My prediction here is we see two field flipping flags

against an aggressive Jets secondary. This is the real premier side of the matchup.

Alan Lazard eighty one percent. They'll go up against Ramsey and Howard, and then on the inside co who's gonna get Xavier Gibson who plays thirty one percent of the snaps and the tight ends Tyler Conklin and cj Usama sixty nine and thirty eight percent of the snaps respectively. Their offensive line is gonna go like this. Carter Warren is a rookie left tackle, play his first action on

Sunday against the Bills. Lake and Thomasin's left guard, Joe Tipman's the center, The right guard is Chris Glasser, who the right.

get rookie Joe Tipman into the lineup. Billy Turner, you guys remember him, he was an in season signing. He missed the last game with an injury, and Austin Declis was also inactive for the Buffalo game, so look a change had to happen at quarterback right. This offense was again historically bad statistically, but the offensive line attrition plays a big part of that. They lined up with a

rookie third round pick, Carter Warren last week. He should started the game against US here, and then Chris Glasser is a UDFA from twenty twenty two on his fourth team in one and a half years. Tipman the second round draft pick Thomainson, a big free agent acquisition who has not worked out, and then Max Mitchell was a fourth round pick last year who has not played that well.

You're just not going to develop continuity with that many injuries, and most teams don't even have five quality players in this position group, so to expect them to get any production from guys like eight, nine and ten is asking a whole heck of a lot. They're down to backups at just about every position. It's tough to make a living that way. Personnel usage eleven personnel, one back, one tight end, three receivers is two thirds of their offense

sixty six percent. They run two tight ends sixteen percent of the time. That's twelve personnel. They go thirteen personnel nineteen percent of the time, So that's that might be a little bit more new recently, and I think they might see more of that going into this game with the offensive line issues, maybe some more two man route

combos and max protection. And they also run twenty one personnel six point seven percent of the time, but that has gone down because it was a lot of haul and cook early on, but now cook doesn't play.

of my game that I lean on. Just trying to get the ball out, not forcing things into coverage. There's a part of the game where taking a sack is better than trying to jam it into coverage and throwing an interception. So I think I bring I just get the ball out quick. It takes a lot of heat off the offensive line, It gets our playmakers the ball in space. We have some guys that can make some

people miss. So like, even his own assessment of his own game is confusing, like do you eat sacks because they're better than picks, which sounds like Zach Wilson, Or do you get it out fast? And getting the ball out quick. Without a real run game and no real threat of a vertical game. I think Miami crowds the line of scrimmage and makes life very, very tough on him. It has just been a slog for this group for all those reasons. Quarterback play has been atrocious, the worst

we've ever seen. The skill group hasn't had anyone step up beyond the star of the group and Garrett Wilson, and he has injuries, and the offensive line injuries have been insurmountable. So they turned Tim Boyle in hopes of turning these trends around right. They scored a single touchdown in their last forty six possessions. That was a touchdown and a lop sided game in Buffalo on Sunday, and it was already sixteen nothing at that point in the second half. The touchdown was their first on a drive

that started in their own territory since Week five. Guys, it's week twelve, two months, and that was a one play drive of seventy two yards a run by Breeze Hall that went to the house. Since then, they have

four drives that scored touchdowns on sixty six drives. It was a seventy two yard run from Breeze Hall, a one play drive that was an eight yard touchdown run after a turnover in the Philly game that again was Breeze Hall, a fifty yard pass from Zach Wilson, a check down to Breese Hall that he took the rest of the way, and then an eleven play drive in Buffalo for eighty four yards and a touchdown. So, spoiler,

two of your keys to victory are right there. Tackle Breeze Hall and do not give them a short field by turning the football over. Some more final notes and numbers here. That left tackle I mentioned the rookie has a ninety pass block efficiency that is eight points below what you want to be. It's not good. Tomlinson ninety five to five. That is three points below where you should be at left guard. Tipman ninety eight point one.

Pretty good. Most centers are above that pretty good. Glasser ninety six point one that is two points below where you want to be. And then Max Mitchell ninety five two. That's just all three points below where you want to be.

to the field. Just stay where you are, help on that side, and then just dominate all your one on ones that you have vastly, vastly superior players at I think we come out of this game with multiple takeaways I mentioned I come back to the sack production. I think five plus sacks. I think they shut the offense out. That's my call. What's at stake, big, big game, man. It's always important to win divisional games, especially on the road. This would give us a two to one divisional mark

in the road this year. We did it in twenty twenty one, I sent a tweet out that was wrong and deleted Dick, I'm a freaking idiot. The last time before that was twenty sixteen. It was the last time we won double digit games and made the playoffs in the same year, So go figure. The playoff leverage scale says similar importance. And even though ESPN Analytics has Miami right now at ninety seven percent to make the playoffs, that's because the expected wins are baked into that and

that includes this game. But going off the Great Summer Sports Leverage Scale, a win vault Miami into ninety percent, while I lost keeps them right around seventy five percent, So a pretty big sliding scale, or fifteen percent. If Miami holds Serve in the division and then wins just one game between Washington, Tennessee, Dallas and Baltimore the other

four games on the schedule. They win the division at a four and three finish where you beat the Jets twice and the Bills Miami would have an eleven and six record and a five and one divisional record with is split against the Bills Buffalo by virtue of the loss to us, we then have six losses minimum and would be three and three in the division, and we win the tiebreaker. But of course we have bigger sights, so that's kind of relevant right now. The AFC division

leaders have the following conference records. This is where my mind is focused more than Buffalo Bills. They're already in the rearview mirror to me, never look back at those guys. Baltimore's eight and three, Case, Jacksonville, Miami are all seven and three as far as conference records. Baltimore's five and three, Case's five and one, but they own the head to head tie breakers, so this is irrelevant here. You must

have a better record than Case. You also can beat Baltimore in week eighteen to get yourself a better record there. But Jacksonville's also five and two in conference, which means We're going to have to rely on tie breakers if it comes down to that, because we do not play them head to head this year. This is also fun,

totally irrelevant. If we win the game, we'll own the one seed going into play on Sunday, but a win by KC over Vegas, or a win by Baltimore over the Chargers or a win by Jacksonville over Houston takes that spot right back away. But of course a loss by any of those teams would bump us up one spot in the AFC seeding. Makes sense, so a big game. Gotta win these ones down the stretch. Hopefully we run

the table. I think we can, but truthfully, if we were to drop one of the games, the best ones would be Washington or Dallas because their NFC games keep winning all the games, but especially the conference games. My key's to victory. We heard them already tackle Breeze Hall. We spelled it out for you guys. They've scored when he gets going for explosive plays. Otherwise they don't score. He has three hundred and eighty yards of his five to forty four are after initial contact, and he's forced

twenty one missed tackles. He's forced twelve more on his thirty one catches. Get him to the ground, and their offense goes nowhere. Protect the football is number two again. To that point, the Jets have done a good job capitalizing on short fields, but long fields means they cannot score touchdowns. Don't make it easy on that. Don't turn the ball over. You're gonna win this game. It's that simple number three attack the edges of the Jets defense.

Winning the edge and the running game keeps us ahead of the chains. It neutralizes their pass rush and their heavy flooding of the middle of the football field zones opens up chances outside. When outside the numbers win the game. Areas of concern protect toua in true dropback situations. Just keep too a healthy. We should be okay. Those middle of the field players getting hands on football is also a little bit of a concern. They're areas to exploit

literally every single matchup when they have the football. Then on our offense, aggressiveness of their corners and the perimeter running game and passing game.

the Miami offense right now. Not because I don't think they can do it, because I think the injuries on the interior line have drafts change their ability to run the football and protect in true drop back situations. But then also like, are you going to let one awful predictions sway your confidence?

than last week. I think we hit some explosive plays, some big penalties as well, have more punts than I like, but put together two full length drives for six score once on defense, score on a short field, kick, a field goal or safety, something like that. Thirty nothing. That's

the game. That's the prediction. That's the podcast today. We'll come back tomorrow with the great Ryan Fitzpatrick on the show breaking down this game well, also picked the games and here from assistant coaches and heading to a game on Friday. In the meantime, you all please be sure to subscribe to the podcast on Apple, on Spotify, wherever you get your podcast from going Ahad and Lewis are rating.