Drive Time: Dolphins Set More Records in 31-16 Route over the Giants

which we'll talk about in this podcast. But the Dolphins through the first five games of the season are just a yard shy of twenty six hundred yards, and that is the most all time through five weeks, eclipsing the nineteen ninety nine You guys might recall that team the Saint Louis Rams the Greatest Show on Turf with Kurt Warner, Marshall Falk, Isaac Bruce, Tory, holt Oz hakim Man. What a fun group that was to watch. Well, this Miami

Dolphins team, statistically is more fun. Based on the numbers of the first five games, almost twenty six hundred yards through five games, and Miami got a bunch of those in this one.

red zone mishaps. You have one game against the Buffalo Bills that don't go the way you want it to, but by and large, this Dolphins team has just been cooking all year long. Hopefully it continues, but through the first five games it has been just that twenty two first downs to Miami's fifteen. Miami just three for eight on third down. But this is an offense that hasn't really faced a lot of third downs this season because they've been so prolific on first and second down.

Miami nearly doubled up the Giants total yards two to sixty eight for the Big Blue to Miami's five to twenty four. They had one eighty three passing, they had eighty five on the ground compared to Miami's two twenty two, and they ran at twelve more plays. Checked that fourteen more plays at sixty eight than the Miami Dolphins did. And how often do you have a game where you have three giveaways and no takeaways and you win pretty comfortably.

I'm not sure that's what happened today. The Dolphins do sack Daniel Jones seven times and eventually actually sent him to the locker room.

those down more on tomorrow's podcast. We'll talk about it. Today's well though, but a one hundred or one hundred point four passer rating on the day to Von Hgen eleven carries for a buck fifty one, another touchdown, Hee most are at ten for sixty five, another touchdown, Tyreek Hill eight for one eighty one and a touchdown, and Waddle gets on the board with his first touchdown. And how about Cedric Wilson four for fifty two in his biggest day as a Miami Dolphin. Offensively so far, so yeah,

the numbers keep on coming. Man, Let's go ahead and actually go back to twa tongue by Low who was asked after the game about the ability to post those.

post that many yards when maybe they weren't their sharpest.

I think the Brokers got a field goal. The Bills score on their opening drive, but the Dolphins defense comes out first and puts it right to the Giants, who got a first down. But then quickly we're kind of knocked off that pace. And I thought there was a good variety and a good mixture of kind of getting

some guys back into the fold. I thought Deshaun Elliott's return paid dividends, and we saw that come into play immediately with a scrape off the edge for a run stuff in that opening drive, we saw Cater Kohu kick back inside with Eli appleback on the outside getting some

significant playing time there. Obviously, Andrew Van Gigle gives you lots of snaps in this game without Jalen Phillips, and we'll see when he comes back board a shot in the arm for the defense he will be I mean, you could argue your two of your best players on defense will be coming back to this team here, whether it's you know, sooner than later with Jalan Phillips and Jalen Ramsey. But that's a point for a different day. But I thought you also saw lots of variety in

terms of new fronts. We saw a pretty heavy bear front where you have a defender over the center and two defenders over either guard.

Bethel coming out of the field. I just thought you got lots of variety early on, and that was the case throughout the day. And they played a good game plan, a patient game plan to help them put themselves in situations to go make plays, which they did in this game to Alph look at the ball back on offense and go right down the field, which we're used to seeing. That eight plays eighty nine yards and it was all screens and plays off the edge in quick hitters, and

it was an impressive game plan. We'll talk about that here in just a moment more. But consistently good blocking off the edge, consistent good blocking from the tackles, and obviously the guard, I mean everyone was involved in all that action. But I love the trickeration. You go Dwaddle in the backfield, a twenty four yard end around for

Devon h Chan. Let's see Austin Jackson gets twenty yards on the field freight the big block on twenty yard screen pass to Waddle Tua has that quick hitro as Hedrick Wilson for twenty three yards, just all kinds of space, and I thought McDaniels in his bag early to get that early seven points on the board. The Giants take the ball back and miss a field goal after a couple of third down conversions, but then the final third down on third and seven, Ogbaugh and Wilkins getting immediately

for a combined sack there on Daniel Jones. Some tackling issues on that play. There was a couple of plays that got out the gate because they had him wrapped up, and he wound up getting bonus yards after slipping some tackles, but it didn't cost them because the Giants missed the field goal.

up ball security part of that. Dolphins would have three giveaways on the day and that drive ends early because of that. But then you get a immediate defensive stop there from Miami to hold the Giants to a three and out. Nearly had a special team's air there, which again goes into the bag of corrections you can make,

and eleventh man ran off the field. They flagged the Dolphins for it, but it was actually our They flged him for a twelve minut of the field who couldn't get off, but it was actually the eleventh guy that couldn't get off, So we were out there.

own end zone. He gets pressure off his left and the rusher actually gets a piece of to a shoulder and kind of yanks at him, but to a you know, good strong bass stands in there and doesn't go down on the hit, climbs in the pocket, attacks the lion of scrimmage, and throws the football into Tyreek Hill for a first down, which you know, if he doesn't complete that, it's third and ten backed up, or if he gets sacked,

it's potentially a safety. Maybe third and you know, seventeen from your own one yard line, that's not a good position to be in. And the reason it's played before the play is the very next play is a hat on a hat block across the board for Devon Achan to go seventy six yards. Boy, what an angle eraser he was. You watch that game on the broadcast or that play on the broadcast, I should say he those guys had the angle on him, but not for long

because he ran right by him. And you see that urgency almost pick up, and the defender like, okay, I got this play. Oh no, there he goes, and sure enough, there he goes. He is just impossible to catch him the back. He and Tyreek Hill continue to rewrite the top speeds in the National Football League this year in terms of how fast they run at their fastest. So the Dolphins get out to a fourteen to nothing start.

The Giants answer back and get a field goal after I thought Van Ginkel had one of his most impressive reps of another very impressive game where he stacked and shed had his eyes in the quarterback, pursued downhill on Daniel Jones and swallowed the ball back in his face. Deseean Han gets a pressure. Then they get three plays from Eli Apple in a row, two good, one not

so much. The first was a really good pass breakup on Darren Waller, but then he gives inside access on a slant for a first down, and then he comes down and makes a play on the following play for a run stop there to create a third nine situation. They didn't go after Xavi and Howard on Darren Waller on a slot fade and he makes a great breakup after a first down for the Giants. And then Zach Stealler has back to back reps where he splits double teams, one for a TfL one for a sec just consistently

collapsing the interior of this Giants line. They came in banged up, Miami took advantage and harassed them all day long upfront, and Zach Sealer actually got my game ball on the postgame show I do with Seth and OJ because I was just so impressed with how he consistently was in there against running plays, pressure in the backfield, and passing plays. Just a great player. Zach Sealer has

become here for your Miami Dolphins. They kicked the field goal, Miami takes it back and all of a sudden, like this half is moving along super fast, and the Dolphins take it right down the field. They have a first and goal from the four or I think this, I think it was the four yard line. They get a short run and then the incomplete pass and it should have been DPI on Waddle in the corner of the end zone with a defender not even looking at the football,

but they don't call it. And the next row, Tua tries to jam one into to Waddle, it gets tipped into the air and picked off and ran back for one hundred and two yard touchdown return. Just not great football there from Tua. He talked about it after the game, said that was his fault, his mistake. He came make

that poor decision. And this comes after a sixty four yard screen pass to Tyreek Hill where that was where they both hit those high speeds and it was just impressive to watch those guys get out in space and really run, really open it up. And the reason I wanted to bring that up, actually, you know, let's go ahead and put that back to the takeaway because I have a point on that I want to make about the adjustment of the exitter, sprint motion, whatever you want.

If you know, I throw an interception in practice, like those are game reps that I can use, So if it does end up happening in a game, I know how to move from move forward from that, So it's you know, it happens, and then it's move move on, and then what does this play entail for you to do to get your job done? For all these guys?

do that. And I actually had the exact same thing happen for my Washington State Cougar's on Saturday, who lost their first game of the year to UCLA. They were down nine to three before the halftime break and we got the pick six going back the other way, taking a ten to nine lead, and then just didn't play well the rest of the game. So I was like, oh, that seems like maybe a little bit of a payback

there for my football weekend. I don't know, no one of the Dolphins cares about the Washington State Cougar so I digress. We move on to the second half here, and it was good to see Miami put themselves back in shape to score a field goal after the pick six that made a fourteen to ten to take that seventeen to ten lead. But they would not take very long to find a big splash play down the sideline as to a dialed up t Tyreek Hill for a

long touchdown sixty nine yards. I counted the ball as thirty one yards in the air and man, this thing hit him right on the face mask. What a dime that was from QB one to put that ball in that location. I thought it was even better in addition to Tyreek Hill's release where we talked about with OJ in the postgame show, like zero zero zero, he whiffed in all phases of that jam the Brookie cornerback did as Tyreek's release got him wide open up the sideline, And.

was that Tua actually made that play call himself. Let's go ahead and hear from Tua on how that happened, and he kind of teased you up for a McDaniel sound bite, which she'll play right afterwards as well.

Last year, it would have been hard to get him out of that, Like just how mad he would be at himself and all the discipline work that he's done, you know, with mind, body and soul to be in a moment like that, and you know, uh, just take the game in his own hands. That's what you're trying to build, you know, these are the it was.

are my favorite with regard to that stuff. You turn the ball over, that's hard, but what's uh, the big the best way to separate yourself is to be able to come back from that and progress forward and not let other plays linger. And there's very few guys that could pull it off.

the pick six, but they didn't do that. You get more big plays from Wilkins and Steeler Andrew Van Geinkle had back to back very effective rushes that caused the offense to kind of sput her out and get themselves into danger. And in fact, man, this Dolphins defense posted some big time numbers. We'll talk about that here in the takeaways. Just a really good game from those guys, they give it back to the Dolphins. Dolphins then turn it over again to a tongue by Lowa throws an

interception that just didn't seem very characteristic of him. He called it, you know, poor decision, throw, poor everything by the quarterback. And this came after a holding call negated a forty yard raheem moster at run and then a chain catches an end around for a big yard and draft for the fact. But then tow It throws a bad ball that gets picked off and you know, some bad decisions putting the ball in harms way. Not usually characteristic of Tua in terms of it doesn't happen that often,

but it happens sometimes. And that's why, you know, I always thought he was gonna throw more picks this year than they did last year, because I think the ability to know the offense better means more aggression and will be more explosive, which we have been, which sometimes comes with some negatives too, And that's okay. But five picks through five games, eleven touchdowns through five games is pretty dang good. All the numbers are going to look pretty

good when he comes. When we just look at the box score and all the stats tomorrow, but just putting the bond Harm's way, obviously not great, leads to a Giants field goal, which Miami got off the field almost immediately a big time stop from cater Cooho on third and twelve. Dolphins take the football back once again and go score to make it thirty one to thirteen on one of the most impressive drives you can possibly have and assert your wheel type of drive and just showcases

Miami's multiple routes to victory with its current raw. So they have offensively passing game, running game or defensively special teams like across the board, they can find ways to win games in multiple ways, and they did it on this drive by just committing to the running game. So devon e Chan goes for eight, they do a pop pass which counts as a throw from two it but it's really a glorified handoff for eight or for fourteen yards to eight Chan.

five games is the most in league history. Dolphins neel the clock out after some back and forth there, and the defense just continued to put pressure on that giant's front.

of the season. Let's go ahead into the five big picture takeaways here, and I want to make very clear off the top that I have one in here that would be construed as a negative. And I want to just make it abundantly clear that I think very highly of this team and what they can possibly accomplish and where they want to get. I think to get there, you demand perfection and then eventually we'll fall somewhere among excellence. So I always we'll look for things that could be better,

just FYI. And that's going to be one of the takeaways we do here. But first, that ain't the first one. Number one is the game plan to attack the edges on offense with the addition of the wrinkles off the sprint exit motion, and with that you now have an NFL records setting offense through the first five games of the season. I talked about that first drive, just consistently going after the Giants off the edge. We talked in the preview podcasts how the Giants are awfully young at

the cornerback position. Going up against these receivers is a tough matchup for anybody, much less guys playing their first five games or their pro careers. And the Dolphins just found a way to execute by running the ball off the edge involving the backs or I should say the receivers in the backfield with the backs out wide and using end to round and pop passes and reverses and

all this action screen game just fun to watch. But the big wrinkle that I took away from this is you just added another thing on tape that teams coming down the pipeline here are going to have to adjust to and play to and honor and cover more space

than eleven guys can cover. Because the sprint exit motion that took the league by storm and revolutionized the you know, the entire league in terms of copycat and other ocs using this stuff to their benefit, well they just threw another wrinkle in there because off of that sprint motion, Tyreek would often you know, take that rail or that glance over the middle, or sometimes the steam route like or the hookup or the like there's different variations that

he can run off of that. But all of that basically puts the defense on their heels in a way that they would kind of, I guess, adjust to by playing off and just say, okay, well you can have the underneath stuff.

critical part of that play. Innocuous, sure, seemingly easy, yeah, probably, but it's critical and to it does it as well as anybody. So now you've put this wrinkle into your offense where we got to come up and guard behind lion scrimmage too, and be aware of thirty yard dimes down the field, like have mercy, where does it stop? And there's just so much this offense can do. I

love the blocking across the entire board. We'll go ahead and say that for a future takeaway because I have it multiple takeaways here because it was a big takeaway from me. But that's my first takeaway is the Dolphins offensive game plans and structure and the wrinkles they're adding and the stuff they're putting on tape.

congrats to those two. They're awesome people and I love working around them and with them. But he had a tweet about the Dolphins pass rush production, which you know, we get the numbers from PFF sometimes, and Marcel tweeted out the numbers that he had from a quarterback pressure standpoint. Let's go ahead and rattle those off, because the Dolphins were just utterly dominant upfront in this game all game long.

Here are your pressure, sack and QB hit numbers. Andrew Van Ginkle eight pressures, one sack and five QB hits. He had a second sack that was negated by penalty. Christian Wilkins seven pressures on the interior, a half sack and two more QB hits. Bradley Chubbs seven pressures and four quarterback hits. Manuel Ogball four pressures, one and a half sack and two QB hits. And then Zach seeler Man four pressures, two sacks and three quarterback hits. That was my game ball in the post game show, by

the way, but I mentioned the interior dominance. I mean the edge two Van Ginkle with eight, chubb with seven, Ogball with four. That is what nineteen pressures from three players, but just the two interior guys, Wilkins and Sealer combining for eleven pressures, two and a half sacks and five QB hits. You will not lose football games. Get that

type of production up front. And they just whether it was you know, playing with power splitting double teams, crossing face and using arm unders or swim moves or you know, crossover steps. They just consistently gave the interior of that Giants offensive line fits all game long, constantly moving Daniel Jones off the spot, is peaking, stacking, shedding, and making plays in the running backs in the backfield on handoff.

So it just really really forced this offense into, you know, having to adjust to find backs to come scam protect and get in there, and to really get away from the running game in general, dominant game from the Dolphins defense, but in particular on the interior defensive line. Takeaway number three is I put devon a Chan's angle erasing running and how dangerous of an element that is to the offense that already has all these elements that can threaten you.

But then I just said, hey, the run game in general, because we're at a point where five takeaways just isn't enough for me, because I'm cobbling together some of these ideas and thoughts I have throughout the course of the game. But the seventy six yard touchdown run, I mentioned it on the previous part of the show, where his speed like jumps off the tape and I think he's the fastest player in the league, like Tyreek has the time

right now. But I think in terms of running away from guys, a Chan's might be the fastest.

I want to go look at the numbers of how productive we are when Raheem and a chan are on the field together. That two back personnel has been dominant. You added alec Ingold all of a sudden you have like thirty personnel, three backs, no tight ends.

lot of respect for him as well. But the cool thing about it is, you know, that's like he doesn't take heed to listen into any of that. Just a humble guy just coming into working doing what he needs to help the team win. So I'm very proud of him and very proud of basically all the guys.

any season I've had. And you know, I think that Connor's Connor's frustration at not being able to play with his teammates last week, it was it was so evident.

ball in. There a couple of third down conversions for the Giants early on in the game that were you know, some easy access slants they got over the middle of the field, the eleven slash, tenth man or twelfth man leaving the field on special teams.

National Football League at press time. We'll see if that holds up and get you an update that on that on tomorrow's podcast. Also want to give you guys an update on the home versus road splits that are just so impressive right now in terms of how this Dolphins defense at home has been absolutely electric. But no touchdowns allowed in this game, put on a short field twice, one of those in field goal range.

because the Giants came into this game. Here's Daniel Jones' day, fourteen for twenty for one hundred and nineteen yards, had six yards of pass sacked six times. Tyrod Taylor comes in nine for twelve eighty six yards, and he didn't throw a touchdown on our pick one sack on him. Their leading rusher had twenty five yards on twelve carries. The next was Daniel Jones four for twenty four. Matt Brida had nine for twenty one, so no running back for the Giants average better than two point three yards

per carrying this one pretty effective day. Waller had eight for eighty six, so that was their best day offensively. But this Dolphins defense man just numbers and production limiting point totals. What a great day for them, What a great day for the team, What a great day for South Florida. Man four and one heading to the Carolina Panthers at home next week. Love where this team is are going. Let's go ahead and call that a podcast.

Check out the postgame show. If you guys have not, we'll post the podcast link for you guys up on social.