Drive Time: Dolphins Stumble at Seahawks 24-3

how we've gotten here. We'll talk about the game a little bit. I suppose we'll do five takeaways, but get ready strap in. It's gonna be an aggressive one. From the Baptist Health Studios inside the Baptist Health Training Complex. This is the Draft Time Podcast. Maggie Daffi. Back in two thousand and seven, I was in my third season on a Dolphins message board. I was twenty two years old.

I was learning the game of football. I was in love with a horrible team in the Miami Dolphins, and I was trying to buy in on the concept of Trent Green being the guy that got us over the hump, and perhaps Cam Cameron could bring his Chargers offensive expertise that was steeped in, you know, Drew Brees and Philip Rivers and Ladanian, Tomlinson and all those guys, and Antonio

Gates to Miami and that didn't happen. And I remember being on that message board and there was a thread that became a weekly thread and it was titled simply, we are in trouble. And as I watched this Dolphins team in Week three at the Seahawks fall twenty four to three and look lifeless and adaptiveless is that a word, and lose effort towards the end of the game in middle parts of the game as well. And compound that with what I saw in the Jacksonville game and what

I saw in the Buffalo game. We are in trouble, And those are concepts that I think are illustrated in both operation and in execution by the players. First off, to come into this game after having seen three years of Skylar Thompson. You guys heard me the podcast, I played a damn sound drop from I Think You Should Leave, telling you how much I thought it was not gonna happen for him back in training camp, and he won the backup quarterback job, beat out Mike White. Mike White

goes in signs with the Buffalo Bills practice squad. My biggest gripe I think at that spot is that the quarterback that you saw in the game today cannot play at this level. We've seen it demonstrated time and time again when he's gotten chances, and the tape definitely demonstrates that.

And with seeing that for three years and still going to the same concepts, which is a complex wordy Verbie offense that requires a quarterback in complete command, in complete confidence and control of things to be able to communicate those words and play calls and execute those motions and shifts and pre snap all the stuff that goes into that. I think Kyle Krabs used the word hubris about this.

That's what it is to see all that and to go into the game with that plan because you had tenfold the exact same huddle operation issues we've seen for three years now, right two plus years late. Breaking the huddle, get into the nyscarmage and having two shifts an a motion with seven seconds on the play clock, it's never

going to happen. I've never seen a head coach hang out by the referee for the entire first quarter waiting to make a timeout call that was super strange to me, and a couple times he would be there for the time out and not make it, and the play would get so disjointed that you would have a full back moving or slowing down his motion waiting for the rest of the operation to catch up to his speed, or a guard that came out of his stand before anybody

else because he was ready for play when nobody else was, or vice versa. And you get these illegal shifts that drive after the cater cohu interception, and we'll go over this game in general. He you had a play where Ingold's coming off. You know you're shifting, so you move him off the line of scrimmage to make that shift, and they snap the ball on that count. The quarterback doesn't know what he's doing in terms of who's going where and how this operation has to run, and yet

you still go to it. And then you have the concepts that we've seen percolate through two and a half years, or well two years and three games, where you take your first couple of drives and take them into plus territory after some good early down designs and runs right the running game was once again cranking, especially down the middle against a banged up Seahawks front and a Dolphins line that was moving the moving guys off the football. And we can get into the whole offensive line discourse

again if you want. I know, the confirmation bias is like, oh, a career is less worried about the offensive line than we are. The offensive line hasn't been the issue, guys. It's been horrible quarterback play, the same soft nature of the offense that we were hoping that I was certainly hoping and convincing you or trying to maybe convincing myself that those things would improve, and rather than improve, they

have multiplied in the wrong direction. We're trying to stamp out this virus, right and rather than a vaccine, we gave it a multiplier. Had two possessions today with first and goal inside the six yard line and got three points out of that. How does that happen? How do you go into the game with that same operation, knowing what that quarterback was capable of and doing that. I don't understand that. I'm not going to sit here and call for jobs. I think that's that's first of all,

it's not my place. Second of all, I think that you should believe in the ability to overcome and learn and progress throughout a situation. But gosh, it's getting late early. And what you can argue about is twenty six penalties in three games compared to thirty three points. So you

had all these issues that were there before. You just had the top offense in the National Football League masking it right, because the other coaches that came here and had those same issues, they often had the twenty second ranked offense and that was why the team stank. But right now you're scoring eleven points per game and your offense can't even you don't even feel confident they're going

to get off first down on a drive. I man, you know that that negligence that game plan to come in with that and just run the same old stuff and have these same issues times ten. I think I predicted twenty seven to thirteen in the podcast. I was off by a few points there, but like, how could you not have seen that coming. That's compounded by throwing another fourth down pass to Braxenbergers, who, by the way, has four targets this year and has less than one

yard of separation on all those. We were zero for a billion on third down, right, And my biggest point of contention to put a I guess almost to get a bow. We're working on that here on this entire opening segment of me so many things is we heard Jordan Poyer before the season talk about how Dolphins teams in the past, if you got them down, they would bury themselves and you could run away from the game

on them. All those changes with Poyer, Campbell, John wu Marcus made, Jordan Brooks, Anthony Walker, all these additions you made with guys that have some of that you know ish to them. Today was the worst example of that. I saw Devon a Chan walking after his helmet that got knocked off on a running clock in two minute offense effort, body language, laughing on the sidelines. And every time this team gets behind by a couple of scores, Sands a Baltimore game which in hindsight there was blown

coverages all throughout that fourth quarter, Sands that game. When the Dolphins get behind big, it becomes a bigger deficit. Usually teams kind of find their way to make those close those scores a little more competitive. It goes the other way on these Miami Dolphins. And I think that

is going to be the biggest test here. How can you We're gonna find out how sustainable this culture is when things aren't going away, because we haven't seen it that way before, even last year's losing streak, even in twenty twenty, to the losing streak behind the backup quarterback, like you had reasons to believe those were one offs. I think those reasons are gone now and they have a chance to respond and change my mind again. But

I've changed my mind on that. And I will add a maya kulpa here about the entire build of this thing, which again we talked about all last week on the podcast.

It was almost Travis's a therapy session here at the microphone, but a maya kulpa about I guess the way I approached disagreements, and that probably comes from this idea of process, and I put a lot of time into this, and you know, I watch the tape and I break things down and give you concepts that I think match what the team identity and the belief and the build is.

And I need to be more receptive to dissuading opinions even if I don't think you've put in the same process as I do, so I will own that, apologize for that. I apologize if I filled you with false hope in doing that. But I can now see myself on the other side of that forest, seeing it for the trees, and really feel like this thing is about to get a lot worse because I don't think the makeup of the team of how it's done. I don't think it's one that thrives in these situations because they

haven't proven it right. They've proven the opposite to Jordan Poyer's point and the way this has the potential to ruin football for me, I think I talked about on the podcast. If I didn't, I've talked about it in text and with friends. Like As a thirty six year old Dolphins fan who only really got into the game in the very late nineties, one of my first experiences with this team was the ninety four playoff field goal miss from Stoyanovic. One of my earliest core memories. That

Kingdome game was great. That was awesome, and I'll always remember that game. But the bigger core is the Jacksonville game. In Marino's last game or two thousand and four, Ricky Williams retirement. That's the bulk of my fandom of this team. And so going from a fan of a team that was consistently, you know, sixteen points per game, try to win the game late in the fourth quarter, even if you have eight Pro Bowlers, but you refuse to sign a quarterback besides Jay Feeler, and you make every game

close and stressful and doesn't have to be. After experience on experiencing all that, and the years where you do gets like seven to five and you think you've got a quality win that puts you in this, you know, in the playoff mix, and then you're not getting the respect you think you deserved from the national pundits and

you're hanging out and that in the Hunt column. After two years of being a one seed, you know, into December into November and having this high flying offense, which I still think is the best way to win football games is to be the best offense on the field. After that, and after talking to my friends about how we finally have the franchise quarterback, a guy that led the league in passing. It's I got Aligan passer rating. We have this young head coach who's on the cutting

edge of innovation, and offense and he's brilliant. All these articles get written about Mike McDaniel and how the Dolphins offense is the most replicatable offense in the league because it's so innovative, having all that, we're gonna have it for fifteen years. Then in Week two you get the rud pulled out on you in the quarterback and you don't know what his future holds. And in Week three, the same issues don't just percolate, they magnify and multiply

and become heavily more intense. Oh brother, I feel like I'm laughing through the tears here because I can't fathom going back to being excited about eight to nine football, trying to get your way into the postseason. Maybe a bottom out could be fun because there's some quarterbacks like

in this year's class. But the way this is going to you know, if I have to watch a game like today, I watch the Steelers and Chargers before the Dolphins game, and it was two teams that the Chargers don't trust, Justin Herbert that you don't trust a quarterback if it's a ten to seven game and there's fifty five seconds left in the first half and you have a third and ten at the minus forty yard line, and you opt with one time out to run the

football and call that drive a wash. That's not modern football. That's not trusting your quarterback. And the Steelers on the other side are just trying to get to that fourth quarter and they pulled out. Both those teams are a full facade. I see all the way through it. So I can't get behind becoming Wanstead football again. I just have no interest in that, and I know you all

feel the same. And as a Dolphins fan, it feels like it's almost more cruel that you got that taste of success for two years at least up until the final few weeks of the season to revert back to what you were before. I would kill to be ten and three and to be let down again, wouldn't you,

because this feels like we're nowhere close to that. Got sacked six times in this game because they were down fourteen points seven minutes into the game and had a three to one passing ratio at that point and held the ball for two point nine se per attempt. You knew this offense with that quarterback that averaged three point zero four time to throw last year or two years ago, I should say, compared to a quarterback, we average just two point three seconds time to throw. How does that compute?

It does not at all. So, oh man, where do we go from here? I think Monday night, your dogs against the freaking Titans. Have you seen Will Lewis play football lately? Your dogs to that at home? Because Tim Boyle and Tyler Huntley, Tim Boyle moved the ball better than Skylar Thompson did today. So that's where we are. That's the opening segment. That's come back and rip through the game. And segment two we will do five takeaways and segment three and get the hell out of here.

That's all next Draft Time podcast, your host Travis Wingfield, brought to you by Auto Nation. Pick it up here with the game script and stats. Will go ahead and start with the stats on this one again. Dolphins lose twenty four to three. In the game, Scalar Thompson was thirteen for nineteen for a bucko seven eighthn had eleven carries for thirty yards. Tyreek Hill had three for forty. As far as the team stats go, twenty one first

downs for Seattle, thirteen for Miami. This game was a display and how to not convert third downs on either side of the football, three for eleven for Seattle, one for twelve for Miami. The Dolphins were also zero for three on fourth down, just two hundred and five yards. We got so used to four hundred yard games last year that that seems like it was never even a possibility.

Three hundred and seventy for Seattle, got outthrown two seventy to one forty, It got out rushed one hundred to sixty five, and the Seahawks only ran four more plays than your Miami Dolphins. The Seahawks also had two giveaways, Dolphins didn't have any. Dolphins did get sacked six times compared to Seattle's three, but again I thought that was more indicative of the game script and the the drop

back passing nature that took on this game. As a result of the score early on, and the Dolphins had eleven penalties for eighty five yards, Seattle was no eleven for ninety two, and this time possession was about thirty one to twenty nine, so pretty even across the board there. Let's go up and down the script here and tell

you how this game got to where it was. It started with the Seahawks field goal, a fifty seven yard field goal no. Less on a seven play twenty eight yard drive where again I thought we saw Jalen Phillips was a guy that was consistently making plays in this one where he had a first down run stuff and then had a hard a pressure on the quarterback I should say, where he forced Geno Smith up into the pocket off that right tackle. That was a big key

for me heading into this game. Phillips against stone forsythe their third string right tackle, and he did not disappoint forced him right into that DeShawn hansack and it resulted in a quick in a field goal attempt there for them. And I made a note of this that the Dolphins lost contain on the well placed kickoff by Jason Sanders that got the ball on the thirty five yard line.

And if you make that tackle back in the twenty where the contact occurred, I mean, if the drive played out the same way as it did with the fifteen xtra yards, that's not a field goal, so you And it was that kind of day for special teams all day. Four special teams penalties in this one accepted. I think there was at least one more that was not as well.

The Seahawks take that three to nothing lead. The Dolphins get right back down the field and they missed their own fifty seven yard field goal, and they threw a twenty three yard glance spro out to open the game to de von Hien, who aligned as the number one receiver to the boundary, which to me, I wanted to put that note in there because it was just so impressive that he was able to He can do that from that position. That's pretty rare for running back to

lineup out there. And then Jalen Wright won the corner on a toss play where I saw him just burst out of the gate there and look so fast. And that no call on the horse caller slash late hit out of bounds was very strange because it looked like to me the letter of the law, the ref right there didn't make the call, and you get a long missed field goal where otherwise your first and goal in

the first and ten in the red zone. So they don't get that call, they get stuffed on second down, they go third and one, they get stuffed again, and then they missed the field goal. Just everything about that sequence from the call, the decision to you know, go trick play second down like a play action boot where he got pressure in his face and a full back dive that hasn't worked a couple times in a row now, and then the fourth down called to take the long

field goal. Just a weird sequence of events. The execution no better, not how you want to start when you are on you know, a lot of backups across the entire roster. The Seahawks paying it off with the easy touchdown, going five plays fifty three yards, just chunk, chunk, chunk down the field. DK Metcalf had that great catch over Fuller who was in great shape and played a good

game until he left the game in concussion protocol. And then they'd run out down our throats for a touchdown to make it ten to nothing, and you're immediately behind the eight ball, and that's where operational issues began to take over. It's a five play punt drive for the Dolphins. Skylar Thompson dropped the football on a snap that looked way too familiar to John Beck back in that Buffalo

game in two thousand and seven. That's why I kept thinking watching Skyler throughout the course of this game, John beck Man, this looks like John beck overwhelmed overmatch. Can't see it, can't rip it, just really really bad. So they punt that one away. Then they get a major major play from cater Coho. They get just outright wins.

Across the board. There was a OPI on Jalen Ramsey with or dk metcalf pushing off on Jalen Ramsey where he took him back negative yards because Ramsey kind of had him strapped, and I thought Ramsey played a really good game, by the way. Then Kendall Fuller Damn Near squatted and drove on a pick six, but he gets a pass break up instead, and then the pass rush gets in where Seeler bowls over the left guard. He's

the pick stunt man bowls him over. And then you get a loop inside from Emmanuel Ogbah who puts a hit on Gino And that happened a few times in this game. They would hit him the cause Aaron throws, they gets tipped way up into the air and here comes cater Cohu for the pick. He gets tackled with a six yard line and the Dolphins paid off with just a field goal. They got a legal motion where

the ball gets snapped too quickly. Then a third down where I thought Skyler had waddle in the corner of the end zone but didn't let the play develop and tried to scramble to his right, And that's you know that could happen without you know, your elite quarterback play as you bail on clean our pockets. I thought that's what happened there, and it cost us a touchdown in that moment. Yeah, you just held the ball for too long in that situation, you get a field goal out

of it. But then we get a one play touchdown drive where the Dolphins they showed the All twenty two clip on the on the broadcast where Javon and Poe were in half field deep safety looks and Ramsey's in that kind of cloud area the you know, the curl flat of Cover two or a variation of what looks like Cover two to me, I can't know the call

for sure, and Metcalf runs a double move. Javon jumps inside the route and it's an easy walk in touchdown from there because he got about fifteen yards behind the defense and quickly it's seventeen to three before you've even found your seat, yet really, Dolphins get the ball back

and punt it right away. The Seahawks go nine plays forty five yards, but they get a missed field goal after some really good plays by Zach Sealer once again who just continued to beat guys in the run game, get good pass rushing in forcing Gino Smith off the spot. David Long makes a big tackle on third and seventeen. Is that field goal try that goes wide. Dolphins get it back and they again open the drive with positive plays.

They got a good wash. I thought they got good wash off the edge all day from Toront Armstead when he was in there, from Austin Jackson, from Kendall Lamb, even Patrick Paul's one snap. He had good blocking on that play, and they would get pushed and then just the drive would kind of crumble from there with a penalty, with a missed execution in the passing game. And then we throw our first ball to Tyreek Hill and it's dropped on a third and thirteen screen pass where he

had some room to run. And that was a theme last year in some big spots too. So that's one of those things that kind of carried over that you were hoping would be no more at least in this spot. Kind of tough to deal with, but it is what it is. They give it back over to the Seahawks, the Seahawks take it back, and this is what the

Dolphins defense turned it on. After a slow start, even though they gave the offense that short field that could have been considered a seven point advantage in the defense's favor. They go four plays eleven yards, the next drive three plays minus nine yards, the opening drive of the second half three plays minus three yards, and then the next drive plays minus three yards. They were just getting after him the entire time. Then they picked off, you know,

in the very next drive. It was short drive, defensive dominance, and time and time again the Dolphins offense just could not pay it off. On the other side, we got a false start of just more weird operation where the timing of the snap is not going up with everyone getting off the football at the same time. We go backwards, we get multiple pound because on special teams, all of a sudden, a third and six becomes a fourth and

thirty nine. You know, how does that happen? And then end of half we a very weird circumstance where they have a chance to throw a couple of hell Mary's that Seahawks back all eleven off and don't rush anybody, and we don't throw the ball into the end zone. And then on the other play it's a play action where there's not routes into the end zone and scy takes a big shot. Just weird football man, and it ends one of the uglier first halfs that I can remember.

As it goes what was a score seventeen to three at half there, Dolphins get the ball out of the break and it's a three play, one yard drive and there was a quick game that was opened. The ball didn't come out or hesitation, I thought from the quarterback spot there, and it results in a sack and a

quick three and out for the Dolphins. But again the Jalen Phillips forces Gino Smith up into the pocket into the klay as Campbell sack and Sealer Campbell, DeShawn Hand and JP I thought all played really good football games and kind of kicked the Seahawks offensive line butt and

kept us in this game. But again the Dolphins just couldn't pay it off because they go turnover on downs after a seventeen yard dig to Tyreek, and I thought Skyler's best play was the play where he actually got hurt, where he had that pressure, flipped the hips, got the ball safely to the running back on the checkdown for a positive game, but he can't come back in. It looked tough, It looked, it looked pretty you know, severe for Skaler laying down the turfer as long as he did.

So hopefully he's we'll get the news back tomorrow that he's he's doing better, because that was a tough look to see him go out. And I feel bad for Skaler because you know, he as many games as he started, it seems like he's had to exit, you know, half

of those games or so with injuries. When he gets those chances, which is obviously you know, tough, you get right after that, you get surge on second five to create a third and one, but then Gold fumbles the ball and then we try to throw a man coverage rep to barriers, but the defenders all over him. PBu broken up four and out right there, Seahawks punted back, Dolphins go two screens and a run three and out

on their own. Right then you get this Seiler pick and you're right back in a fourteen point game at midfield, but a chance to go get you know, make it a one score game, and they drive it down there eleven plays fifty yards, five minutes, fifteen seconds, but you go first and goal from the three two yard eight Chan run. Durham can't complete that catch in the corner of the end zone, which was would have been a great diving catch, but I hot that throw from Tim

Boyle was really good. And then the fourth and goalplay you get incomplete pass to devon eight Chan, turnover on downs and then that's where the levee kind of broke. Seahawks go eleven plays ninety eight yards and drive for a touchdown and make it twenty four to seven. And that was basically it. So that was the run of script, the run of the game. Let's go ahead and finish with the podcast on the other side, and here five takeaways. I'll do my five takeaways from this game Big Picture.

That's next Draft Time podcast, your host Travis Wingfield, brought to you by Automodation. Five Big Picture takeaways from the dolphins twenty four to three loss in Seattle. And I think it starts at the quarterback position, where you or rather the rest of the team where you made mistakes that you just can't make when you're down. You're starting quarterback, short fields starts at the four and you only get

three points out of that. We had second one in positive in plus territory and lost yards on those plays before failed third down conversions. Those are just point costing mistakes that you make, critically in the first half that you could have tied this game or had the lead, and maybe you had a different circumstance in the second half. Again, the operation was just out of whack, way too many penalties, way too many errors. You know, not enough in time

or on time and in rythm plays. Yeah, that's the drop screen pass from Tyreek, the four special teams penalties that were part of seven overall penalties that kind of killed you in that first half and then at the end of the half when you know there was just a lack of urgency. I thought that that was just really a collection of all the things that could go wrong that did go wrong, and that was the case of the Dolphins in this one. You cannot make those

mistakes when you were down your starting quarterback. My second takeaway was that once again it seemed like the Dolphins were a little bit overwhelmed in a loud road environment. It constantly snaps up against the clock. You know, McDaniel was hanging out by the official trying to get time outs in. It seemed like on half of those plays in that first quarter, and then it continued in the

second half, just breaking the huddle late. You get into the last commage with like eight seconds left, and you know you have shifts, emotions. Just a complex operation and a loud environment proving difficult yet again for the Dolphins offense. My third takeaway is that defensive front did, in fact eat That was good to see. I thought the Seahawks offensive line was a spot we could get after, and

we did that. The Dolphins front played very well. They gave the Dolphins offense short fields and they handled their own short fields and quick turnarounds. Steeler was dominant. Campbell was swimming over double teams and getting pressure on the interior to Sean Ham made a couple of plays. Jalen Phillips had a really great retrace where he ran down

a receiver out wide, just showed great effort. And there was a four drive sequence where it was four plays eleven yards, three plays nine minus nine yards, three plays minus three yards, three plays minus three yards, and then a pick. So you had five consecutive drives where you were just locked down defense. That was great to see. My fourth takeaway, I mean, we talked about it already. It's it's just not gonna happen. For Scott R. Thompson, right,

it's just not gonna happen. It wasn't it. But you have to have known that. I don't have to tell you that you saw it. It felt like John Beck in two thousand and seven. This whole game felt like two thousand and seven to me. So that's not gonna cut it. My fifth takeaway I talked about off the top, we are in some trouble. Boy. This is a bad team. Guys. Things have boiled over into last year in the wrong direction. You know, either had to get better or worse, and

it looks like it has gotten way worse. Now there's more football ahead of you. But is the quarterback position gonna get resolved? Are you gonna change your operation? That's my biggest takeaway here is will they make an adjustment to fit what they currently have? Because you're forcing situation right now? Where Skyler is probably gonna be down, I would assume, and if he's not, should you even play him anyways? Because it doesn't look like a functional offense.

But you're gonna have a quarterback that just got here back in September or early September, and a quarterback that just got here last week, and that's Tim Boyle, and that's Tyler Huntley. Huntley I think becomes a completely different offense. And that's like wildcat we're talking here, or boil, which you know. So I'm curious to see what the adjustment is to that. I thought the McDaniel stuff was way too early, but you've still not seen a change whatsoever

from a year ago. And to alone doesn't fix that. He makes it much better. He makes your offense far more operational. But there are issues beyond just the quarterback that I think was evident in this game. The operation is terrible. There continues to be mistakes from the best players that shouldn't happen, a chance effort on that helmet off play, just a lot of football that I don't

think you can be proud of in this one. That's kind of how you put a bow on that and let's go ahead and do just that and put a bow on this one. You all please be sure to subscribe to the podcast. Leave us at writing, leave us a review. You can follow me on social at Winfield, NFL. The team at Miami Dolphins. Check out the fish Tank podcast with my guys Seth and Juice. Check out our YouTube channel, Dolphins HQ. Has been a very fun project

to take on. We're gonna have interviews and player chats and all twenty two breakdowns, tons of fun stuff for you guys, and a new version of this podcast through Dolphins HQ on the YouTube channel and last but not least, Miami Dolphins dot com. Until next time, Fin's Up, Carolin and Cameron Daddy, He's coming home.