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Away Wattle watle to a shotgun back to throw looking at Them's up myers touchdown. It's Waddle his six touchdown pass the King. Drive Time with Travis Wingfield begins.
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What is up? Dolphins? And welcome to the Draft Time podcast, part of the Miami Dolphins podcast Network, covering your team, your Miami Dolphins. How's it going? Everybody? I am your host, Travis Wingfield And on today show, Draft Night two is in the books. We have two episodes coming your way. This first one here Vic Fangio gets another defensive back with rare ball skills and explosiveness. We'll break down the player, the fit, the background, and much more, including the presser introduction.
Press conference with new Miami Dolphins cornerback Cam Smith from the Baptist Health studios inside the Baptist Health Training Complex. This is the Draft Time podcast.
Ye Gaff With the fifty first pick in the twenty twenty three NFL Draft, my Miami Dolphins select Cam Smith, defensive back South Carolina.
Fans up and there you hear the draft selection from our very own to Ron Armstead making the Dolphins first pick of the twenty twenty three NFL Draft in the second round, pick number fifty one overall, and it is Cam Smith out of South Carolina. And just like that, the Dolphins strengthened the defensive backfield once more. We know about the speed this defense, or I should say this team features on offense, Well, the defense just got a little bit more speed as well. Let's take a look
at the profile on this player. Cam Smith measured at six zhoh six, which is about six feet and a half in Indianapolis. He was actually a little bit taller his pro day, so I don't understand how that works, but okay. He was also one hundred and eighty pounds of the combine one eighty three at his pro day. Tacked on some weight for that secondary workout, but the
workout metrics are off the charts. He didn't do the shuttle or three cone, but he showed you the movement skill that he showed on tape in the events that he did participate in. How about a four to four to three forty yard desh. How about a thirty eight inch vertical jump and in eleven foot two on the broad jump eleven to two. That's the link of a buick. Those numbers earned him a nine to six to eight
relative athletics score. That is seventy seventh among two thousand, two hundred and twenty two corners going back to when this began being tracked, my birth year in nineteen eighty seven. Seventy seven out of two to two to two. Pretty good. He grew up in Blythwood, South Carolina, born in December of two thousand. These two thousand guys getting drafted makes me feel old man, which means he's a little bit
less than twenty two and a half years old. He was the US Army All American in high school Leonard to track, posting eleven six eight in the one hundred meters, twenty feet ten inches in the long jump, and a forty two to six in the triple jump. Surprise, surprise,
another track athlete down here in Miami, then college. He red shirted his first season on campus there at South Carolina, and then showed up in twenty twenty ready to ball out, which to me speaks a lot about his maturity and just readiness and the ability to go because that was the pandemic year his first year in college football, and he tied with J. C. Horn for the lead in team picks with two. The next year, he had three interceptions and broke up fourteen passes seventeen plays in the
football in one college football season. He finished his South Carolina career with six picks and twenty two passes defensed. He blocked a field goal last year as well, though he didn't play a ton on special teams as a collegiate. PFF's Mike Renner, their lead draft analyst, does attribute rankings and he has camp Smith with nine out of ten on the awareness skill, and that's what stands out to
me in his game. Pro Football Focus also tabbed him with a plus grade and zone coverage, which we know has traditionally been zone based down here with Vic Fangio's defense, but he excelled in both zone and man coverages, so that does allow coach Fangio to roll through his various coverages and looks. Let's go back real quick to the data before we jump into the tape. The broad jump was in the ninety fifth percentile. That ten split that
he ran was in the ninety second percent tile. That's where I think you see his game in the smooth transitions, the long speed, the click and close, just impressive, impressive reaction skills in the way he moves. PFF had him with two hundred and eighty four snaps in zone last year compared to two hundred and thirty six snaps in man coverage, so really well versed in both areas there. One hundred and seventy two of those whole snaps were in press coverage, but you saw a lot more off coverage.
More on that here in just a moment. He also played one ninety six in the slot compared to three point fifty seven out wide, so that's what two and a half to one ratio there, give or take. Also played ten snaps in the center field, twenty in the box, and seven down on the line of scrimmage. Think blitzing, and this is a guy that you know, like the small dog with a big bark I'm not saying he's small for NFL standards. He is at one hundred and eighty pounds, but he has a lot of bark man
he plays that way. More on that in a moment as well. You look back at last season with the injuries that piled up at the cornerback position, and I don't understand Twitter anymore. I think I've am I out of touch. I don't know, but I just don't get
complaining about everything your team does. But it certainly seemed like the Dolphins went into this offseason damned to let what happened last year at the cornerback position and on defense, and the twenty eighth ranked passing defense happened again, allow me to rephrase that whole thing. They are equipped to endorse some level of attrition with the addition of Cameron Smith. In Smith, I just had to go for three rams there. But last year the Dolphins ranked sixth and total offense
and eighteenth in defense. But that's because the run of defense is really good, right and we know about the front. But they finished twenty seventh in passing defense. You know, they've got Chubb a full off season here back healthy again from the injury Emmanuel ogbab back Jalen Phillips is in my opinion, set to just set the league on fire this year. Malik Reid joins Andrew Van Ginkle's back, Wilkins steeler Davis Inside, along with David Long coming over
to bolt of the linebacker position. So now you go out and you get Jalen Ramsey, you go out and you get Cam Smith, you add to Sean Elliott, you bring back Nick need him in the secondary. Maybe you thought and maybe he might not be back this year.
He is.
He's good depth, he's a good player when he gets out there. Remember how many games we had last year where you had to go to your seventh or your eighth cornerback of the season, and those guys battled like
credit to Justin Bethel, for instance. I thought he played really well in his limited snaps at cornerback and it's a testament to how he stayed ready and frankly, I think it helped earned him a contract this year with the Miami Dolphins in the offseason, and add your special team's depth and you know he can play in a pinch if you have to. But he's also a guy that when you brought him in had less than one
hundred career snaps on defense. He's surpassed that last year alone, and his whole career always been a special teams guy, right, But now you've got Ramsey X and those guys are not you know, they're not super young players anymore. So it's not like and this goes back to the idea of like drafting for right now and in the future. You can do both. I think Smith will play a lot this year, but you do also have to prepare for the future, right a little bit. X, Ramsey Cater Smith,
Needham Trill looks pretty good, man, You get it. You've got a ton of guys that can play in a division that has Josh Allen and now Aaron Rodgers. In a division that has Stefan Diggs and Gabe Davis and Dawson Knox and Dalton King Kid in a division that has Garrett Wilson, Allen Lazard and Corey Davis. In a conference that has Patrick Mahomes and Joe Burrow and Lamar Jackson and Justin Herbert and j Stroud and Anthony richardson
on and on and on and on. You gotta have some depth of cornerback man you cannot have three injuries basically turn you into a defense that time and time again last year with the game on the line, allowed lengthy drives to put the game away. You can get the football back in those instances. You can put the
ball back into a tongue of Iloa's hands. You can put the ball back in the hands of Tyreek Kill and Jalen Waddle rather than watching Justin Herbert go twelve plays ninety one yards, rather than watching Josh Allen go fifteen plays ninety yards. Whatever the hell that one was. It happened time and time again last year. Did we forget all that? I'm done ranting. Let's go ahead and talk about the fit and Vic Fangio's defense. We'll do that next year. On the Draft Time Podcast, your host
Travis Wingfield, brought to you by Auto Nation. Back here on the first edition of the Drift Time Podcast from night number two, Keep it tuned right here. We're gonna have another podcast for you guys, covering the eighty fourth pick in the twenty twenty three NFL Draft, as well as his press conference and the end of night Chris
Career and Mike McDaniel press conference. But first fired up some South Carolina game tape and I went back to the twenty twenty one season because I wanted to see the ball production where Cam Smith piled up nearly seventeen plays in the football. Well, it was seventeen. Why did I put nearly in there? It reminded me a lot of the player that I loved coming out back in twenty eighteen, and it was a different position. But the
tape just screams crossover. Jesse Bates from Wake Forest got drafted by the Bengals and now plays for the Atlanta Falcons. You see him playing a lot of off coverage and reacting, showing off those instincts, showing off that quick trigger. I just love the way South Carolina deployed him on that tape last year, last couple of years, he played with
eyes in the quarterback. Sounds familiar, right. We heard Xavier and Howard talk about that in his last press conference about how that can help him with his skill set. Jalen Ramsey as well, and the way he fires out of that stance and backpedal and goes from zero to sixty flowing downhill faster than Daniel Riccardo did five years ago, and it's not just eyes in the quarterback, its eyes
on the route concept in front of him. There's a rep I'm sure you saw on the NFL network brought cast where he flies up and cuts down a little flare route into the flat and there you see him diagnose a crackback from the other receiver not catching the football, and that suggests a quick hitter, right. Otherwise it's past interference because you can't block on a throw downfield. That has to behind the line of scrimmage. So to be able to process all of that in real time, that
quick and it pairs with track speed and quickness. That's intriguing as hell.
Man.
That's the same thing as getting a player like a Raheem Moster and the way he fits in this offense, like draft for the way you want to play the game, Draft for the way you can match up multiple teams and multiple opponents. The skill set as it is, I like it, but when you consider the fit in the defense, gosh, it makes a ton of sense. Assuming there's some more carryover from what coach Fangio has called in the past,
it just makes a ton of sense. I think there's tons of potential for a matchup piece here, and I look at Jalen Ramsey the same way, Like remember when we had Jordan rod Reeg from the Athletic on and she talks about dictating the terms on defense under what Brandon Staley ran with the Rams from that Vic Fangio tree and forcing teams to go after Ramsey with the way they used him, there's some of that in Smith's game.
And the way the game Cocks used him was similar, and it was similar to the way they used j. C. Horn before he graduated and was the eighth pick by the Panthers in the NFL draft a couple of years back. Move him around, force the issue. Hey, if you want to target player X, you're gonna have to go through our player Y. Similar concept there, And man, I look at this and think about how X is such a good fit to play the boundary stick X in the
short side of the field. Let him come up and press and really disrupt guys on those quick hitters and the bigger body receivers. And then the versatility of Jalen who can play anywhere the hell you want to cover a tight end, cover a Travis Kelsey, go cover you know, a Stefan Diggs pair with the upside of cam Smith and what he offers there on top of Cater and
Needham's flexibility. Man, you can go into any game with any style of offensive attack, any you know, trio of receivers or the tight end combination with how their skilled players play, and you can tailor your game plan for that specific opponent. You know what I think I like most about his tape and how they were able to play him and the way they did it sc This
is a confident dude. He plays with a certain swagger, almost a cockiness, like a brashness to his game in the sense that he's ready to match up with the best in the SEC and they'll let you know about it when he makes a play. He's in guy's ear all day long. It's you have to have that confidence, you have to have that short memory. We've seen players here lose that confidence in their career, kind of you know, take a turn for the worst. That's not gonna happen
to this guy. There's so much room for growth in his game as well. I thought he was actually I don't want to say raw, but there's just a lot more technique that can be taught there. Even though he started all three years. I think the best is yet to come because I think the hands and feet are not always synced together, not always hardwired together. And that's the job of Sam Madison and coach Vic Fanjo to get that coached up. And I mean, how can you
not think they would do that. My favorite trait I think in any player's game is the way they trust their eyes. That's why I love to his game so much. Right, and this guy sees it and he goes no hesitation, no surrender, no prisoner's thunder gun. We heard Daniel Jeremiah talking about Devon Witherspoon seeing it and going similar plays
to here with Smith. He comes equipped with really good length and you see that in a lot of the matchups were bigger bodied receivers I don't know, like Alan Lazard, like Gabe Davis, like Dalton king Kid, like Devonte Parker, like Mike Gasicki, all those guys from the AFC East. By the way, he can stay in phase and then go up and poke the football away with those fifty to fifty shots, with that six to one height and thirty two and three eighth inch arms, good for a
seventy six and a half inch wingspan. I love what this guy's about. Man, really good player. I talked about some of the hand and feet stuff and getting that sync together. That's more for press. I think just play them off coverage and let him see things flow and
trigger downhill. He was flagged ten times last year. But it reminds me of something Oj McDuffie said in our pre draft radio show that happened on Friday about Joey Porter and how those physical corners are better suited for the pro game because college can get flag happy with illegal contact calls. That's part of the seasoning and coaching up process. I think it comes along here with a twenty two year old prospect, and to me, if he was drafted here, that means again Fangio and Madison like
the skill set. Who better to coach him up than those two guys. Welcome to Miami Camp. Great name by the way to uh boys of that name, They should do well in life. Next, let's go ahead and hear from new Dolphins cornerback Camp Smith on the Draft Time podcast, your host Travis Wingfield, brought to you by Auto Nation. We're on the clock here, listen. I said, uh a lot. We're excited you're here, so I said, we're gonna make your Miami Dolphins all right. Cam? Hey, man, it's Michael Daniel.
You wear your Guccy slides right now.
Hey, congratulations, man, this is a big day for all of us, so it's time to get start.
There. You hear the phone call between Mike McDaniel, Chris Career, and new Dolphins cornerback Cam Smith. Next, why don't we go ahead and hear from the young man and his media availability on Friday night with the South for the media. And we start here with Cam and what he knows about playing with coach Fangio. How fired up are you? Cam? Very will due?
That's gonna He's gonna get on you by every looking cranny, about every everything, even just like one of my foot my steps on one of my plays was he keate it out and I really didn't even notice it until he said anything about it. So just kind of how he pays attention to detail with a lot of things. I kind of love a coach that pays attention to detail, make sure that everything is smoothing.
Cris behind it out and we talked about the speed of this player and the competition and the cockiness and the brashness. Cockiness is the wrong word. The confidence. A lot of guys in the offense pretty confident in their resumes they put together here in Miami. How do you feel about going up against Tyreek and jail In every single day in practice?
I feel like I think about getting better every day. I'm going against to it the most fear of dudes in the league every day in practice. I ain't got no words when I get on the field. That's how I feel.
I always want to talk to these guys about their family life and their background, their upbringing. Here. Cam Smith talked about the role of his family playing in his life and getting here to this moment the best day of his life obviously.
Really just kind of having that close knit family mom, dad, brother, sister, uncles, aunts, like everybody being there, close knit. We always coming for Sunday dinner and stuff like that. It was always big. So just having them there the whole time and then coming to see everybody like in a whole everybody come together and like even though if they didn't know me, it didn't know this person, but they starting to meet
the whole support system. So just having the whole support system there was way bigger than anything for me, just seeing everybody, everybody crying and everybody doing I wasn't even crying that much, but I had people crying harder than me, So like it just shows how much they cared for me throughout this process. And how is it being a dad?
Are you enjoying being a dad?
Definitely? There's a couple couple of hiccups here and there always, but it is smooth.
Let's go ahead and finish up here with new Dolphins corner the second round draft pick number fifty one overall, our first pick in twenty twenty three. He was asked about calling himself a perfectionist about technique and working on things and being comfortable in his back pedal. Here he is talking about how he prepares some of the fastest wide receivers in the NFL and the confidence he has in his own game.
A lot of the fast dudes get a lot of people that kind of open up and run a lot, so they'll already be opened up running, tilt it up, shoulders and stuff like that. So kind of just being comfortable with my pedal, knowing my speed on what I could do, going to have me just more comfortable in those situations, somebody pressing me hard up the field, trying to run to come back a fifteen yard comeback or
twenty yard comeback, right, somebody doing that. Me being able to stay my pedal and transition, keep my same transition instead of just kind of opening the gate and letting them run and being scared. So just having having that kind of confidence in my back pedal is going to help me.
So there you go, a shorty butt of goodie.
Here.
We're going to come right back with another podcast for you guys here on the Draft Time Podcast, part of Mamy Dolphins Podcast Network, breaking down pick number eighty four. We're also going to hear from Mike McDaniel Chris Career. Stay tuned for that on Friday night Saturday morning, whenever the heck you get this. All of that coming ahead in the meantime is going to be my time. You all, please be sure to subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcast, leave us a rating and leave us a review. You
can follow me on Twitter at Wingfold NFL. Follow the team at Miami Dolphins. Check out the fish Tank podcast with Seth and Juice, the team YouTube channel for all the media availabilities and Dolphins Today, and much much more, and last but not least, Miami Dolphins dot Com until next time. Fins up, Caroline Cameron Daddy, he's got one more podcasts to do before he's coming home.