To on the move going.
Jeeve spiegwas peas dolls from the Baptist Health Studios inside the Baptist Health Training Complex.
This is Drivetime with Travis Wingfield.
He's good, my advans in the playoffs.
What is up, Dolphans And welcome to the Drive Time Podcast. I am your host, Travis Wingfield. And on today's show, it's the Anthony Weaver episode. He is here, his defense is here. He's in the building. He is glorious. He's here to coach defense and chew bubble gum and you know the rest.
He's all out of the bubble gum.
We're gonna go ahead and meet Coach Weaver his introduction press conference today. But first we're gonna hear from Mark Vandermere, the voice of the Houston Texans, who covered Coach Weaver his loan season as a DC in Houston back in twenty twenty. All of that and a whole heck of a lot more from the Baptist Hell Studio inside the Baptist Health Training Complex.
This is the Drift Time Podcast. Maggie Jeff.
My guest today Texans play by play. Texans VP of Broadcasting, Mark vandermre joined the Drift Time Podcast once again. Today is the voice of the Houston Texans, Mark Vandermere. Mark, I believe this is appearance number three, if not mistaken.
Welcome back in Thanks Travis.
Always a pleasure to be on and talk Texans and Dolphins and NFL and whatever.
Else comes up.
Speaking of the Texans, first off, congrats on an amazing season. I was really pulling for you guys once we bout out in the first round of the postseason. But I want to go back a few years here to the pandemic season. Is when I refer to it twenty twenty, which I see that on my screen here, it's like, oh yeah, that really strange year, right, And it was the one year that Anthony Weeber was a defensive coordinator
in the National Football League. He of course was the defensive line coach there in Houston prior to that as well. And Mark, I've spent a lot of time scouring the web, finding quotes and pressers and trying to get to know this guy a little bit. And I gotta say, you just really can't find anybody with a bad thing to say about coach Weaver, can you.
Well, there's no question he's a great guy, and I know it's not just about being a great guy in this league. I've interviewed him numerous times. And John Harris, who I do shows with here, We've always thought, way before he was a defensive coordinator, that Anthony Weaver is a head coach.
He's a head coach in this league eventually.
And I was not surprised when he started getting interviews and things like that because I knew that he had that capability. He's very intelligent, great football mind. I think that, and this is similar to Demigo Ryans, who's here now.
I think that when you played at the level Anthony played at, and he was one of the first, if not the first, really pretty high priced ish free agents they got here with the Houston Texans organization in the early days, signed by Rick Smith, I think that when you play at his level and you understand the game at his level, and players I'm not saying they remember Anthony Weaver as a player necessarily, he might have some you know, vague memories or whatever, because time is passing
by as we speak.
Travis right, he's.
One of those guys who still kind of looks like a player, you know, and he has slimmed down a little bit from his d Lineman days because I remember seeing him at the combine once. I thought that's Anthony Weaver, but he looks kind of bitter to me, and he was with the Bills at the time, just breaking in into the coaching circuit, and I just always thought that he had the makeup to be a head coach and
certainly to be a coordinator. In the one year he was a coordinator here, I know you're gonna ask me about it, but it was not a great year for the team, and there were a variety of things contributing to that, so I won't put that on him.
Yeah, we'll circle back to that, like you mentioned here in just a minute. But I want to follow up on the head coaching comment because and watching all the press conferences, like the command is the first thing you really noticed, right, I'm curious maybe why you might think that, or maybe if there was a moment where you realized this guy kind of has the chops to run an organization that way.
You know, it's funny because look at Mike McDaniel, right, how many people would have pegged him as a head coach a few years ago. I don't know how many, but maybe the numbers not large. Now, maybe the guys who works closest with him thought, yes, there's no question about that. So certain people, and I think he has great command of the room, by the way, and I watched all the hard knocks and everything like that, but
put that aside for a moment. Certain guys look like they're from central casting to be a head coach.
Tamiko Ryans, Mike Rabel.
People like that who played and have the football know how, they have the chops, they have the whole package coming in to be the head coach, at least on paper, right.
And Anthony Weaver is one of those guys.
You know, he's got the commanding presence, he's really smart, and he has commanded the room and that's what you want. Now, there's a lot more to it than that, right, putting together your staff and making those great decisions in development of the team in the offseason and on the fly throughout games. And we all know that, but I think that he's got the makeup to do it. All the conversations I've had with him on and off the air
would point to this. So I'm excited for him to have this opportunity with the Dolphins, and I wish him well Other than a certain day at NRG Stadium next year, which has not been determined yet.
We'll know that when we get the schedule in May.
Yeah, looking forward to that. A fun matchup for the quarterbacks for the teams. Kind of both on the rise here as well.
And like you talked about the return of coach Weaver, and one of the things that I'm most excited about, as I mentioned, watching all those press conferences, all the media I can get my hands on with coach Weaver, is how similar his messaging really is to what coach McGinn.
I'm glad you watch Hard Knocks now.
I don't have to describe this for you, but just I guess a quick crash course is that McDaniel's culture is accountability, maximizing players, their value of players in the finite window that is their career. He's very big on that positive reinforcement and it's player empowerment. How do you think coach Weaver fits into that collection of culture bullet points?
Well, and again it's just Hard Knocks knowledge and Mike McDaniel was here a thousand years ago as you all know, and he talked about that during those Hard Knocks episodes, and a lot of guys were here, you know, Matt Lafleur was here, Rob Salah was here. We had a lot of Kyle Shanahan was here. We had a lot of This is the coach's cradle, Travis the Houston Texas, Although can every NFL franchise say that because these guys
move around so much. But anyway, when I was watching McDaniel and the way he handled himself, at least the stuff I saw, I thought, what a great guy to work for, because you know that he just wants the very best. He is going to be big on accountability, but he's not going to belittle berate you, right. He is going to nurture to foster whatever greatness you possibly have in you and bring that out. And I think for his staff, that's got to be the biggest thing here.
For Anthony Weaver, to work for a coach like McDaniel is perfect. He will get the very best out of Anthony Weaver as a coordinator as they put together plans together and go over what's important each week.
So the biggest descriptor of our culture we have here, and that's again that collaboration seems to be a really big sticking point for not just coach McDaniel, but Frank Smith, the offensive coordinator, and all the way down the line for the coaching staff. But one of the biggest credos we have here is that adversity is an opportunity again hard knocks.
I know you saw that plenty of times.
I've seen pressers from that twenty twenty season where coach Weaver addresses some of the university from that season head on that you alluded to earlier here on the show. I'm curious what you might have learned about him as both a person and a coach during what was a very challenging year as far as the on field product goes.
You want to stay the same guy even though you're struggling, and that was a major struggle that year for the Texans. Travis. I mean, there it is. And I thought this in the off season of that year. The teams that handled their offseason great in the COVID year are in a real great situation once we get into playing games, because you're playing in empty stadiums and some stadiums have maybe
five to ten thousand fans, whatever the number is. And I thought with the Houston Texans, I thought things were going okay, but they made some controversial moves. Bill O'Brien took over as general manager. We know the rest of the story, gets fired four games in, so everything they had set up in the offseason did not work, and the leadership, obviously was it was the opposite of being rewarded. You were dismissed, and then what are you gonna do?
Romeo Crenell takes over as interim head coach, and I think a lot of guys, you know, they had a lot of injuries, and it just wasn't an ideal situation to, you know, baptize yourself as a coordinator. So I didn't think that was a fair assessment of what Anthony could do. But he maintained his cool, his poise all throughout the year. They had a lot of games. The thing about that year, and you know, like I, as you do, I'd look
at every game very carefully. They had a lot of games that could have turned on any particular play.
And I know this league is like that.
We could say that about a lot of teams and a lot of games, but man, there were a lot of instances where just to play here, play there, and you have a completely different record. But that's the NFL and that happened. And I'm just glad Anthony has an opportunity now because that was a ridiculously tough year for this organization, everything they were going through at the time.
So funny enough, Maybe not funny for you, but the audience here knows that because we watched all those games
that year. Because if you recall, we had the Texans first round draft pick, and as I continued to grow and grow up up the draft board, the Dolphins were able to spin that into multiple first round picks with the trade back, So it was very imperative to whatsoever I know, but those I remember watching those games being like, I'll come on that, come on opposition, you can help us out here, and it usually went that way for
us that year. But now you guys are back and on the on the up and up, so that looks good there. So one of the other things I wanted to ask you about was his work as a positional coach and how that might translate to getting the most out of his players here on this Dolphins defense, because you know, we have we just booked the franchise record for sacks. We have guys all up and down the front that can get out for the quarterback and play,
you know, the run game as well. I'm curious why you think in his career with Jadevian Clowney, where all of his all Pro Pro Bowl seasons come from?
With who am I thinking of?
Oh?
JJ Watt had a Pro Bowl year under him as well. Why do you think guys tend to have some of their best years under coach Weaver on the defensive line.
Well, I think it's that positive approach that he has, right. I think again, he wants to get the very best out of every player. And I know that sounds kind of cliche, but guys want to work for him. Guys want to play for him. Guys don't want to let him down. He's one of these coaches that he's got the fiery side to him and he's got the great attention to detail. But I don't want to make a mistake if I'm working for Anthony, I mean I would feel like personally, I'd feel like, I don't want to
do a bad job if Anthony's my head coach. I want to do a better job on the air, you know, That's how Demiko Ryans is here, you know, because he's the head coach. It's Anthony. You want to support that what he stands for. So I think it goes well beyond football. He as a man and the guys we had. Clowney is an interesting character, There's no question about it. But yeah, he did have good times under Anthony Weaver and obviously JJ Watts. So I just think as a
position coach, it's all there. D line coaches. I don't know how you feel, but D line coaches and special teams coaches. If we're going classic rock band analogies, they're the drummers. You know, they're the drummers. Some of them are the crazy guys. You know, you don't always have to be crazy. And again, I think if you played the position at a high level, it really helps. You don't have to doesn't have to be a requisite to be a good head coach, position coach coordinator, but I
think it certainly helps. As you address the troops and have them ask them to do certain things, they're like, well he did it, and look he still looks like he can play.
So that means something to me.
That's funny because I believe that coach, Austin Clark, our defensive line coach, the incumbent here and Danny Crossman Special teams Cordnator. I feel like both those guys would fit that descriptor very very well.
So I think you are spot on with your analogy there.
I have one more question for you here, and this might be tough to answer because it's four years ago, and I don't want to put too much on you from a scheme perspective, but I'm curious, you know, trying to figure out what this defense might look like, because you know, it's been a while since he coached the defense. He's got all these influences that have, you know, aggression blitz heavy type of defenses up and down his resume
at the guys he's worked with. But I'm curious what you might have learned about his defensive philosophy, albeit just one year and like you mentioned, a challenging year. What do you think we can from that year that might be able to see it going forward with what his defense looks like from his comatics perspective.
Yeah, when you look at his recent history, then you look at working for Romeo Crenell, and I'll be curious to see what his identity is right now, because he might be changing it adapting it.
Now.
When you look at Romeo, Romeo's really good at shifting gears right he's oh.
We're in a three four now, we're more like a four to three. This week in a Super Bowl.
He did it against the Philadelphia Eagles that won in Jacksonville. Romeo can definitely spin the wheel, as Bill O'Brien used to like to say, and give you different looks, be a different defense almost every week.
Now. You know that's saying a lot. You're not really that.
Different, but just the ability to disguise, to deceive the offense, and to send extra people when necessary. But you know, for all we know Travis, he's gonna come out there and say, look, we're just get a pressure with four guys and that's it.
You never know, play on the back end.
And you know, because every I think every coach and I'm sure you agree with this, every defensive coach would do that if it's working. Oh yeah, if I'm getting crusher with four, I'll do that all day long.
I mean, that's that's the way to live, you know.
But most often we see situations where you know, the offenses in this league are so good. Right now, you got five block and four, you're gonna get some. You're gonna make some, hey if you have a good quarterback. But I'll be curious to see how he handles it because and I'm not sure what he said yet, So I've been following what Anthony's been saying about this particular gig and how he's gonna set it up. But when you work for a guy like McDaniel, I got a
feeling McDaniel's gonna want it. You know, Hey, let's let's be versatile, let's be diverse in our approach to stopping opposing offenses.
And he certainly has the players in the back end with Javon Holland, Gelen Ramsey and the like, so he's got the options there.
The bullet and the nightmares.
They are just like your Jalen Petrie was this past year for the Houston Texans.
So of plenty of good players on both these squads.
VP of broadcasting play by a player for the Houston Texans and now officially a frequent guest here on the Draft Time podcast, Mark vandermer at Texan's Voice on social and Mark, I've been looking forward to this closing line right here for you.
Thanks a bunch and rock and roll, my friend.
All right, Gokaines, I can't say go Dolphins, so go Thanks Travis.
Appreciate it, man.
So rock and Roll is Mark's touchdown call. It's his signature call on Texans touchdowns there on the radio. And I'm a huge, huge, huge fan of not just like sports talk radio from back in the day when it was good, but also football game radio and the art of it and what I would do if I was in that position because my dream job, and I tell you guys this is to be the Dolphins of radio play by play guy.
One day we shall see on that.
But anyway, Mark Vandermer there he goes, let's go ahead and take our first break rate there, come back on the other side and meet coach's staff. And we'll also introduce him at his introductory press conference here from Miami Gardens on Thursday. It kicked off at one o'clock. Podcast coming to you here on Friday morning. That's all next Draft Time podcast, your host Travis Wingfield, brought to you by Auto Nation.
This is exciting day for me and the Miami Dolphins to be able to formally introduce Anthony Weaver as the defensive coordinator, and the whole process of it was really cool for me because it started as as the person and who our team would or who could have the biggest impact as a person, and then in the process got to get down to some nitty gritty on some schematic football side of it that really allows us to build on what we've been good at and continue forward
in twenty twenty four, which is what we're.
All focused on.
So, without further ado, Anthony Weaver.
That is head coach Mike McDaniel's introduction to the introduction press conference for Dolphins defensive coordator Anthony Weaver, And like, you don't forget that he's here, But I haven't talked to coach in a month and I miss him.
How could you not?
That little ending part there saying good luck following that, just the little quick wits man, the little quick jabs and jokes he has and serious moments. That's that's my kind of person, man. And speaking of my kind of person, we had this joke a little bit back here in the control of me and a couple of people that I work with, where like uh not.
Vic Fangio anymore is it?
And you know, Vic obviously was a great defensive coordinator for a long time, but in terms of the personality kind of left you wanting there a little bit and a little more close to the head coach before McDaniel, Right, But now with those guys and Frank Smith, and you know, Frank Smith's not McDaniel, but now I kind of feel like with coach Weaver kind of feels like we have
two McDaniels here in terms of great personalities. And my god, if you want to talk about what a head coach looks and sounds like if this defense performs, well, I don't think coach he was gonna be for very long because I think the heat it looks and sounds and has the cut of his jib just says head coach
across the board, so excited to meet him. We're going to go over the press conference here in just one second, but first before that, we do have some reported finalizations in terms of the coaching staff that you heard or will hear, I should say, from coach throughout this press conference. And we know by now that he's brought in a few of his own guys, right, so we know outside linebackers coach Ryan Crow. That's official. Joe Berry is also
official the linebackers coach and run game coordinator. He did also mention that Ryan Slok, who coached the outside linebackers last year, will move to a role in the secondary. We do not know exactly what that is just yet, but we know Ryan Sloan will be retained in some capacity within the secondary. We also learned about Brian Duker and Deshaun shed is a new one.
Sheed.
I'm sorry, Deshaun Sheed is a new one we hadn't previously talked about on the podcast here. He worked in Seattle, playing under Richard Sherman and then coaching DB's up there, and we'll get to coach talking about all these guys here in just a moment. And that would leave the only position spot that I think right now is open and you can always add assistance and you know, QC and stuff like that, but I think would be the
defensive line. But I'm not sure about this officially, but I think it might have a chance to be Austin Clark there, who's done a great job here for a
long long time. So it looks like his coaching staff has rounded in the form let's go ahead and meet coach Weaver here though, because man in my position, man to be able to get good press conferences is obviously so important to me, But just I thought it was really cool just to kind of get to know him a little bit and hear what makes him tick and what makes him, you know, the right guy for this job.
Let's go ahead and start here with the first question that was posed to him about being a foreigner player and how that positively impacts him in the job he can do as a coach at this level.
Here's Coach Weaver.
I think that's been a huge asset to me just in general throughout my coaching career, not necessarily for the.
Ups of what I did while I played, but.
More is just the hardships and adversity of that face because I can help coach guys through that so that they can persevere and ultimately hopefully be better than I was at those those same situations. So that is probably the biggest asset for me in terms of like my playing career, just having the ability to the coach guys through those those adverse situations.
And then if there's one thing we learned this year, it's that the football season is long, it is arduous.
There are ups and downs.
There are situations for literally every team across the National Football League where it's not gonna work out right, Your season is not gonna go how you want to.
I think back to the Chiefs.
Game in the middle of the season, how that I was as bummed out about that loss as anybody else, But at six and three, it felt like you missed a huge opportunity and you're not gonna achieve what you want to achieve this year. Or for the Chiefs in that instance, like when they lost the Raiders late in the year and it was like they might even lose the AFC West. We knew they weren't going to, but they were. They were within a game of the Broncos
at one point. Or for the Bills when the Sean McDermott article came out and they were six and six, Like every team goes through, for lack of a better term, the bleep right every year. And I think coach Weaver is a very from the looks of it, a very stabilizing force that can prevent you from having those ups and downs.
Be too. When it comes to the downs, portion of it. Let's go ahead and go back to coach.
We were here talking about his defensive scheme and what he envisions for this Dolphins defense under his watch.
The scheme that we use in Baltimore is actually extremely multiple and flexible, and the foundation of what we're going to do here will be from that. But the beauty in that is a lot of the things that they've already done here that they've had success in. We're very similar there, so there should be a lot of crossover teaching.
But I think in this league it's hard to just pigeonhole yourself as one particular thing because you're going to face different situations throughout the entire year, whether it's whether injuries that there are multitude of factors, and your scheme better be flexible enough to one adapt to the players and adapt to whatever situation you may be in.
So, look, I'm not going to come on here and tell you like all the content I did last year, all the beliefs in terms of what we were getting in the previous defensive cordinator was all fugazy, right, Like, I still believe that's a very good coach at the end of the day, But man, things are different now in terms of the personality and the loving, nurturing aspect
of that side of the ball. And we're not gonna just be stuck in our ways, right, Those are some of the key things I thought were the disconnect a season ago, and those have definitely changed for the better. Well, the rest we'll have to find out, but that part, I can assure you was better so far already. Next, who is Coach's greatest influence? He gave us two answers on that, very very good stuff here from Coach Weaver.
The first one is Romeo Crenell.
Right, he is a guy that obviously was He was very detailed in terms of techniques and fundamentals and what he expected from the guys, but more importantly off the field, like he was extremely calm in the chaos. Right, there's a lot of ups and downs throughout the NFL season. Do you have some guys that ride the roller coaster? I don't believe that, right. I think when you do that, your players are going to react the same way. So I tried very much to be the same guy every
single day, and I really don't have to try. It's truly just who I am, Right, And then just constantly making sure we're trying to get one percent better, which requires one hundred percent effort every day. But I think as long as you're on that constant to get better, eventually you'll get to where you want to go. But my first is Romeo Carnell. The second one has to
be John Harbaugh. Right in my short three years with him, I just saw how he walked and operated and constantly kept the pulse of the team, and when he got up and addressed the team, he always had something particular in mine and was very direct right in what he was trying to get done. And I have so much
respect for how he walks and operates. Was much different than any coach I'd been around prior, and really confirmed what I was doing to myself because I was like, this is how I envisioned myself operating, and obviously it works and you can have success doing it.
I keep going back to this point because it seems like coaches speak will always tell you like, always the same guy every day, right, like you hear that all the time. But last year this team was impacted by the big moment, weren't they And the losses at the end seemed to accumulate in a way that impacted their
performance in the final game of the year. That's how I felt, and so I kind of get the sense that coach Weaver is just another stabilizing force and kind of a confident to coach McDaniel to be able to provide that stabilization that you need over the course of a very challenging season, which every year is that for every team, it's such a difficult league to participate in every single week, and I believe you need guys like this to make it fun, to make it executable, to
make it sustainable. Really, let's go next here to defensive personnel. What are you most excited about what you have on that side of the ball. Here's coach Weaver.
There's a guy at least there's probably multiple guys on every level of defense that you can get excited about. Right up front, you got the Zach stealers, Jalen Phillips right, Bradley Chubb, Christian Wilkins right, Gotta love watching him, David Long at the linebacker position, Jevon Holland, who's an absolute beast and playmaker out there running around, and Jalen Ramsey right. So on every level, of defense. There's somebody that you get excited about watching, and I know there's guys I
failed to mention. I apologize to all of them. But the opportunity to come here, obviously with the team that's had the success they had shooting, how do you pass on that, right, Mike, In that offense, they're gonna put up points, right, That's that's definitely gonna happen. And it's our job to make sure that we give up less points to the other team, and we plan on doing that every time we get out there.
That reminds me of a story from back in Indianapolis in twenty twenty one, no. Twenty two, the first year after the pandemic. Maybe it was twenty twenty before the pandemic, I can't remember. I met Wink Martindale and he was talking about how the Dolphins job was one of the most attractive to him and they have a gold mine of personnel down here. And that was before Chubb and before Ramsey and you know, before David Long and I
kind of get the same sense of from Weaver. It looks like this Dolphins defensive personnel mean attracted coach Fangio, who apparently didn't want to be here for other reasons besides the personnel, right, And it sounds like we were feels the same way about the guys they have done here.
Hey, what do you know, Chris pier Bolt a great roster, Right, good stuff.
Let's go ahead and take our first or rather our last break right there and come back on the other side and hear from Coach Weaver on his philosophy and being a leader a teach. You're at a coach. That's next Draft Time podcast, your host Travis Wingfield, brought to you by Auto Nation.
I think of coaching as like service work, right, And I described to the thought that if you work in service, you should never get nervous, right. And when I got into this coaching profession in twenty ten, in my mind, I was like, all right, I'm going to get in this because this game has been so good to me
and this is my opportunity to pay it forward. So whatever has happened as a result of that has truly been in just me trying to make sure that I can be a force multiplier with whoever that is around me. So every player, every coach, anybody, whether they're in the cafeteria right within in communications in pr like I want to be in service to them and make sure they get my absolute best every single day.
It sounds like when little old Travis rolls through with his coffee and his pancakes and eggs Benedict in the morning. It sounds like when he says hi to the DC, he might say hi back this year to him. Let's go ahead, and let's actually go to this one. I was gonna jump ahead, but I like this one here. So he was asked what lessons he learned from the one year as a one year stint as DC and Houston.
It's a bad football team and a bad defense. And so here's coach talking about what he took from that one year in Houston with a little McDaniel humor to kick it off.
One trying not to take a job when there's gonna be a worldwide pandemic.
All right, first two? You know, like like problems are gifts.
Like with all the adversity that we dealt with throughout that that season, although we didn't get the results on the field we wanted, I felt like that unit as a whole always stayed together and fought their butts off to the bitter end. So I take a tremendous amount of pride in that.
Now, what did I learn? I learned one, problems are gifts too.
You better you better be multiple enough in your scheme, like I talked about earlier.
To handle whatever situation arises, where that's.
Injury, COVID, whatever that may be, you better make sure that you have answers.
Schematically, problems are giff s. Where have we heard that before? I'm going to skip over this question when he was asked about the comparison of players from his era as a player to this era as a coach twenty twenty five years later, and he said, like, players make a lot more money, But the truth is players are the same. They want to be coached hard and loved up. That's what I believe. Coaching them hard and loving them up
different than just coaching hard and not loving them up. Right, speaking of problems are gifts, I was like, Coach, I mean, let's just go ahead and play the Q and Amy, this is pretty good with me and coach Weaver, Coach.
Travis wainflop with Marie Dolphins here.
So problems are gifts as an adage of yours, have you heard of adversity?
As an opportunity.
Yet around the building, I have not heard that one yet. Sound very similar now now now most of the coaches have been off.
So so my question is, because coach talked about the person starting with you first, I'm curious about your experience on that side of coming in, hearing, meeting McDaniel and the staff, and just your experience with getting.
To know the guests.
Yeah.
So I've known Mike since two thousand and six. I mean, he was a QC in Houston when I played there, and who you guys see on a week to week basis is who he is always been. Had a tremendous amount of respect when I played under him directly, but I just saw his work ethic as a very as an as a veteran player at that particular point. And then when I had the opportunity to coach with him
in Cleveland, I was like, Oh, he's special. It took the rest of the world a little bit longer to see that than I did some other head coaches along the way.
I tried to get him to hire.
Mike wouldn't listen, and hey to their to their detriment, right, But from a coaching standpoint, philosophically, we believe in the same things. We believe it. I'm gonna go back. So do you guys remember Clarence Brooks. All right, Clarence Brooks, he coached here a defensive line back early two thousand and something like that. He since passed. All right, rest in peace. But Clarence used to say, this game has been and always will be about the players, and I
believe that wholeheartedly. And as a next player, I know how finite this career is. And because of that, I take my responsibility in the leadership position as a defensive coordinator extremely extremely important, and I don't want to waste anybody's very finite time in this league. So because of that, man like, we want to be great in all that we do.
By the way, very impressed here with the line of questioning. We talked like football and philosophy, and you know, we asked him about living in Fort Larda at one point, but I digress. He was asked about his blitzing philosophy, which, like, that's exactly what a Travis Wingfold question will look like.
Let's go ahead and get that answer.
Blitzing is truly, like it's got to be calculated and not reckless. I've been around both guys, right, I've been around guys that just call it and let's see what happens. Let's throw, let's throw uh, let's throw flies in the windshield and see what sticks. All right, then I've been guys, I've been more calculating that, and I believe you have to be calculating, not reckless in blitzing, because when you do blitz, you're obviously leaving your undercoverage and secondary vulnerable.
So whenever we do blitz, it'll be with intent.
I'm telling you, mcdanie and we have the exact same the sours that they reference it within the way they use their particular words. Let's see, he gave us a rundown on the coaches he hired. Let's go ahead and just play those.
Words for words.
Joe Barry obviously is a tremendous football coach right most recent the defensive coordinatord the Green Bay Packers. Back in twenty one, when I left Houston, me and Joe spent a lot of time conversating about the potential of joining up with the Charters under Brandon Staley. That didn't come to fruition, but through those conversations, we formed a friendship and over the years, like we've always kind of kept in touch, and then through mutual friends, I've obviously heard
just nothing but incredible things about him. So to add him to our staff with his wisdom and intellect and knowledge is a tremendous like win for us as a team and then for me individually, right as a guy that's just been in it most recently calling it Brian Duker, who we just hired as past game coordinator. He we worked together in Cleveland in twenty fourteen fifteen, and then he has familiarity with the scheme that we want to run because he was with Wink Martindale in Baltimore for
a number of years as well. So and I think he's like, he's just tremendous football my young kind of up and coming, up and coming coach, has great ideas and obviously you see his team with Detroit they just lost an NFC championship game, right, so does a tremendous job there. I think it was a huge, huge opportunity
to get him Ryan Crow, Right, Ryan Crow. You look at Tennessee's outside backers, Okay, Harold Landry, I can't even remember who else is out there, But all they did was produced and get after quarterbacks and sent dominant edges, which is exactly what we want to do here all right at the outside backer position. But to that being said, I do think Ryan Slowick did an awesome job doing that a year ago with the outside backers. I view Ryan as a tremendous asset because he's coached on every
level of the defense. So when you have that guy, I mean in one he's incredibly selfless, right, so he's actually gonna help us in the secondary as well. And really look forward to working with Ryan, and trust is just football acumen in general. And then the last guy I think we had it so far as Deshaun Sheed, who played corner all right, played under played behind Richard Sherman and Seattle all right won a championship, has since
been in coaching and shooting. I mean, you look at Seattle and what they've done there, particularly at the dB position. I mean, there's a lot of good ones, and I feel like when you talk to him, you can just feel the impact that he's had on them. So he's a younger guy, He's got all the energy and he can relate you talk about like ex players being able to relate to current players and being out there talking from advantage point of I've done this, here's how you can help yourself.
Right.
He obviously provides that too.
So excited about everybody man, and most importantly to me, they're all incredible football minds, but more importantly that they're good people.
Right.
And when when you're in the midst of a sea right, the season is long and arduous for a region reason, Right, you got to be tenacious because it exposes the frauds. And when you get to week thirteen, fourteen, fifteen sixteen, you better have guys you want to be in the fox hole with. And I believe everyone on this staff and everyone we've hired at this point are those guys you mentioned.
Ryan Slope is he's staying on And you know what, Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, he is. He's certainly staying on. He is a very valued asset for us. He is going to be helping us in the secondary. What his exact title is, I'll let Mike talk to you about that. We're still working through it. But love Ryan Man and the conversations I've had with him so far, he is juiced about it.
He's excited.
A couple more for you here. That's a good introduction to the coaching staff. But I want to go ahead and play some sound here, as he was asked what level of input do in lack analytics well have and how do they inform your decision making?
Here is coach Weaver at this point, at this point in time, like, I think you're a fool not to listen to some of the analytical data, and there's so much positive uses of it.
Some of it needs to be filtered, absolutely, but if.
You're not at this point in time like, you're behind, and we certainly want to make sure we're staying ahead of the trends.
He also was asked about whether he'll be upstairs or downstairs on game day. He said downstairs. I need to feel the game and how the players are feelings. They can't experience that from the booth, So I think it's a good change as well.
Let's go ahead and play two more here.
And actually I'm gonna go ahead and flip these and save my biggest one for a last I'm gonna play the question that I asked him at the end of the press conference about his philosophy behind player development.
Here's coach Weaver.
I think you need to be grounded in your technique and fundamentals. It starts there. So every coach that's on staff certainly believes in that, and the guys that have been here you see that with their guys on tape. Once you're sound there, that allows you to unleash whatever God given ability you have. Without it, like sometimes you can just be flailing around a little bit. I call
it like it's like the story of the prodigal son. Right, he leaves, thanks, get awry, comes back home, and your dad's just sitting there with open arms your technique and fundamentals the same way, like if you go a ride from it like thanks and get crazy, all right, come back to your technique and fundamentals, it'll be sitting there in open arms and things.
Will get right saved the best for last for you guys.
Here.
He was asked about Jalen Ramsey, and there's a lot in here to unpack.
I mean it's Jalen Ramsey. I mean, come on now, you talk about prototype corners. He is that right size, length, speed, competitiveness. The thing about him is I think he is he is your ultimate chess piece. So to have him just sit outside and you know, be a field corner or boundary corner or something like that, I think is a detriment to him. We gotta find ways to move him around where he can be most impactful, and we're committed to doing that.
I mean, shots fired a little bit. Maybe it's a little bit there. I don't know. It's pretty good though.
I mean, I'm excited about that because I thought it was a real detriment to the team to not use Ramsey in that regardless season ago. In the one game he did do it, twenty four reps against s Garrett Wilson, zero catches.
So we should probably do that a little bit more often.
And that's what he did in Los Angeles, two man matching up on tight ends, playing the slot, you know, helping you dictate where the football goes defensively. And Jordan Rodrieg's great podcast we did last year, she talked about that at length, and we didn't really do that at all.
This year. Was basically play this scheme we know about.
That's bottom line, stubborn, not going to change off that, and if you disagree, you get to ride the pine.
In the entire year. It seems like so great stuff. There a couple more recap notes.
I want to just put on this the leader guy that the players are going to gravitate towards and not be afraid to go speak to. And as someone that has had bosses I was afraid to go speak to versus bosses that are empowering and encouraging makes all the difference in the world to me, and I'm sure to these players as well. But also schematically, just talking about how there's gonna be some crossover from the stuff that
they Dolphins did a season ago. With the crossover the Ravens rans schematically lots of shells right, cover two, cover six, even mix some some three and four in there as well, where you have safeties you know, ten fifteen twenty yards off the football and corners that get into those deep cloud drops. But the idea of more mixture and more play making matchups like the moved Kyle Hamilton all over
the formations kind of that apex slot defender man. Javon Holland is so good at that, and so with Jalen Ramsey. So I think the versatility and flexibility is gonna be the biggest difference.
You see this year.
That's what every coach says, right, But in terms of how players are deployed, I think you'll see a massive difference in just that. So there you go. I hope we all are as excited about this as I am. I tend to try to hold back excitement about stuff we don't know a lot about, and that's kind of what this is right now. But he's saying the right things, and I believe the changes that need to be made need to be made made. Yeah, we'll be made with this coach. It sounds to me like we have the
right guy here. But we'll find out. That's the fun part about this job in this business is football is fun and we got to go on this journey together.
So there you go, Anthony Weaver. I'm let's go ahead and wrap it up.
I'm gonna do a mailbag on the podcast on Monday, so go ahead and fire off your questions to me. I'll put the tweet up there on Friday for you guys today to get those questions in, So make sure you do that. In the meantime, you all please be sure to subscribe to the podcast on Apple wherever get your podcasts from. Leave us a rating, leave us a review. Follow up on social at Winkfold NFL. The team at Miami Dolphins. Check out the Fish Tank Podcast with Seth
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