Drive Time: July 26 Training Camp Recap

Day one in the books. We heard from head coach Mike McDaniel to a tongue by low A, Tyreek Hill, Connor Williams, Brandon Jones. We had an explosive play from Tua to Waddle. We had a rookie Shine Bright, and much much more. We're gonna recap it all notes from practice, top quotes from media availabilities, and much much more from the Baptist Health studios inside the Baptist Health Training Complex.

This is the Draft Time podcast. That's another Miami Always Caroline gets a vet day rest to day on the first down, call Kenny Walker back in our lives here today and just such first day of school vibes every year for the first day of training camp number four for me, you're number two under head coach Mike McDaniel, and a relief from the tortuous sunshine we've been facing here for seemingly the last two or three months. Down

here in South Florida. Media coverage aplenty saw all the familiar faces, all the boys back in town, some new faces as well. Got a chance to see the guys run out of the indoor facility out to the outdoor practice field, and then a football practice broke out after all of that, and one of the themes today was that familiarity heading into the off or heading into year two, I should say, for the offensive side of the football, the level of competition raising the stakes for everybody involved.

New system on defense and so much more than that. But let's go ahead and start here with that first piece, and particularly quarterback to a tongue of Iiloa. And to me, honestly, I just kind of appreciate that I feel like it should be or maybe it is in my neck of the woods, or maybe where I kind of isolate myself from the conversation is I don't feel like there's going to be as much back and forth about quality or whether or not this throw was good. Maybe there will

be that. I don't know. I've seen some of it over the deep ball that he connected to waddle with already on social But anyway, it doesn't matter because it's kind of been proven at this point that the dude can flat out play. So I thought in this practice he was sharp and decisive. The ball rarely touched the

ground when he was under center. There was one play that I can counted as a sack throwaway midway through practice, which was more of a coverage sack where Tua kind of went through his options before ultimately just killing the play despite stepping up into a clean pocket, which was also a bit of a theme in this practice. And you won't hear me talk too much o line d land before the pads come on, but clean pockets for

most of the day. But I thought the progression of the day was the best part because to me, Tua really demonstrated and again, this is an area that maybe it's too intangible, maybe it's just you know, that's that's it really, I think is the fact that it is intangible over tangibility. Is that where his superpower and where he really shines is in the nuances of the game, and part of that is demonstrating the proficiency within the offense that just makes you know that for him, it's

kind of second nature at this point. And we've talked about this last year into this year and really over the course of the entire offseason about having the offense be more you know, back of your hand, second nature like that, and that can result in more quick decisions and more you know, can pletions, more opportunities to stay on the field, which then creates more opportunities for the explosive plays. And we saw it play out like that

here on Day one. Like you know, again, I did one training camp before I worked for the Dolphins, and so I've now seen a fifth year of practices. This day one was far and away offensively, it looked like the middle of camp when they kind of hit their stride and start to get more and more familiar. They're already in that form to me on day one, but the ball was out quickly. I loved, love, love, loved how they created run after the catch opportunities in the

short passing game for the playmakers. That's a big part of you know, Tua's maturation here in year two of Mike McDaniel, Frank Smith, Daryl Bebbll and this Miami Dolphins

offensive system. In fact, I want to go to coach right now, because the great Daniel Oyafusi of the Miami Herald asked this question to Mike in the morning regarding what he thinks about year two for the offense and for the quarterback and the nuances that come along with Because typically you asked the question, you get the same, you know, run of the mill answer. But with head coach Mike McDaniel, it's never going to be run of

the mill. So Daniel did a good job asking about the nuances to make that kind of build as the execution and how you see that benefiting to a here in your number two. Here's head coach Mike McDaniel on QB one to a tongue.

you talk about? You know, ask ask a player, uh, what conviction does in a play call within a huddle? These little nuances are a big deal. All of a sudden, your conviction, you know, the quarterback, you're you're saying the same play, but with authority and ownership. Uh, guys believe in it that much more. All of a sudden, your pre snap penalties are are less as well, because you're

getting a line of scrimmage faster. That in combination with other people doing their part, including myself gives a potential to have a really cool product and as well as like there there were so many things we asked to to do. That was a first for him last year, and to his credit, he was able to do a lot of really cool things. Ownership of it and knowing with conviction and confidence exactly why you're doing something so you can self correct gives you a chance to take

your game to another level. And he's had a tremendous offseason and.

drives by going short. And you know, we heard two of talk today about the QB one or Quarterback Show on Netflix, and Patrick Mahomes is a good example of that.

In that show, he talked about how teams have been playing in a certain way and if they're going to give him the deep ball, it's time to go back to the deep ball, right, And so I think that what you can do to benefit from last year's success, as this offense saw down the field, is to take that short change, take the you know, the pocket change the defense wants to give you, because all of a sudden,

you just extend the game for the defense. You shorten the game for your defense, and again you create more plays, which creates more chances to you know, make mistakes for the defense. And so I thought we saw that build up as to a found those short outlet passes. He found alec Ingold, he found durham smythe he was finding Eric Azukama in the short areas. But then he got the chance to hit the big one and he didn't miss.

And it was akin to the processing and quick decision making and ball out early that you see on the short throws too, which kind of makes it all blend together in a way that makes it even more difficult and confusing for the defense. So on this play, it's

Jalen Waddle one on one to the perimeter. I wasn't sure if it was the short side or white side, doesn't matter, but Tua catches a shotgun snap takes a couple of steps, hitches up and fires a pass when waddle is like maybe twenty yards down the field, and he got on top of Javon Holland of all people,

and to let this thing fly early. We saw it looked like, you know, Max Verst stapping here at the Miami Grand Prix, coming out of the blocks to start the grid and get that whole shot, and all of a sudden he's in first place for the rest of the race. That's what it looked like. Jalen was screaming out of the blocks on that release and he got on top of Javon pretty quickly. But Tua let that thing fly before he even got to that point because Javon was giving him some you know, I suppose, some

space to deal with because why wouldn't you. And that's part of the space that this offense creates, just merely from the playmakers that it has within it. And so he lets the thing fly early, and you know, all of a sudden, it's a foot race between Javon and Jalen, and Javon's no slouge in that regard. He did a good job of staying kind of stride for stride. But I think this is where some of the I guess gray area that you saw on social media because we

put the video up. It's not the entire play. It's just the quarterback, the ball, and the play that happens down the field, so you guys don't get a chance to see the route develop the way we did in stands. And I just thought that the urgency and the timing that Tua threw the football with the created urgency for

Jevon Holland up against Jalen on that play. That's what happens because the quarterback is on top of his stuff for lack of a better term, like on top of his you know, it's different S word, but two got that thing out there early, and Javon, you know, you can't. There's not much you can do when you're running full speed trying to keep track of a track star, and that's what he had to do here. So the ball being where it was on top of his helmet is

perfect location. And Jalen goes up and didn't catch the initial ball, which I thought was tipped by Javon. It wasn't. Jalen just didn't secure the catch originally, so I thought it was more of a catch than it was a great throw. But going back and looking at it, it's a great throw. Waald did get his hands on it first,

which is high point in the football. Good job of doing that, and then a better job of corralling the football off the deflection, And it was so impressive that Javon Holland kind of went to him and said like, yeah, man, you got me a great play to go over there and dap up Jalen Waddle. So as a whole, I thought the off looked like they were just picking up where they left off in terms of having the same

system and language. Let's go back to head coach Mike McDaniel who talked about the benefit for the coaching staff. We hear it from the players perspective all the time. How about the coaching staff's benefit of having that second year in the system and with the same roster or buying large the same roster. How it benefits those guys and how they craft together an offense and game plans and the like.

your scheme should change. And that does. It's it's organic plusters, you Know's what's very unique about last year to this year is last year you're putting forth and specifically for offense, you're putting for You're putting forth scheme not totally knowing what your players do best, you're projecting what they do best, but you're having them learn it and kind of seeing where your offense goes this offseason, you can kind of structure it more tailored towards your players, evolve your scheme

towards your players because you know what they are and or you little not what they are, but more things that they're comfortable with, things that they they have room to grow in, things that you know they can they can make plays and be the best player that they're trying to be. And that alone has been so powerful, and even just defensively we have a new scheme, but knowing player's strengths and weaknesses, being able to talk through with Vic and you know, you know who you can

lean on. All that stuff changes for me the most because you know the people and that's a very cool thing here.

practice field. You know, we heard Raheem Mostart talk about adding more to his plate and not just coming into the second year of the offense, but his first year off of the knee injury and feeling more natural like himself in his second season off the knee injury, and he talked about kind of adding more to his plate in the passing game. We saw Savon catch some footballs last year and the today in training camp. Van A

Chain obviously the same. Eric Azukama will talk about his game here in a moment because I thought he was such a natural for how the Dolphins can create space and generate mistackle opportunities for these guys that specialize in that regard, like in Eric Azukama. I think there's a big opportunity for him this year. We'll talk more about that here at a moment. Alec Ingold being more involved

in the passing game. There are so many good options to fill the space vacated by what both ten and seventeen do and kind of you know, the run after ability idea that really tracks with how they wanted to build the team around those guys. Hedrick Wilson was a big run for the catch guy in Dallas, Aszukama in

that role at Texas Tech. That's all he did. Guys bounced off him in the screen game, the short passing game, and he would take off with long speed after the fact, I think you're gonna have an opportunity to create space for those guys underneath, kind of a reaction to the reaction of what you did well last year, right the Dolphins offense attacked vertically and intermediately and really pushed the

second level of defenses back. Well, if you do that all of a sudden, you create poor angles in the short passing game for us Heedrick Wilson, for and Eric Azukama. And I just think there's gonna be tons of opportunities where the speed the Dolphins have can create spaces and chances for other people, you know, throwing short routes to Tyreek Hill for instance, just putting guys in more and more binds based upon your formation and the personnel you have.

Man I am excited about all of that. So the ball was rarely on the ground for in the first team offense or I guess the offense that he was operating. That they switched it up a lot, so it's hard to call first and second team. There was a miscommunication on a deep throw that the wide receiver came back on. It was like a head ran a hitch to or through deep and they just were on the wrong page. A batted ball at the line and the aforementioned Xaving

Howard pass breakup on that ball to Tyreek Hill. I thought this was the best practice of Skyler Thompson's career as a Miami Dolphin. And you know, I've talked about some of the timing issues. I thought that was a lot better in this practice. Maybe it's recentcy bias, but just that timing and rhythm of his throws into tight windows. It was. It was precise today, very very precise. Now

the defense also got their wins. In fact, let's go ahead and take our first break rate that we're getting deep into the podcast and come back and talk about the defense on the other side. Recap of practice, get to more media availabilities for you guys plenty to come your way here on the first edition of Drive Time Training Camp Recap podcast. That's a mouthful date number one. That's next your host, Travis Wingfield, brought to you by Auto Nation. I do apologize if I'm talking a little

bit quickly today. I'm a little bit fired up. It's basically first day of school in a good way, your senior year, right, Like football practice is fun and I have the coolest job in the world. So we're talking all things football. Left off on the other side, talking about how the defense did get their wins on what I thought was just an efficient, really well constructed day

from the offense. But probably the best example of that was good on good with Xavi and Howard getting a pass breakup working up against Tyreek Hill and just I

mean iron Sharpin's iron right. It was good tight coverage playing back down the stem on this play where Tyreek came back to the quarterback to interfere with the route, the timing of the route and kind of turning Tyreek in a way that was legal but very veteran savvy movement from Xavier Howard and he just drove on the football and got his hand on it, broke it up and it was an impressive PBu. But the best part about it to me was how the sideline reacted and

just went wild. Legitimately, twenty guys came over and tapped up x after the play. And it's one of those things where, like, you know, if you go into a game against the Chiefs and you're playing Patrick Mahomes, like, you know you've got a tall task ahead of you and you're gonna celebrate getting the wins against that guy.

I feel like in practice for Xaviing and Jalen, and even though those guys are two of the best cornerbacks of the last you know, half decade plus in the NFL, knowing you have Tyreek and Jalen to go up against on the other side, it's a challenge. It's something you look forward to and something you celebrate when you do

it well. And I thought it was a perfect example of this comment from coach before practice about the way the players like Tyreek, Jalen, Jalen and x the way they raised the level of competition and carry a specific burden with them because of who they are and where they've been and their star power and how the other guys in the roster view them.

a lot of people. So you know, those guys specifically know that their their actions can influence a lot of the team and where we're going, even how even if it has nothing to do with their stats or production, I think having those types of guys uh is invaluable in terms of talented players that want to be great, that are willing to do the work.

Juice loves showing off his arm. Like we went to MetLife for the MetLife takeover a couple of years ago, and fans wanted to play catch with Juice, But he just wants to throw the ball because he's got a pretty good cannon, and he loves showing off the throwing arm, and he likes he likes to watch, you know, Sam and last year Pat throw the football in practice to their guys, and Sam loves cranking those balls out to uh for the guys and individual drills. But I'm gonna

go ahead and say this. You know, maybe Sam wouldn't like it, but he's not the most accurate with the football and quite frankly doesn't have the best arm I've seen. And so a lot of those balls are coming out, you know, not on targ And there was one that I was certain was more than likely to be caught by a media member and the stands than it was by Cam Smith. Then he just extends the go go gadget arms and plucks it from thin air and corrals

it for a catch and individual drills. But it just speaks to his strength, I think, which is the length and the ability to kind of react quickly and anticipate in those things put him in position to be in passing lanes more often than not, and he just knows how to use that length to his advantage. We talked about all OTAs making plays in the football. Had a PBu right away today in seven on seven, one play after I thought he was the reason that the window

was so tight on a completion to alec Ingold. But then again during eleven on eleven he damn near picks off a pass from Skyler Thompson just didn't quite survive the ground and the catch going to the ground. But man, he was. He was impressive. It was tough out there.

I thought there was a few more balls on the ground offensively and defensively than there probably should have been because there was a constant drizzle all morning, and I actually joked in the office that it was like a Seattle drizzle, which, if you guys are familiar with the Northwest, it rains a lot, but it's like these short rains that are not very heavy downpours. It's not like a South Florida downpour where you have a puddle after two minutes.

But so the field was wet, the balls were probably a little bit wet as well as there was just some moisture in the air. But also nobody complaining about that because it was literally the coolest day temperature wise we've had all summer on the first day of camp, which just tells me the football gods are real. But a couple of drop passes Tyreek had won. There was some balls on the ground that were dropped by the offense that probably should get cleaned up in the coming days.

But staying in the defensive backfield, you know, Brandon Jones has been working his way back and it's so good to see him out there playing. And I always just love to see a player who's been out with an injury and going through rehab because you take away like a man's purpose. And I've been there before. The pandemic was kind of that where all of a sudden, we're not doing as much content and we're not really you know,

working the same way we used to. And what's your purpose, and I can see how that can impact a young man, especially who does the same thing all day every day, has put his entire life into this profession and all of a sudden, you can't do it anymore. And Brandon's so introspective and so intelligent that I just wanted to hear his opinion on that. So I asked him after

practice today three questions. I'll go ahead and play the Q and A for you guys, how did your downtime help you in terms of getting your game back from a mental standpoint? And then kind of his answer was similar to what he did at the combine when he couldn't do on field work and got everyone's playbook and learned an advantage. And then also I asked him, how would you describe coach Vic Fangio's coaching style. Here's that entire Q and A with Brandon Jones.

And the biggest thing that I had was time, which was the first time I've ever had that much time to just focus on other things, and I really took that up all myself to learn the defense, learn everything, not just about the states position and trying to I'm always looking for an edge. So I couldn't run, I couldn't back better, I couldn't do any of that stuff. So my edge was mentally locking in understanding the new new playbook, new defense and kind of going from there.

we see, based on formations. So with that freedom, I think it's gonna give us a lot of a lot of leeway to have fun and communicating I'll be on the same page.

and Vic Fangio's style. On the other side, we saw lots of seven on seven in this practice, and I think that, you know, my perspective is picking up and teaching a new defense can be more definitive and give you more of a thought of where you have to go based upon certain reactions to you know, passing concepts and just different movements with fewer bodies to assess, you know in front of you doing seven on seven, just more space to work through your roles on a given play,

because there was more seven on seven in this practice really than I think any practice last year mentioned the PBUs, but I think the best play was from the aforementioned dead play where Tua opted to not throw the football down the field in the coverage. It was a combination of X Holland and Ramsey essentially floating back into what you know, I wouldn't I wouldn't say I know the defensive call, but looked like a cover three. All three

of those guys in deep portions of the field. Keeping the roof on top of the defense and cutting off any throwing windows down the field. They kind of gathered after the play and for what to me seemed like a confirmation of a job well done. I saw some fist pumps and things going on like that. Cool as he then kind of just mature throughout the course of the practice and get rules and jobs done. Some other

plays I wanted to point out some explosives. Savon Ackman had two plays almost back to back, one in the passing game, one as a runner, and the running play. It looked like he kind of put a move on where he felt really good about it because he threw his hand up in the air and to me, that says like, I'm going to the end zone for six, kind of like you didn't, Matt. I think it was R one on the PS two the R one put the finger up in the air and say, hey, I'm

going to the end zone. He also caught a pass over the middle of the field where he put a little shake on the defender and to it, just rip that thing right in there, right on time, and it led him into a big run. After the catch, did the exact same thing hand in the air he thought he had a touchdown there. We'll see. I don't know. Raheem's best run was behind a really good block from Connor Williams and Rob Hunt. You can just see the

difference with Connor Williams in the lineup. In fact, let's go ahead and here from Connor here for just a second, where he talked about how excited he is to get back on the field and play with his teammates once again.

I mean, obviously, coming in last year, new position things you're picking up on the fly, and now she's about solidifying that spot and feeling comfort with all the blocks, all positions, and being able to solidify my role as a leader as the center and being able to lead better.

the wind. He runs so damn fast. The arm the ball is not in just looks like it's flailing around out there, and that to me always a sign that he's moving. He's cooking, ready to go to the end zone. And on this play, he sure as hell thought he made the defender miss to create a long run after the catch because that arm started going there up in the wind. Let's go ahead and hear from Tyreek on his preparation for this offseason and what he expects in the coming season.

or whoever's in that quarterback in the moment. So as you've seen today, Man, I was just out there coasting, you know, trying to find ways to get open, you know, trying to be like Travis Kelce ish you feel me, So yeah, Man, just running the game a little bit more. I'm playing at my own pace and just trying to control the tempo for myself.

twenty twenty three. We're going to do this podcast every single day the Dolphins are on the practice field, So subscribe, rate, review all that fun stuff, and get your podcast here every day for the drive home in the East. I thought Alec Ingold had a really good day today. Talked

a little bit about that in the previous segment. With the short passing game options this team now has between Azukamas, Cedric Wilson, Ingold, all the running backs Braxton Barrios to tight ends, I just think Alec is going to really

expand with this offense. Can do as much as anybody in the sense of that year two in the system type of thought process because of you know, integrating a full back is just one of the things a lot of these players haven't been around, you know, with kind of the death of the full back position, but Alec is keeping it alive in a big way. I think his inclusion of the offense could be even greater in

that regard. I mentioned Eric Azukama earlier. I just a big target, really good balance that lends itself to yak ability, and I just continue to think that the space this offense can create with other guys will create chances for guys like that. We also saw Braxon Barrios catch a really nice timing rip down the middle from Mike White mentioned the raheem nice run working off Connor and Rob That was pretty much it, like, we'll get you some more notes. Rayqwon Davis had a big stack and shed,

so did Brandon Peelee. I saw Aubrey Miller get a couple of run stops. I thought David Long Junior made a play that is is gonna be one We're gonna see a lot from him this year where he just you know, anticipated fired the gun and made his play in the backfield and he came off yelling about how

excited he was about tagging off Aubrey Miller. The undrafted rookie had a couple of stops in the backfield, and there was one play where Jalen Phillips is going up against Austin Jackson off the edge and they run an outside play and Rayquan makes a big stuff in the backfield. But Phillips chucked his dude to out of the club and that was just an example of his strength and how I expect him to play this year. So plenty

of good. We'll have more of those practice notes for you guys on the coming days here and continue to get more looks and hopefully we see more one on one, some more pit drill. I just want to see more of that action because seven on seven it's fun, but I like one on ones and then eleven on eleven. Hopefully we get more of that here, especially when you guys get out here for practice here coming up on Sunday, go ahead and play a couple more soundbites here and

then get out of here. Coach touched on the pup players. I think it's right to show you guys that for the news portion here, let's go ahead and hear what Coach had to say about Tron Armstead, Isaiah win Tanner Connor, and Nick Needham.

me was very confirming in a lot of ways. Let's go ahead and go back to head coach Mike McDaniel who talked about to landing on the top one hundred list for this year soon.

earned respect. That's what That's what that one tells me because I looked really hard and I didn't see his name the year before, and I think that is something knowing to a he may not even know that it happened, nor would he care because he's forward focused. But you know, I think deep down there's there's probably some I mean, shoot there when you're begging, you're begging for a little

positive reinforcement and you're considering if you suck. I do think that I could officially say, if you're on that list, you don't suck.

we play with each other. There's still some things that we got to clean up, but I think overall, it's been a really good first day to be able to go out compete against the guys that are going to be on both sides of the field, Tyreek and Jalen, you know, on this side and then obviously the other side. Everyone wants to see X and also Jalen Ramsey, So it was good to see everyone.

ahead and follow your boy at Winklin NFL. Follow the team at Miami Dolphins for videos and plenty of photos and stuff from round camp. We have all that content for you guys there again the YouTube channel. Check out the fish Tank with my guys Seth and Juice. Of course, last but not least, I have the written training camp notebook every single day as well up on Miami Dolphins dot com until next time. Until tomorrow fins up Caroline Cameron Daddy's Coming Home.