What is up, Dolphans And welcome to the Draft Time Podcast. I am your host, Travis Wingfield, and on today's show, I am pretty damn fired up, pretty fired up to be here where I am today in Indianapolis for the twenty twenty five NFL Scouting Combine, and it is a veritable who's who of heavy hitter, draft content creators, and NFL media landscape. I even saw Greg Rosenthal from the NFL Daily Podcast, who does his comedy podcast with Anthony jessel Nick, got a shout out a JARVP to him.
That felt very good. But on today's show, we're gonna have head coach Mike McDaniel twenty ish minutes of coach with me.
Can't miss that.
We're also gonna have Daniel Jeremiah on the program, and we're gonna hear from Mike McDaniel's press conference where he answered a lot of big time questions for this Dolphins roster heading into the off season. We'll go ahead and play that give some thought to you on his answers from the Indiana Convention Center in Indianapolis, Indiana.
This is.
The Draft Time Podcast.
Up first, my chat with Miami Dolphins head coach Mike McDaniel joining us today on a special episode of Dolphins HQ and the Draft Time Podcast. A man who needs no introduction the head coach of the Miami Dolphins, Mike McDaniel, coach.
What's up, man?
But didn't you just introduce me?
You know, like I gotta say your name. At least people know who we're talking to you. Even though we're in a.
Two shot, they can see.
Yeah, I feel that.
Got to bring you on.
I'm doing all right, man, We're just starting. We had our first evening of formal interviews with with with some players. It'll be nine two of that. Just got a press or done. Ready to roll?
Man, Do the players get like your jokes and your quick whips that you typically have for people?
I don't necessarily intend sometimes that my favorite jokes are ones that a low percentage.
It hits with Yeah, I know what you mean.
So I'm more motivated.
By hitting an intentional small sect.
I kind of think it's funny when people don't get my humor.
I'm the guy in the theater that laughs at the scene of the movie that no one else laughs at, laughs at like the big part, and I'm like not laughing like.
Like when did you laugh when Bambi when Bambi's mom died.
Not We're not going that direction. More so like the like the deep cut humor. Not not so much like the dark humor. Yeah, so I want to get into
the story that are are a great beat writer. On our Beat, Marcel Luis Jock from ESPN wrote about your days at Yale and working with coach Henley and just reading the story, you know, you talked about some of the drills and stuff that you put Chandler through and some of the unique it measures you guys would go to to get him better at football, and I just can kind of replicate almost my own passion for football and sports and media, because like, I'm so obsessed with this,
but it doesn't really translate to other walks of life that same way.
I'm curious for you.
Are you obsessed about things like that also or is it just a football thing that you're wired that way with.
It's good, It's a really good question.
I think I'm pretty passionate about, Like, uh, that's gonna selling.
Learning.
Sociology and the science of of people is something that I've always been into.
I think, Uh, you know, i I'm into.
Really all sports, but you know, particularly I would say I couldn't get around the like the the experiments that you had to do within the sociology major, but just the the natural or the the history of of the movement of people and and and and uh uh.
I don't know by de facto psychology.
That's a strong interest of mine that I do utilize within within my job, but it's uh, sometimes I'm checking it out outside of my job as well.
Well.
It seems like that like scheming plays as the perfect like make up for a football coach.
To me, yeah, I get that a lot more often than not. People are like, you look like the perfect football.
That real imposing figure.
Right now, I've made you to coach football.
People trust my tak a football because like one hundred and fifty pounds says, like, this guy was football. He's been on the field a few times, right, speaking of those drills, man, like the one handed catch story about him, like laying on the ground and you trying to pepper him with football, so get him to make one hand and catches. And then the story they write about marsl wrote about how he made a big one handed catch
to win a game. Just take me through kind of the creation of finding new ways, like new inventive ways to make football players better at football.
Well, I think it's kind of like pattern recognition, and you know, I always thought that there's like you know, I always thought there was a way to get players to see the game like the coach and if you work on how you communicate what you're looking at, you look at how you frame stuff. I think, to me, that's the biggest thing is you're trying to get players in any way, shape or form to be able to see the game the way you are.
And that is an ever evolving process.
That I have to add that that to me, you're always working on because you're you're trying to be the best for the players and for the organization, and to do that you have to improve otherwise you'll get passed it by those you might be in front of.
And a big part of that obviously is the coaching staff and develop the delegation. Rather, I should say to those coaches and on your staff. We saw a coach BEV coach Weave Frank Smith all interview for jobs over the last you know, twelve eighteen month period. Eventually you're going to lose a good coach at some point as how this this business works. But I'm wondering about, you know, the long tenured staffers that you have in place. You talked about this in your press conference, the pipeline of
developmental coaches. Just curious what that looks like from your perspective, to create a pipeline not for just player development, but getting your coaches that same type of developmental pop Well.
I think it's the ultimate.
Like one of the things that was so beneficial in my career was when I was given the opportunity to do a job, I was ready for it.
And all that that encompasses.
So being able to be in house and see the pros and cons from a removed perspective of how everything's handled gives you an added cheat code as well as I think uniformity from coaches within your whole staff in how they are articulating an objective or a responsibility or a technique that to me is the only way to ensure the clearest mode.
Of coaching communication.
So to me, I don't I think think the both.
Both parties are served, players and coaches are served.
When you have enough coaches to treat some of the guys in the uh some of the three, four, fifth, whatever, as though there're the one in two, all the while getting reps to actually for those guys to actually coach the one and two.
That probably comes from your your perspective as grinding.
From the absolutely in that and what what ends up happening is the strength of the nucleus of your your your youngest or your position assistant coaches that what happens is all right, so you move. So a guy gets an opportunity and leaves, and there's upward mobility. But then who's in charge of being the the the scribe of how what we are as an offense, Well, that comes to comes down on Frank. FRANKTT is the one that's gone.
It's on me. Whereas in a.
Situation like this, those guys are experts at what has happened during the course of the year because they've.
Lived in and as your coaching staff develops and changes over the years, because again turnover in this league is very common. Bobby slowk rejoins up with you here to get back to work with you. What what does he bring to the coaching staff man?
What a what a fortunate opportunity we had in this situation because realistically, Bobby Sloke is coming here to only add value, not taking any responsibility away from from the other coaches.
But you want to talk his.
His working relationship with Frank Smith and their ability to present to me their opinions on you know, when we get together and finalize the game plan. You know, Bobby Sloke's ability to to be in and out of the quarterback room and his you know, my first hand knowledge of his ability to work with people in a constructive manner that is very comfortable for all parties. I already know how well he'll continue to work with coach Bevell
and TUIs play as well. So really really unexpected opportunity that I feel very fortunate because there's.
Two guys that I.
Directly trained to be a coordinator type role in the National Football League or michae Lefloor and Bobby Slogan. To have one of those guys is monumental when the game is about how many people are a collection of people seeing things the same way.
Yeah, So that's kind of my fall up to that as it goes back to the idea of you know, the cooks in the kitchen concept and you know, for folks that don't know like the way a game plan builds out, like you do certain parts on Tuesday, Wednesday through like yeah, right, zone, throw down, all that stuff.
So it's this big puzzle you're putting together every single week, and you've talked a lot about how your approach is to like overplay and then how do we adjust what they're overplaying to take advantage of that space, Like all those eyes, all those different thoughts in that room.
I have to imagine that kind of helps you.
Like if you get stuck on a situation, like maybe Bobby or Frank or Coach Bev, someone can be like, hey, I see it differently, So what if we don't go with this idea.
That kind of how it works in that collaboration, absolutely, and the power is in those people having the ability to see it through my vision and so when they disagree inherent they are acknowledging.
What might be my resistance.
And so then you have powerful You come to powerful agreements, epiphanies and nuanced details when you can have differing opinions coming from the same lens. So we're not talking astrophysics versus biology, you know what I mean?
Yeah, both over my completely By the way, that's the way over my pre pay grade. Here, Let's let's go with continuity first, and we'll go to the new coming coach and Craig Ackerman, but back to Coach Weaver here for a second. Continuity on the defensive side of the football is going to be new for you here the first time we'll have the same DC and back to back seasons. How excited you about the stability of that provider.
I'm super excited because I felt a tangible shift last year during the season on when collectively the whole group got it, and I had felt that the year previous, and to be able to start in the off season program closer to you know what I think it's all about,
which is, you know, focusing on technique and fundamentals. More so than anything, it just takes your whole pie of time allotment and significantly emphasizes and creates a much large larger piece of the pie that is technique and fundamental development, which is ultimately what you want to do.
Be that continuity.
I'm very excited because I think it's the perfect storm of really really liking schematically where we're at, and then guys being able to build upon something which which is a huge.
That's what the off season is about.
It sounds like it's more of like second nature, So you're not it's more reactive than thinking on the field.
Is that kind of what that brings?
Absolutely?
Absolutely, and and realistically you're just trying to get guys to be in concert in multiple problem solving situations with tonality.
Uh, you know, we want to.
Be fast physical with elite technique. Want to be fast and physical and have elite technique. You generally have to think about your technique more than fast and physical, So you have to train that. The faster that you can be in the mode of thinking about your technique and not your what your responsibility is, the better off we are. And I see us being able to get to that spot in May as opposed to September or October.
Gosh, my golf swing could do some continuity in itself, ma'am. Yeah, it's so tough to replicate over and over again. But well for a different days, yeah different Yeah, Yes, let's let's go to special teams sh real quick. So coach Craig Ackerman's here, what what made you attracted to the idea of bringing him in?
Well, first off, I had multiple people within my own staff guys who don't typically recommend people aggressively speak on his behalf then, you know, for me getting you know, seeing what he was able to do in Tennessee and then how that ended, and then the time he spent in LA and being so close with so many guys there.
I already felt like I had an idea who the guy was before I met him, But the nuts and bolts of why he's our special teams coordinator was because of how our working relationship was was going, in my opinion, to excel it. I think his his interest in football, there's a lot of overlap and how I see it and the connectivity of really really you know, it's like.
Writing a perfect essay in English.
You get it back from your English teacher and you have these lots these words scratched out because they're unnecessary, right to the point that that's kind of how he sees instruction, constantly attacking. How are we telling these guys what we want them to do, what's the common commonality with how they're taking the coaching, and how do we best get players to work in concert and be their best self? So really really excited about that working relationship.
I think We're gonna benefit from that because he's He's a guy.
That will.
Well, with absolute certainty, develop and maintained relationships with the players and then develop players, which is the whole point of coaches.
Absolutely, So I tend to fixate on things here and there with my podcast especially, and one of the things I'm really into this year is the cyclical nature of the NFL and how we went through you know, the old prime running back of the Ricky Williams, Priest Holmes, you know, Clinton Portis types of days, to the five thousand yard passers being like four or five guys in league.
Now it seems like we're kind of pivoting back more towards the running game, as the world champions just ran the ball six hundred and twenty one times this season and all the way to that championship. I'm curious where you view the league that lens of the cyclical nature and where it is today with you know, the running game being so prevalent or maybe making a comeback a little bit.
Well, yeah, there's a confluence of issues. I think.
Reactionary the past game, defensive coaches experiencing more pass game productivity than they're used to.
Led to.
You know, there's a lot of there's a confluence of higher execution from a pass game standpoint, as well as more multiplicity and how teams approach every play pre snap.
People are motioning more and all that.
So the league's uniformity and problems solving how people are seeing what works and take. We kind of got a more consistent approach from defenses really really this season. So that cyclical nature I think is an unnatural derivative of emphasis.
What statistically, every.
Stat that you can look up will will show not just the Miami Dolphins, but the whole league is facing more two high safety defenses.
What does that mean?
Well, simple math, there's four players outside of the core seven run players as opposed to single safety which there's eight, So you have more space.
To run, bigger gains.
When guys are and eventually, if offenses start scoring three or four touchdowns a game while running the ball, then you'll see another change. You know, But I too find interest in that that you know, this this trend I see it from I see it or I felt it starting in twenty eighteen kind of with the Chicago Bears success, and yeah, it's something that you should be interested in because it's league wide and it's real.
How does that adjust the way you view two going into a new season and how you construct your off around your quarterback? Fieltimate point guard right, because we saw him your first first two years pitch the ball all over the lot. The air yard stat was you know up there, which people seem to love. And this year it came back down to more like quick game and more quick execution of finding those quick checkpoints.
And you know the quick progression that you talked.
About in your press conference is how do you put that whole pie together and see what the best you know approaches for Tua and how to construct it around him in twenty twenty five.
Well, I think each and every one of those like philosophical decisions, you know, the broad ones are based upon all of the variables. And when you're talking about, you know the success that we had throwing long yardage football, teams were going to force us in this past season. I want to say the first nine games they played us very conservatively and it wasn't until we played the where our execution and taking advantage of what because what
are they doing? They're just standing people further back pre snap, giving you pre snap yardage instead of throwing footballs at defenders. We choose to throw whether they or not, but you have to execute it at a way that they feel threatened so they stop giving you so much pre snap depth. So to me, the evaluating all the circumstances where our
strengths and weaknesses are. You know, maybe you tack down the field more when your matchups are favorable from pass rush, so you can protect a little bit longer.
All of those things.
My biggest thing for him is the execution of short intermediate allows for long If you don't want those deep pre snap looks, make them pay for it, which is what our focus is all off season. That I just talked to him about. I think this past Saturday when we were at the DCC.
Yeah, saw you guys rolling through there. That was a how was the event by the way?
For it was awesome.
I love that event that you're going to talk about.
A cool comment.
A cool way to handle trauma that is ever pervasive is to come together as a collective and the best manifestation possible.
That's what I see that event as I.
Love that very good stuff.
Coach.
I'm gonna have to do one quick personal thing right quick, because I wanted to show my kids a little bit of love on the trip right here.
I told them I would hold these up for Caroline and camera.
My two kids drew me these pictures to take with me to Indian Outoise missed me so very much. I wanted to close with that by them on YouTube. They are gonna be fired up to see me and you and they're drawing. So coach, appreciate your times.
Well, it's awesome.
And I will just FaceTime my daughter because you didn't give me a heads up on that and I should.
Have brought her artwork. Dan it. Travis, you're a great dad.
That's a cool shoutout and great job staying within the lines.
Yeah, can you tell which one is a two year old and the four year old?
Is that?
They grow quick man. Coach, appreciate you.
Man, Thank you awesome. It was great.
Away he goes quick break in the action rate there come back on the other side with another heavy hitter, Daniel Jeremiah. That's next Draft Time podcast, your host Travis Wingfield, brought to you by Auto Nation. What's Up Dolphins, Welcome back into Dolphins HQ and the Draft Time Podcast, joined by None other than the great Daniel Jeremiah DJ.
What's up man, Oh, it's great to be with you.
I feel like this is a groundhog's day time and look forward to the conversation.
I do have new questions for you there atually this time around, and I want to start with some general team building concepts here because in doing all my podcasts and my shows here of the last couple of months, you look at the Dolphins needs right now, and free agency's gonna you know, change a lot of that obviously, but Miami's pretty well set at like the premium spots. They've got their quarterback, they've got their wide outs, their tackles,
they've got their edge rushers. They just they opened up a need at cornerback, but for the most part, their needs are largely at the secondary positions.
Right.
So, when you have that focus going into the offseason, what do you think should be the approach for how you attack that off season?
Well, I think the nice thing is when you when you have the main things taken care of, is that you can you can shop towards the top of the market at some of these secondary positions where.
Everybody else has got to use all their capital. The resources with draft picks, with free agency to go.
Attack those foundational pieces and maybe like, okay, we'll skimp a little bit on the secondary pieces. I think if you're the Dolphins, this is a chance to go get some some premium players at some of these other spots.
It kind of reminds me a little bit of the lines a couple of years ago, and they were, you know, much bemoaned about the Jamiir Gibbs and Sam Laporter, Jack Campbell, Brian Branch and all of a sudden, those are top five players with their positions, right, do you kind of.
Get it right? Though?
They had the foundation in place? And so once you do that, that's the argument, like I'll take us off in another direction. But that's the argument on the running back thing to me is people say, well, do you believe you take running backs high? You don't take running back high? Well, I believe when you have the main things taken care of, take them as high as you want because all their carries are gonna matter.
Yeah.
I mean, Gibbs has certainly made them look smart on that decision. But is that kind of where this draft can be had a little bit because I look at the safety group is super deep. The tight ends are incredibly deep. The Dolphins can kind of make some hay and some positions they have needs at.
Yeah, I think I think you're right on.
I think when you look at tight ends, I would throw running backs in there. Safeties is another one. Interior offensive lineman. Yeah, I think there's there's good players there. And again some some teams have so many other major holes to fill that you know, I can't I can't remember a year where I have a running back and two tight ends my top seven players in the draft, right, and I don't think they're all going to go in
the top seven picks. So you're gonna get that type of value in this draft later on in the draft.
And then Loveland a couple spots behind that too, right, Yeah, No, I've.
Got I think I have five for Warren and Loveland sevens and seven. I've got gent three, So three five and seven running back and two tight ends.
Kind of a weird year.
Do you think they'll go that high or I don't think.
They will, But that means that constitute's value later on.
Sure, it makes perfect sense.
And with that in mind, the Dolphins again groundhogs that we've had this interview several times. We do this quest type of question every single year. You know, in the past it was Get two with his weapons, well Waddle
and Tyriker there and now Johnny Smith. So with that in mind, with how the Dolphins have shown you they can throw the ball all over the lot and gain the yards and win games that way when Too was healthy, do you think there needs to be an emphasis on maybe a kind of philosophical pivot in terms of being more in tune to the meat of the offensive line and the defensive line and kind of building the trenches out that way for them. Yeah.
I think there's going to be an Eagles effect this year, and teams are going to look at it. I was, you know, talking with somebody in their organization and they were comparing, you know, their defensive front to another team, and another team they're having this conversation. Another team said, you know, I think I think our front four compares favorably with your front four, and they said, that's great, and we have four more behind those guys.
So yeah, that's like that.
There's value in talent and depth in the trenches on both sides. So yeah, I think if you're looking to take that next step, and you're the Dolphins and you want to make a little bit deeper push. I do think there's a need, especially on the offensive side of the ball, get some more dominant players on the interior.
You think that's here to stay. The cyclical nature of you know, used to be used to be Rick K. Williams, Priest Holmes, you know, ride, you're running back, and then we transition to the more five thousand yard passers. But now with the Eagles six hundred and twenty one rush attempts last year, you think the running game is kind of making a return with all these two high looks teams are getting.
Yeah, I think, look, you're trying to find ways to move the football against that shell coverage look, but you're also trying to find ways to get explosives. And the Eagles have found out, you know, one way you can get explosives is by the looks that you present in terms of you know, you want to go heavy personnel.
Now you're going to get them out of that shell, and then you're going to be able to not only pop some runs which they've been able to do, but you also get some more favorable looks in the pass game.
But you have to have the threat that, like we are going to run the football.
Does Devon Hm interest you in that interest and that?
Yeah, no, LEAs no question. So you've got a home run hitter. And then it's just the opportunity. Now can we move people at the line of scream? It's just great the runway.
Yeah, just the smallest crease and he can certainly make you pay for that. So I want to talk about the Dolphins defense a little bit. Here are gonna be a lot of change on that side of the football. Javon holl and Jordan Poyer both are free agents. They lost Christian Wilkins last Yearkalais Campbell will see what his return looks like. Jordan Brooks a big hit at linebacker form last year. I'm curious you had some time in Baltimore. I know that's kind of one of your bread and
butters organizations there. Our defensive coordinator comes from Baltimore and kind of implemented his own version of that Ravens defense. Who do you think are some of the best fits for what Anthony Weaver runs on defense in this year's draft?
Well, I look at a guy like John Campbell as somebody who'd just be a fun chess piece there, and someone who off the ball provides that that speed and range and versatility. This new little trend that I've you know, kind of picked up on over the last year is finding guys that can win his pass streusshers from different entry points. And he's one that you can blitz him from off the ball. You can let him rush off the edge if you'd like. He can compliment the guys
you already have there in that capacity. But more than anything else, I just think I think of that the Baltimore defense in the Baltimore style. To me, it's more so than where we align the chess pieces. It's just fast and physical like that combination. And that's one for you right there.
But there's a few guys in that mold as well, like a Shamar Stewart, right, I think Kenneth Grant. When you look at the defensive line up front, and you know, I know, you know, Mason Graham's gonna go super high.
Kenneth Grant's probably gonna go high.
Walter Nolan, how do you kind of how do you stack the defensive tackles early in this year's draft.
I think they're different flavors you know, to me, like Mason Graham up there.
At the top of that position group is just rock solid.
And you have to take this back to him because I'm curious to see someone who's been around Kelly Greg previously. He to me is like the newer, like souped up Kelly Greg. Like people don't remember Kelly Greg. How good of a player he was wrestling background, never on the ground, leverage and balance like, that's Mason Graham to me. Then to me it's Kenneth Grant, just because the upside of what he can be it's not there yet, but you can see it.
And that again it goes back to me.
With the Lodi Nada seeing somebody that you know, at that size it's not supposed to move like that, so he'd be two for me. And then now you kind of get into, Okay, what do you want an upfield guy? Walter Nolan's gonna give you that with his twitch and ability to get up the field. You want somebody with inside outside flexibility. You know Stuart can do that can move him him around. Mikel Williams as someone who watched him rush from a three technique is pretty awesome as well.
So you know, having that versatility. It's just they're all different flavors.
We actually took our top guy and that rotation from Baltimore a few years back, off Waivers and Zach Stealler. Yeah, and he's turned into, for my money, I mean underrated players.
I don't know why he does not get more to love.
I think he's one. I mean, twenty sacks the last two years. Easy that I happened to be a little bit into that. But with him in mind, and how you kind of build it around him because he's one of those you know, ninety percent he's just such a freak ninety percent snaps every single Sunday for us. And he only missed his first two career games because he got poked in the eye and practice and broken orbital bone.
Other than that, he plays every single game. How do you kind of build out the rotation around it like that? Because in Baltimore we've seen that, right, It's all about, to your point, different alignments. We need to be able to shift and run games from different positions. How do you kind of build out that group around a Zach Sealler as the mainstay of there?
Well, I think you get guys, you know when you have a stud and you have somebody that's going to command attention. Now, I just want somebody who can win one on ones because you're going to get him. You're
going to have one on one opportunities elsewhere. So whether that's your you know, whatever mode you used to get that win, whether you're a power guy, whether you're someone who can you know, get up the field or is athletic enough to cross people's face and win that way, I think you're finding guys that can just win.
Just find guys you can win one on one.
What'd you make of Chop Robinson's rookie year and how he can possibly kind of expanded his second year.
It's all in there. It's all in there.
He's got all the ability and you saw a lot of a lot of heat, a lot of pressure.
I think you're just going to see him continue to grow. He was.
He was so interesting coming out because the explosiveness, the raw tools were so like eye popping, and there's a want to sometimes when guys aren't as polished as rushers, but then you can see, yeah, but there's just like the best way to describe, like just a strain to finish on those plays. He's going to figure it out, and so I would buy a lot of that stock.
Yeah, when he got hot last year, it was like it was like when a hit ors, He's a beach ball in in the maass box, like he just didn't miss.
He was constantly putting pressure on guys.
Let's move back into the defensive backfield because again, mention the safeties that we have coming up for contracts this year. They just released Kendall Fuller, So Jayalen Ramsey's still in to okay or coohu back here. What about some defensive backs do you I think could fit this Dolphins defense within the first couple of rounds of this year's draft.
Well, I mean, look, Xavier Wats is an interesting one, someone who just take the football away. He's fun to watch there at Notre Dame. You know, Malachi Starks is
up there at the high point. I like, there's Woodson from cow is one of my favorites who you know, I go back to the we had a Scout School presentation when I was with the Ravens with Lionel Vital who had been with Bill Belichick for a long time, and I always remember when he talked about safeties at Belichick just said, you can't win in the NFL consistently with the dumb safety. So you and everything I've heard about this kid at Cow is how incredibly smart he is.
He's a leader, he's a communicator, a traffic cop, so to speak. So and he's gonna be six three, two hundred and ten plus pounds. He's probably gonna run for four. So you know he's got that going for him as well.
A lot of those guys this year, it seems like they are going to just sprung out of the gym of the South Carolina kid.
I can't Pronomer how even worried he can appreciate that.
Yeah, he's one of my favorites. Okay, let's wrap it up here. Dolphins have picked thirteen forty eight. Where do you think of some of the options in those two spots in terms of just who your favorites are for who could go off of.
The well thirteen, I think interior offensive line, You're gonna have some really good options there. I love Booker to me, he's plug and play and I think he sets that real firm pocket for Tua.
Membo can play tackle, can play guard.
I think both those guys either one of those I think would be home run picks there to solve a need and also get value with like really really good football players at that point in time. Now we get into the second round, you can get into that safety discussion.
Watts is you know around that area.
If you want to go get a talented defensive lineman that can rush and get up the field. Gosh, there's gonna be a whole host of guys. It's it's hard because they're so similarly graded. There's gonna be guys that go in the bottom of first and there's gonna be guys that go forty five to fifty five. There's no difference between him. E'sarakum from Boston College. If you told me he was a thirtieth pick or the forty eighth pick, I would believe you. But that would give you another
option there for some fun edge rush. Yeah.
And I want to close this because I saw this debate on social media and people are saying bad clash and there's a response of like, there's no such thing as a bad class, right. Where do you come down on that in terms of like, I know it's at the maybe the high end talent, isn't there in this year's class. But you can always find players every year, right.
Well, I just think to me, I always look at a successful draft is can you get three You get three starters in a draft that's a really good draft. You get four starters like you're you're really cooking. So this is a starter draft. It might not be a star draft, but there's starters littered all throughout. So I think that's how you have to approach it. Is we're gonna get guys, We're gonna put in a position. We're not gonna have to worry about that position for the next five to seven.
Years, which I feel like again matches that first question about the premium spots versus the kind of meat and potatoes the Dolphins have to rend out there.
One hundred percent. You can fill those cracks.
Daniel Jeremia NFL network. You can find them on NFL Combine coverage all weekend long.
You and Rich right, you can be together.
It's good.
Amazingly, we don't ever get on each other's nerves together for that long that's a long days, but we have fun.
And I also saw that you were tuned out on Padres baseball, but you saw a manny Machado golf shot, and I got you back in golf shot, I got.
You into baseball.
Yeah, he just he flushed it and then I know he had tennis elbow last year.
He's healthy. Telling you every sleeping on us.
You know, the Dodgers and their five bazillion dollars payroll, We're not going anywhere.
We're gonna be competitive.
Well, hey, my Salo Mariners. I think we signed one play at the off season Donovan Salono.
Hey, Padre, Yeah, I know.
That's why I had to get you on here and talk to you about what's he bringing us third base.
Why he's gonna get a chance to watch your pitchers lose two to one on a nightly basis.
That's what he's gonna get.
You kill me.
You're the best man. I appreciate your time. Was always like you, and away he goes.
We're gonna come back on the other side and finish up this podcast. We're not gonna play the press conference audio because you heard enough of coach already on the show, but I'll give you the most important deadbits from that press conference. That's next Draft Time podcast. Your host Travis Wingfield, brought to you by Auto Nation.
Let's do a.
Rapid fire segment here real quick on Coach McDaniel's press conference, which happened on Tuesday morning, and you guys probably saw the tweets by now all the action going on out there around coach and the Miami Dolphins. It's entire scouting combine as teams address the biggest questions about their offseason.
And speaking of that, the biggest one was the first question of the day, and it kind of circled back to the biggest concern that I know all of you out there have and quite frankly myself a little bit too, but the offensive line and the history or rather the future I should say, of Tron Armstead, and it kind of sounds like the Dolphins have made a decision that they're going to go ahead and proceed as if he will not be on the team, or rather that he might be in retirement.
Because of the.
Critical nature of having that information for them off the top is paramount to how they approach the off season.
And with Patrick Paul and Austin Jackson into those.
Guys, you feel pretty good about their ability to slide into those starting spots and give you your top two tackles and then, of course the need for a swing tackle will be paramount this offseason, but also the biggest part of the entire deal, which it sounds like tarn There's report out that I said that he will be willing to reduce his figure for the season to make the contract easier to move off of, or if the Dolphins keep around to pay him that way too, So
plenty of stuff to cover on that. Also, the biggest question of the entire thing was a question regarding the investment in the offensive line, and McDaniel mentioned that he believes they will invest both in the draft and in free agency. But the part that I thought was very interesting was he said, quote, I think we have a tangible opportunity to improve that and that starts in free agency with a couple of guys that we have targeted that you think you can get a deal done with them,
and that continues into the draft. So it sounds like they are very much in tune to this free agency class. And you guys know, I've been a big fan of this guard class. I think there's a lot of value and not a lot of overspending that has to happen to make this team better in that position. And it sounds like the team is in lockstep with that thinking
as well. More thoughts here that kind of got the sense that the question about the running back room was more about Devon a Chan and Jalen Wright, which I believe it should be. As you guys know, it sounds like it'll be the one two punch there and then trying to round out the room with the rest of this class, draft and free agency, which kind of to me said no thanks on Ashton gent at thirteen, but we'll see, we'll see if we get to that point. Also,
Tyreek Hill did in fact have risk surgery. He will be running and working out this offseason, but will not catch footballs until about the summertime, so don't expect to see a lot of him in the OTA process. But also to me, sounds like a guy that will be back on the roster in twenty twenty five. So plenty of good stuff. So you can check out the entire press conference on the Dolphins YouTube channel. He touched on
Anthony Weaver's return on the coaching staff pipeline. There are some national questions that don't really you know, pertain to us, but good stuff. They're all across the board from coach and also by the way he gave us the famed he's earned the right to test the free agent market, which, if you recall, that was the same language used around Christian Wilkins and Mikeasicki. So he gone probably seems that way. All right, let's go ahead and call it a podcast
right there. Tomorrow we're gonna come back. We have Jordan Reed, we have Brett Coleman, we have Marcel Louis Jock, we have Dolphins scouts. We have all kinds of heavy hitters this week from the floor at the Scouting Combine here at the Indiana Convention Center.
Until then, you all.
Please be sure to subscribe to the podcast, leave us a rating, leave us a review. You can follow me on social at winkel NFL and the team at Miami Dolphins. Check out the fish Tank Podcast with my guys Seth and Juice the YouTube channel for a brand new episode of Dolphins HQ. We have some fun little vignettes, if you will, of me going around town being an absolute idiot. That's some of my favorite stops around in Indianapolis. You
can find on that show. In addition to the interviews and content here from the Combine and last but not least, my written Combine notebook up on Miami Dolphins dot com. Until next time, Ben's up. Caroline Cameron, Daddy, please come and hold