Drive Time: Previewing the Running Back and Linebacker Rooms, David Long Walk and Talk

under the microscope. Today, Plus, we're gonna hear from new Dolphins linebacker David Long and my one hundred yards walk and Talk chat with the new Miami linebacker from the Baptist Hell studios inside the Baptist Health Training Complex. This is the Draft Time podcast.

should say, on the South Florida community and really kind of taking ownership of that star power and really making an impact. So you love to see stuff like that.

You also love to see the fact that training camp is less than a week away in terms of getting back on the pre field, and we're going to go back to the offense here for the last offensive position preview here on the training camp preview, the running backs, and that's kind of the position analog on offense to linebackers, so we'll also do off ball.

think of when I watch him run the football. He's also a little bit of a different runner than the rest of the backfield from a stylistic standpoint, I think you value that in short yardage. I look back to the regularskusing game in Buffalo when we struggled on third downs five for fourteen total, two for six on third and four or less, which was kind of a problem all year long, and I just keep saying that seems like a really quick fix that you can make with

a couple of adjustments. You have to go out and execute it, but it seems like that is I'd rather be have to repair third and four or less, then you know, figure out our third and eight offense, which is one of the best in the NFL. Last year, Jeff Wilson forced sixteen miss tackles on ninety four attempts. I think he keeps you flexible in terms of three down play calling because you can trust him in pass pro and as a receiver. Just a guy that I think you find on a lot of great rosters in

terms of his makeup and skill set combination. Number twenty six Savon Ahmed. You guys know what I think about Savon's game by now, explosive and big playability. He hits the line of scrimmage with conviction, some good tackle breaking ability evident on that run in Buffalo last year for a touchdown. He offers special teams value, and I think he allows you to not go to major drop off from the guys we've seen get more run ahead of him.

valuable asset to the backfield. I always think about that show All or Nothing, the first year of it with the Cardinals and they went to the NFC Championship game and got waxed by the Panthers, but David Johnson was enjoying a breakout rookie season. And I'll never forget Bruce Arian's talking about what they saw in the running back and he was like, you know, right now, we're going to just kind of work him into the fold. But come Thanksgiving, he's going to have a big role in

the football team. And I wonder if that could be a similar you know, what's the word I'm looking for here? Trajectory for Devon a chain. Maybe it's sooner, maybe it doesn't happen until year two, like you never know. But I just think about that because I think you have the opportunity with the way the rest of the backfield has been constructed to ease Devon in or to put him in right away. You know, we'll see what happens.

I just love the way he's wired too, like the theme in this room and on this team really loves the work, loves the grind in the film room, the weight room, practice field. These guys are going to go. They're gonna do the right things right And knowing coaches background with run game coordination, I have a hard time thinking the plan was anything less than coach and detailing what he could do with Devon's talent before the draft and making the case for drafting him based on those possibilities.

I just love the makeup of the room and the sense that you pretty much know what you have with running it back, but then you inject this shot of speed and play making potential and energy with a guy who is as talented as they come in Devon a chain number thirty. Are only not only our first fullback alec Ingold, what more can you say about alec Ingle, remember that fake counter throwback pass we.

the ability to threaten in the passing game. When teams play you in base, which is typically how you have to defend two back sets, right you get twenty one personnel or twenty two personnel, you better get linebackers in there to help, you know, defend the run. And then from there, if we have a speed at receiver, you can also make the team the defense pay for not having the correct personnel on the back end.

sea because he's a great surfer. I think Raheem is one of the more valuable pieces on the roster, and the reason is threefold. Number one, the way this passing game and play pass game stretches defenses and this goes back to the receiver preview both vertically and horizontally and specialized in displacement at that second level, Raheem's experience in the offense with that speed compliments that to a tee experience speed pass game compliment. He really offers the total

package in those departments. I loved how he ran the football down the stretch some real as against seth Levitt calls him grown ass man runs where he dragged tacklers

down the field and refused to go down. Some of those runs in the first three quarters of that finale against the Jets helped us maintain field position in a game where neither offense could do much, you know, backup quarterbacks in the whole like where we desperately needed it in a defensive struggle, and eventually eleven to six win, one thousand, ninety three yard from scrimmage, five touchdowns, thirty nine miss tackles forced, one hundred and eighty one rush

attempts in three point five two yards after contact on average. Awesome, underrated, awesome, awesome. Player number thirty three Chris Brooks, the rookie from BYU. The things I said about Jeff Wilson's play style appeal apply, I should say to the rookie here from the What's BYU the Cougars Ron Couger's he is a pile pusher man. Go watch his college tape and he is typically the one doing doling out the punishment. It's a deep room here,

a tough roster to crack. But Brooks will have to reply upon his physicality and his pass game prowess to hope to make waves in camp. Number thirty seven Miles Gaskin. You'd be hard pressed to find a better professional in

this game than Miles Gaskin. I remember my first year here going out on Tuesdays at work and seeing him get extra working on the player day off every single day, never complains, works his butt off, learns new systems, and really has fulfilled every role imaginable since being a seventh round draft pick back in twenty nineteen. Good vision, reaction back who's carried a load, been a spell guy, and been that teammate who helps give good looks to the

defense and scout team. I don't think you'd find anyone that would have anything but ultimate praise for Miles in this building. Remember as recently as twenty twenty one, he scored seven touchdowns and tied the team lead that year with Jalen Waddle. Number forty six, John Lovett, the last fullback, the last riding back here. He's been fun to watch out here at practice, a former Wildcat quarterback at Princeton, and you see that skill set in terms of his

ability to get out in the pattern. It's tough to gauge a fullbacks impact and tag off practice, but when you see forty six, when it comes to the passing game. You can see him pop out here. If you come to these practices, look fun. Group as a whole. Like I said, I love the security you have in terms of depth, proven talent up and down and then dropping the dynamic rookie in and seeing how that ingredient changes the room. I just think every position group here makes

up one of the best rosters in the NFL. Let's go ahead and take our first break right there and come back on the other side and here from Dolphins linebacker David Long, and then on the third segment of the show, we'll preview his position group of the linebackers all that. Next Drivetime podcast, your host Travis wing Fiel, brought to you by it.

to you by Auto Nation. We pick it back up for the third and final segment here on this edition of the Draft Time podcast, talking all things off ball linebackers, and you do have defensive line and then basically linebackers, but I like to break it up into more specific groups, even though you'll see some crossover here for guys that play different positions here, I mean that's how the entire

NFL goes, but especially in a Vic Fangio defense. We start with number forty one, Channing Tindall, and the thing I like again about this roster so much, you know, I think it's hard to not say the explosive nature of the offense, but maybe more the esoteric aspect of how each position group seems to have what I like to call proven NFL resumes and then depth that features a ton of upside. And that's how I feel about Channing in this linebacker room. Like Bake and Long have

had really good careers. We saw Duke get more time on defense last year and really carve out a role for himself than Tindall. From a physical skill set standpoint, you could make the case that he leads the room in that regard he's fast as hell. He played without explosive nature at Georgia as a rusher in the running game. You know his ten split jumps off the tape has broad his vertical jump eightieth plus percentile in all of

those categories. Saw a handful of snaps on defense a year ago, had a really good spy rip against Justin Fields, had one that wasn't so good after that. But now he'll have a chance to car about a bigger role in this new defense in his second year. Remember he's just twenty three years old. Didn't have a lot of game experience at Georgia and that loaded Bulldog's defense before his final year, and even then he only played like

four hundred and twenty snaps. So excited to see how he grows in year two and how he attacked the offseason Number forty five Duke Riley. I thought the game where Duke really showed you his value as the most as far as defense goes. And we always knew that he was good on special teams, right was the twenty twenty one game against Baltimore on a Thursday night down here when they had Bake come down off the edge

Moore and play Duke inside. We've seen him run the pipe and go step for step with some of the speediest number three receivers up the seam. He's blocked a punt in that Panthers game a couple of years ago. He's been part of the core special teams, and he can really play all three Mike Salmon will positions off

ball linebacker. Plus he might have the best hair in the game, which goes a long way to twelve run stops last year on just seventy six rundown snaps, nine pressures on thirty three pass rush snaps, and then just zero point six eight yards allowed per coverage snap and that was on two hundred and seventy one snaps in coverage. So he can do a little bit of everything for you. Kind of a nice utility man, jack of all trades.

I like him in that first man off the bench, like a six man role, but also start them in a pinch. I know you're going to be fine there as well. Number fifty one David Long Junior Look. Regular listeners of the podcast know how fired up I am about this player. My favorite trait in a football player is the mental acumen to anticipate and make plays because of the work you put in on Wednesday through Friday, which makes sense how I feel about our quarterback, right.

He's really really good in that regard, But linebacker is kind of the analog on defense of that in terms of studying the flow of of you know what the offense's tendencies are. That's what made me fall in love with Zach Thomas, and I think David Long is one of the best processors at the linebacker position in the game.

Today on the Free Agent Breakdown, I talked about the play against the Raiders where he dictated the running backs read before ultimately shutting off the lane that he flashed to him because he knew how to influence the action of the read based upon the blocking scheme. At least that's what my amateur scouting I took from the snap. But just really really instinctive and plays, you know, ahead

of the game more so than his counterparts. He's productive in all three aspects of the position, run, blitz, or cover. He's the type of player that makes those around him better and I think that, plus his range, is why I consider him a perfect fit for the Fangio system. Made forty run stops last year on two hundred and sixteen rundown snaps. I put this on Twitter and you'll

hear on the Defensive Tackles episode next week. On twenty four percent of our defense's plays against the run last year, Wilkins or stealer made a run stop, not a tackle, a run stop, which is a defensive win. You know, short amount of yardage allowed compared to the down on distance of the play. You add David Long to this group, and now you've got a triumvirate. He alone made run stops on twenty percent of Tennessee's right defensive plays in

just eleven games last year. An absolute beast number fifty two. Aubrey Miller Emery Hunts picked for the UDFA that makes a squad this year, or at least one of them. I think it was you want speed, you want explosiveness, Here you go, six foot two, twenty nine.

of the game and how teams felt about it. In the run up to the draft, he was treating running backs like speed bumps and one on one blitz, pick up, drill down on a mobile. There's a clip of him steamrolling Taj Spears at one point. Definitely a guy I'm watching deep into the defense when we see the units two and three go out there twenty two pressures last year on ninety pass rush snaps and forty nine run stops on three hundred and twenty three. Rundown plays very

effective player in college Number fifty five, Jerome Baker. You all know about double Nichols at this point. I think what makes Jerome such a special fit in this defense and player here for so long is that he's seen his role evolve really each year. I go back to my first year doing the podcast here at the Dolphins and Channing Crowder raved about all that Jerome Baker takes on. But the bottom line is that he's always responsible for just so much. He's also so incredibly durable, never miss

us a game. He's been a green dot guy called the defense. He's been a rush specialist as a rookie.

shy of forty seven hundred snaps in years. He doesn't leave the field very often. And then, of course you guys probably saw the news earlier this week. Zeke Vandenberg was placed on injured reserve at the start here, or I should say, before training camp, so he is not going to be on the active roster here during training camp. So you go shorter episode today running backs and linebackers,

but that's okay. We have a longer one tomorrow for you with Emmanuel Ogba and Jalen Phillips on the edge position, and that'll wrap up the week, and then we have two more preview episodes and then we're talking about practice next Wednesday, July twenty six, So keep it locked right here. In the meantime, you all please be sure to subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts.