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A wide Dolphins touchdown, Tyrek call uncolievable.
Just blue fire for a second time.
Don't know where he was going right away. I want to hit that the man. I want to help you, soone, keep on your bandwagon.
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It's Waddle his sixth touchdown.
Paras up this day.
Drive Time with Travis Wingfield begins.
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Dolphins And welcome to the Drift Time Podcast, part of the Miami Dolphins Podcast Network, covering your team, your Miami Dolphins. How's it going everybody? I am your host, Travis Wingfield. And on today's show, a special guest joins me, Mike Turrico from NBC stops by. I talk about this Dolphins and Eagles game. Come Sunday night. We'll also hear from the great Kyle Krabs on the weekend in College Football, and I'll tell you about some behind the scenes info
on the Dolphins putting together their game plan. How much fun it is to do that from the coaches and players themselves.
All of that and.
Much much more from the Baptist Health Studios inside the Baptist Health Training Complex.
This is the Drive Time Podcast.
Hey, let's go ahead and welcome in my guest today, the great Mike Turico joining me now is the man you're gonna hear on the call Sunday Night in Philadelphia NBC's Mike Trico.
Mike, welcome in, Travis.
Good to be with you and great to see the Dolphins on a role here. It's gonna be a fun Sunday night South Philly.
A couple of five and one teams again Sunday Night, Dolphins at Eagles, the first matchup of five and one teams or better on Sunday Night football since twenty fifteen. And you know, I always like getting some behind the scenes stuff from you guys here, Mike, is this one that you and the crew have had circled on the calendar for a little while.
Well, certainly when you see the start that the Dolphins got off to, and knowing what the Eagles did last year and their great success getting to the Super Bowl, you figure this would be.
A really good odd matchup.
We have back to back odd matchups meeting unless there is the vary into that seventeenth game. You only see this once every four years, so it's got a little bit of uniqueness to see the two teams together, and they may be the two, along with San Francisco and Detroit, two of the foremost interesting teams in the NFL. And Detroit I think because of the renaissance and the comeback.
San Francisco because of the incredible positionless offense they play, in the physicality they play with Miami, you guys know, you know every snap could be the highlight of the year. And Philadelphia with what they built around Jalen Hurts and what that offense has done. And you put on top of that the fact that Jy went against two of the two guys forever intertwined in Alabama history, and we've
been hoping that the matchup would be the equal of this. Unfortunately, the Eagles lost to the Jets, which is a double wami from Miami fans, of course, but I was kind of hoping after the one o'clock games yesterday or Sunday, excuse me, when the Dolphins won, I said out loud, which probably jinks it. I said, well, I hope the Eagles win and they're the last undefeated, though the twenty three Dolphins have a chance to hand the Champagne glass to the Dolphins of a half century ago, beating the
last perfect team. I didn't know if it would happen, but I was hoping that would be one of the storylines going in.
But it's still gonna be a great game, Travis, no matter what.
An ode to the Monday night game against the Bears in nineteen eighty five. I'm going to circle back to that topic there here in just a second, Mike, But you took me into some of these storylines there, and that's where I wanted to go to next because you mentioned two of versus Hurts and their storied history together back at Alabama.
I think you know either.
Fan base would argue these receiving corps are the best of the National Football League, respectively. And you know, the narrator of this great story we're going to get on Sunday night. You know you mentioned the compelling nature of the league. All these great stories and backgrounds is what makes it so compelling to me personally as the narrator of the story. Sunday Night, as it were, What are some of the threads that you're most interested to follow, whether it's Tu, a Hurtz, or otherwise.
Yeah, I think two end Hurts will start it for I think all of us because of what those guys have done. And I joked with Chris Collinsworth in the last segment of our game in Buffalo on Sunday night.
You know, there was.
A long time that all Nick Saban turned out were great defensive players.
Right, you can just.
Draft the Alabama defense and they're still really darn good. But this has really been I think an example of the coaching greatness of Safe and the fact that he saw we need offense to beat people in this day and age, and he has recruited to coach up hired coordinators to keep them systemically sharp. Some great offensive talent where see that Devonte Smith among others the field as well.
But when you hone in on Tua and Jalen, I think that storyline is so special because maybe a little bit of what Jalen has become is because Tua became this sensation as a freshman, right, and we immediately saw the ability of Jalen Hurts to overcome adversity, knocked that or taken out of the lineup, comes back in in
the SEC championship game. The following year, goes to Oklahoma, has an incredible, incredible year and comes in the NFL as a second round pick who wasn't seen as hey, you're gonna be the savior of the franchise, and people are going why the Eagles taking a quarterback this early? And it turns out he's a difference maker and when you spend time with him, as you spend time with Tua, you understand how they're wired and there's a great similarity
in that. So sure that'll be one of the storylines, but it's really about on the field once you get the game going. And right now, No Jalen Hurts is coming off a poor game with three picks against the Jets and Tua and this offense, as I said before, you know you want to be ready for the next step because you may see as good a play as you've seen all year in the NFL.
They're that explosive.
You talk about the Alabama tize, they're obviously Waddle and Smith as well, but it stays in the SEC when you consider this Eagles defense, having so many Georgia or former Georgia Bulldogs, I should say on that defense, And that's kind of where my eyes trained first with this matchup is the trenches because this Dolphins offensive line, Mike has performed, I think, better than anyone's expectations, you know, outside the building here, but they draw a front with
not just you know, Josh Sweat and Hassan Reddick off the edge. But man, when I watch that tape Jalen Carter and Jordan Davis and Fletcher Cox inside, what intrigues you most about that matchup?
Because to me, it's good on good Mike, it is.
And it's interesting you see so much of Miami's success come outside that area. Right, do you go bang your head against Davis and Carter and Cox and those guys or do you just use your speed to get to the edge. Right, there's a physicality to Philadelphia and there's a a speed sleek, racing machine type mentality that people have for the Dolphins, which doesn't mean they can't line up to run the ball, but it's usually that speed that gets it done.
So that's always a fascinating matchup.
Right when we have the speed against power, you got to catch them to use that power, right, So how is that? How is that gonna play out? But yeah, you you hit on something good. I didn't mean to have Jaalen Waller. We can go on and on with all the SEC talent in this game. But you got Davis, you got Cardi, getting Kobe Dean as well a linebacker
for Philadelphia. You know it's we should probably get Greg Sankey, the SEC commissioner, to come to the game and just kind of you know, say it just means more as the SEC likes, likes to remind us.
All there as well. Right, they gotta get somehow right.
Yeah, right, the voice of the SEC. But look, these are two teams that when you look at these rosters have that talent which come from great program. Do you know, they're pro ready And that's a credit to the drafting on each side, what Chris Career has been able to do with Miami and to build this Dolphins team with trades and acquisitions, and in the same way with Howie Roseman. So you start to look at it, you say, okay,
there aren't similarities. There are similarities in these teams. That's why I think getting a matchup like this of great on great in the AFC and the NFC, and it could be a Super Bowl type matchup.
That just adds to the intrigue of all of this.
Plus, you know, when you start to look at Philadelphia in the NFC East, they look this much better than Dallas, but they've got the games against Dallas coming up.
You know, Chris said something to me a few weeks ago, and it's so true.
We get our mindset around what it's going to look like for the whole year after September, and we always have eleven month memories. Just think back a year ago, it all looked very different, right, So we have to be patient with it. I think this is a great test for both teams to see, Okay, where are we, how good are we, and maybe more importantly, where do we need to be better in the next ten to eleven games to make sure that we're with the best in the league going into the playoffs.
To your point about Chris's point, I mean, shoot, Dolphins fan know this as well as anybody that going back over the last twenty years, the best run anybody had was the Patriots, and it seemed like every single year they would kind of start off five hundred and then make their run win ten eleven straight games and roll into another Super Bowl and go get another ring for themselves. You also touched on the big time test for both these teams. You talk about the matchups the Sunday night
football platform. You know, can the Dolphins get their first big win of the season against a you know, really really good team that has a good winning record. But the thing that I'm curious about, Mike, because I've never been there before, you've been there, what do you expect the atmosphere to be like at Lincoln Financial come eight twenty.
It's got to be rocket and rockin that night.
Be ready, Travis, be ready, I'll tell I'll tell you that.
You know, Look, Philly fans have had this notorious image for years. The one thing that you can never bet against is their passion, their loyalty to their Philadelphia teams, and what great knowledgeable fans they are, so they will bring it now. I'm going to tell you this sounds stupid, but I really believe the Phillies being on another run in the baseball playoffs and won their first two games at home, that just ants up the crowd even more.
It sounds like there's no possible way. But we were there last year right in the middle of the league Championship series, and those games were nuts at the ballpark Citizens Bank, which is right across the street from Lincoln Financial Field, and then where the seventy six ers in Flyers Player or just another parking lot away. They're all in the same area in South Philly down Broad Street. So there's an energy to those fans all the time. But I think there's an even heightened energy right now
as they're going through this nirvana. Our football team team went to the Super Bowl, our baseball team took it all the way to the World Series. They got a chance to run that back again. Football teams five and one. There's just like an excitement to be a Philadelphia sports fan right now. They know they can be a factor in the game. They like to live up to the legacy and the reputation that the generations before set for them.
It's an experience.
They let you know that you're not loved in the area if you come into enemy colors. But man, they're good fans and it's a great atmosphere to play a game in. And you think about where the road games have happened for the Dolphins at the Chargers is not an intimidating home field. Is the Chargers still build a fan base there at New England's never easy, but we know the Patriots are struggling and the fans were turning on the Patriots during that second half there when we
saw you. Week two at Buffalo is at Buffalo, right, So you've been in one road atmosphere and that's where the built. The Dolphins played their worst game of this season so far. So what a great road test here against a terrific team. So enjoy it, be ready for it.
Perhaps some extra saltiness over the fact that the Heat have bounced the Sixers a few times in the playoffs the last couple of years. I don't know, I'm just trying to add in some more Miami Philly flair there. But you talk about having the Dolphins back in Week two against the Patriots, you know you had them twice last year as well, and so it lends me this question to ask you, Mike, what have you seen in
terms of growth in this Dolphins team? You know, going from year one and Mike McDaniel covering that Steelers and Chargers game a year ago to now Patriots this year and then coming up on Sunday against the Eagles. How have you seen this team grow under Mike McDaniel.
It's a really good question. Let's start with this. You know, for you, for me, for anybody listening and watching us. You know, you're always better year two at something than year one year one. You may have new and may connect and all that, but you're still figuring out.
You know, where do we keep the mints? Where are the extra pillows hidden? Right?
You just try to hear it everything that's the nuanced little stuff right as you said, as you set it up. Now Mike and his staff know that, and now I think you're just seeing it go to another level.
And same thing in the personnel office with career. As I mentioned before, Hey.
Add h Chen right, it's a shame we're not going to see him with injury and change from a fantasy team too. By the way, but you're okay, we've got speed, but we had some injuries in the running back. Let's bring in more speed, right, Let's go speed there and add on top of it so when Moster's out and a chance it there's no drop in the speed. Matter of fact, there may be a different level of speed factor.
So those kind of things you start to see in year two, you're laid up foundation and now you're building on it. And I think we're seeing that now. Where I think this season is going to be decided is going to be on the defensive side of the ball. Right, How will Vic Fangia's defense emerge? How will it settle in? It doesn't feel like it's the some of the parts being greater, just but you're starting to see signs of that, and I think the communication having the same group out
there will be important. You know, entry ban Ginkle's been outstanding this year in every role he's in. Right, I almost like him as an edge rusher more than a backer at this point, but as the safety settle in to what Vic wants and how he wants it, the dictation of the defense from back there.
On through each level.
There are there are enough pass rushers here to mess up a game. And if you go back to watch the Philadelphia Jets game Travis, for me, one of the big things was the pressure that plush Jalen Hurts on a regular basis. Though you can Jalen philps back in the lineup last week and he get more snaps to impact the game, and Van Ginkel Steelers already got four sacks. Bradley Chubb has a chance to play again and play at a high level, right, So can those.
Guys do that? For me? That would be another level of jump.
As year two comes in that defense and how Vic plays out, I think it's going to be really important to the growth of this Miami team that's got the right pieces on the offensive side to be on a run here for the next couple of years.
And perhaps a catalyst coming down the pipeline here as well as Jalen Ramsey has had his twenty one day window activated to begin. I mean, what a mid season boost that's going to be to this defense getting a playmaker like him on the back end. One more thing for you here, Mike. We mentioned it earlier. You were here for Dolphins and Steelers and honoring the nineteen seventy two perfect team just last October I believe it was,
and you mceed the banquet for those guys. I have to imagine you have hundreds countless stories from that night, but I'm really curious just how special it was for you personally to be a part of a night that was so special to so many other people.
Three things I'll hit you with quickly on that night, Travis.
The first one is bravo to Steve Ross and everybody of the Dolphins, Garf Finkele, the whole crew for pulling that together right.
What a vision one a night.
And the personal for me was to walk out on that stage be the seventy two Dolphins and Dolphin greats and alumni in their aqua jackets, right, the blue jackets just signifying who they were in terms of Dolphins greatness.
And to look around the room and see that plus the.
Gold jackets of Hall of Famers, You're like, Wow, what a special organization and what an honor for everyone to stop and pause and celebrate something we haven't seen in the NFL for a half century, realize how tough it is.
The second part was extremely personal as somebody who is in his mid fifties who grew up on these Dolphins and watched that Super Bowl just to see heroes who we talked about for fifty years and be able to say hi and have a conversation with them and watch them celebrate together, some of whom hadn't been in the
same room together for quite some time. And then the third one for me, there are a couple of members of the Kansas City Chiefs and a couple of members of the Pittsburgh Steelers legendary teams there that said everything to me. To hear them tell the stories of the respect that they had for what those Dolphins did, and especially the Steeler guys who pointed out that the Dolphins set the target that the Steelers aspired to and really helped inspire that four championships in a six seven year
stretch that Pittsburgh achieved. I never thought of that, never put that together. But to hear the Steelers share that to the Dolphins, just that respect from one dynasty that passed it on to another, well, what a special night. And for those of us who love football and I love this game, for those of us who love it and are blessed to be a part of it professionally, to share in that night was one of the memories that I will take with me for a long time.
But like I said, bravoo to the Dolphins organization. You could say a lot of things about this Miami organization. The one thing that has to start the top is how first class an organization it has been under the ownership of Stephen Ross. They have not spared an expense. Look at that training facility across the way from the stadium, look at the F one Race, look at the tennis there.
They have invested.
Stephen Ross is of a deep belief that when you own a professional sports team, you have the absolute need to connect with your community, and he takes that responsibility seriously and from events.
Like that, or the experience in Hard Rock.
Or the F one Race, all that you see it and the Dolphins are doing everything that they can.
They have all the resources to be as successful.
As any team in the league as fans to me and haven't seen a bunch of sports and a bunch of owners not do this. That's all you could ask for. So it's a long way of saying that night sticks in my mind forever. And you could have just said, hey, halftime, love of those guys go out there, but no, they turned it into an event at the hard Rock, and dang, it was a special night and honor that I got to share it, the little piece of it.
It's my third year coming to this building. Every single day, Mike and I still pinch myself every day because this place is. It's beautiful, It really is, and I think you hit the nail on the head there, and Dolphins fans and mister Ross as well, certainly hoping for the on field product to match what they've been doing so far in terms of getting this place into what you just described it as, and so far five and one looks like it's on its way to doing just that.
Yeah, sure it, sure is, It sure is.
NBC Sunday Night Football play by play man Mike Turrico. Mike, I appreciate your time so much today, Thank you and enjoying the game on Sunday, and we'll see you out.
There, my pleasure.
Travis, look forward, senior. We look forward to getting back to South Florida at some point soon.
Thanks again, and away he goes.
You know, I've talked to so many different players and coaches in this profession that you would think would be the ultimate pinch me type of moments in terms of, you know, coming to your realization of your dream and a career. But I gotta say, man like, it's always been the broadcasters that get me the most and doing Kevin Harlan and Mike.
Cherico this year. Pretty cool, Pretty dang pretty cool, Pretty damn cool.
Let's go ahead and take our first break right there and come back on the other side. We'll hear from head coach Mike McDaniel, and I'm very excited about today's Friday d Tour. That's next Draft Time podcast, your host
Travis Wingfield, brought to you by Auto Nation. Segment number two on a Friday variety show brings us to the Friday Detour where I contemplate consider different types of topics to cover here on the podcast, just a little bit out of left field, and today I want to talk about game plan collaboration and having a blast at work where I kind of fell into a segment here with a happy accident in terms of just this whole thing
coming together. So I was thinking about how much I love certain days of the week, and Tuesdays is like all research, you know, after a busy Monday film study, Tuesday is the upcoming opponent. I don't have to record the podcast, so I get to just kind of, you know, dive into the research and watch some tape and really enjoy Tuesdays as I get prepared for the upcoming week of work. And that's kind of what the coaches staff
does in terms of getting their game plan together. So, you know, and on balance, I feel very fortunate to come to work every day and I'm happy to come to work, and I feel very fortunate to be able to say that, And so I was curious it must be similar for the guys who are crafting these plans that are producing these types of performances.
To see them then play out on Sunday.
I'm sure after a big win, coming back on Tuesday is like, all right, pretty fun, looking forward to doing it again. So I asked offensive coordinator Frank Smith about the collaboration process and how much fun he's having this year in his role as OC.
My favorite day of the week is Tuesday, and where it begins with, you know, your opponent. Prep starts on Monday, where you start really okay, who's in the defense, and who are they?
How do they play? All right?
Trying to see right how they use their players, and what's it for overall philosophical principles of coverage in front and just everything. And then as we get together on Tuesday, you know, with Mike and I and we go through the base plan and it builds and then you know, as you get into third down, with you know, the elements of that, and then you get into short yardage right inside the five offense, and then red zone is
the last element to the puzzle with two minutes. It's just you know, you're using the resources of your whole staff and everyone has different perspectives towards the experiences they had, So that's where it's the how do we all see the same thing? You know, I mean we're seeing a defense as the way we want to attack it. If everyone's from the same one family, you know, everyone will see it. But since everyone here we have such a wealth of experience, we see things different ways and how
we've attacked that defense in a different realm. That's the fun part. And as now we're going into year two, you see us collectively coming you know together as a staff. You see so much carryover of all of us seeing things. Now we're seeing things more similarly. We have, Hey, we have these concepts in this part of the plan that are now a third down guy south the same way, red zone guy saut the same way. You're starting to
see that. Hey, it's we all are starting to really see the same things of how we want to attack things, which has been a really cool thing to actually, ironically, Mike and I were talking about last week and.
Then similar question with regard to tight end coach John Embry. He had something similar to say, as Frank.
Smith last night was third down, So Bevill and Wes and Frank are all in there with Mike tonight's red zone night. So I'll it'll be myself and Frank in there with Mike going through the red zone.
You know, different things.
That you saw why you like this play, you know, and you hope you get some of your plays in and then yeah, I banged the table on it, and he's really good about putting him in. But then he's gonna dress it up, you know, he's gonna have a lot of fun forms, a lot of different shifts, motions and all that. So that's where he comes in and does all that to try to help dictate.
The terms further.
But it's been a lot of fun being able to
do that. You know, Mike has done a great job of trusting his staff and allowing us to do the areas of the of the game plan that we've had a lot of success in or have done a lot in, like I've done red zone everywhere I've been my whole career, so he's allowed me to continue doing it here with him, and so it's a lot of fun, you know, being able to sit down there and do it and kind of talk through what you see and why you want to do things and who you think you want to
get the ball to and then he'll rubber stamp it or change it around and do all that. But then the day it's just us having success, you know.
And so this all kind of got me thinking, you know, we've heard tooled the approach of head coach Mike McDaniel. We keep hearing about the atmosphere in the locker room and allowing people to be themselves in order to maximize every ounce of talent they possess. Because of that level of comfort with being your genuine self, there's nothing more freeing than that. And I can speak from experience in
my chair right now tenfold. Hell, we even saw Blake Fergus and Dolphins long snapper retweet the miked up episode of coach McDaniel just saying plainly, I would die for this man. So if I the team podcaster, feel empowered to do my job to the purest sense of my personality, if the players feel empowered to be themselves. Maybe it's
the same for the coaches. So I just love those answers about the competitive nature of hoping the stuff that you put together makes it into the game plan, the excitement of going into those meetings to collaborate and craft
the plan with Mike McDaniel. But really, what Frank Smith said about the second year of the offense and how things have just sort of solidified on the periphery, right like we knew last year there was something bubbling right at the surface that was pretty special, and it bubbled over for weeks in a row at times in terms of high level production, but there were all also some
lolls and just minor things to get cleaned up. And six games in this year, here we are and you're seeing those improvements play out right in front of your face.
The welding of the corners.
I guess, the proverbial welding of the corners to really make this thing a well oiled machine. Let's finish this thought with some commentary from a player from quarterback to a Tongua bai looa about the freedom to collaborate from the player's perspective. On top of those coaches and their game planning collaboration.
A lot of it has to do with feeling comfortable, for one, and then knowing the guys that are running certain routes for two. Do we like this guy running this route versus press? Do we like this guy off? Do we want to motion him? Do we want to do things like that? And a lot of the times it's more so Mike's on that already. Just some of them they're like, hey, Like I would just say, hey, would you want to do this or would you want.
To do that?
You know, he'd either be like yeah or no, Like just trust me on this one. So there's a lot of communication in that sense, and then just throughout throughout the week, communicating with the guys what we're looking for in this defense, sort of the spots in which the routes happen where we're trying to hit.
So things like that, that's all we talk about.
Let's put a bow on that with two quotes here from coach McDaniel, who I followed up on that question. Ask him about fostering that collaboration and creating an environment that's fun to be a part of. Here's coach on really the entire environment here in the Baptist Health Training Complex.
Perspective is a big part of the job that I have. And you know, we've all worked. I mean, work is work, so but it's one thing to have, you know, glass half full, boss, one thing to have glass half empty. We've had a lot of reasons to be optimistic, but just in general, I think it's important to recognize that and bring to the attention of everybody involved that, hey, this is pretty awesome because we're all moving in the same direction. We're a team that's trying to solve the
same problems. And when you do that without like trying to assert credit, or you do it without or do you do it from a humble perspective, it's fun to be a part of because it's truly we're in a team game and the and the way that we operate here is as a team. And regardless of what problems you have of the given week, what obstacles maybe matchups that are coming up, or maybe guys that you have injured or whatever it is, those are surmountable if if everyone,
if you're doing it with teammates. So I think, you know, I think that idea is something I believe in. But the biggest part of the whole formula is you have the right people to execute that.
So I think.
It's, like a lot of things, the result of having a fun place to work has a lot to do with the people that are working there. I can set any tone I want, but you know, guys have to be ambitious. They have to be the right type of people hungry to give their players advantages. And the end result is coaches and players working together appropriately, I think.
And then if you haven't seen the NFL film's piece on Coach where he talks about, you know, a life of servitude and living your life for somebody else is a beautiful thing.
Like who got me a little bit choked up there?
He was asked about that piece, and here he is kind of divulging on his upbringing, his perspective, and why he sees things the way he does.
Generally, when you're getting a lot of positive feedback, there's some humility to follow, So I stay stay.
Out of that.
But you know, you hope, you hope you're given the opportunity. I know for me personally, you know, it's been a life's kind of journey to try to hope or to try to try to be in a position to to to really positively impact people. That's why, you know, I knew that coaching was the profession I wanted to get into. Was because I was passionate about it. And I know if if you're passionate about something, gives you the best chance to to be effective at doing it. But yeah, nothing,
I I really don't take anything for granted. That's the fortunate thing of having trials and tribulations in life. That's why it's not necessarily a bad thing to have to go through things, because is I think that's given me the the I'm very very fortunate too to have the perspective that I have, and I don't take the role, the team, uh and everything that comes with it for for granted for one one second, and that's I feel
fortunate to you know. I It's like the analogy I would use is the irony in life is uh, is it really? Are you really fortunate? If you if you grow up as a child with money on the on the front end, you think that's awesome, but then do you really appreciate it? So I didn't grow up with with money, so like, uh, you know, being paid as a head coach, I really appreciated. I didn't grow up with a family, so being a part of the team.
You know, being a part of team is extremely important, and I don't lose that at all, you know, all those things that I would, I'm kind of in the middle of the dream, living it and have a lot of work to do. So to say that I could have forecasted any of this is probably wouldn't be honest. But I very much appreciate each and every part of it for sure. I'm very, very blessed in that way.
Let's go ahead and finish up our last segment here with my friend Kyle Crabs. That's next Draft Time Podcast, your host Travis Wingfield.
Brought to you by autoation.
Segment number three on the Friday Show, and next time you hear from us will be after Dolphins and Eagles
in the early morning hours of Monday. Let's go ahead and put a bow on the week though with my weekly guest from Lockdown Dolphins, Kyle Crabs, as we do every single Friday here on the Draft Time Podcast, the Great Kyle Crabs brings us home locked on NFL Scouting with our other friend on the podcast here, Joe Marino, and they locked on Dolphins podcast, Kyle, how are we doing on a Friday ahead of a big game on Sunday.
Yeah, waiting all day for Sunday night, So waiting all week for Sunday night.
But I'm doing well. How about you, Traf?
Can you sing it? Can you do the Kelly Clarkson for us?
I would prefer not too. Okay, that's fine. I think I've done a few times here. It's more of my brand, I think, than yours.
So we'll stick with that.
I don't want to step on your toes on my turf, do on stuff in my toes Kyle's talks in college football. First, before we talk about the game on Sunday night in Philadelphia, and before we get to this Saturday slate even, I want to go back to a text I receive from you who knows wee hours of Tuesday evening Wednesday morning, about a certain player in the Pac two which consists Oregon State Washington State, that you are quite fired up about heading into this draft cycle.
Yeah, it's Oregon State tackle t Lisa Fulaga is a six foot six, three hundred and thirty five pound Bulldozer's probably not high enough praise to give to him. But it's it's in the midst of seeing what the Dolphins offensive line has looked like this year with the points of emphasis that we've heard all the players talk about, and then you watch somebody like this with the intensity in which he gets off the line of scrimmage and the urgency in which he plays, and how well he
creates displacement in the run game. It's just like such a really fun watch to watch somebody who explodes off the ball the way that this offensive tackle doesn't. And Fuaga pretty surprisingly clean and pass protection too.
He mirrors pretty well in space, he's got tackle length.
So he's somebody who was not really on my radar coming into this season and watching Oregon State and they're having another successful season this year, and they're they're averaging almost two hundred rushing yards a game for the second consecutive season. A lot of that comes because of just this explosive presence that they have on the edge in Talisa Fuaga, who is you know, just I'm having a blast watching a play every week.
It looks like a pretty good tackle class heading into you know, I guess the month of November tackle class. And it's interesting that the offensive line is I think the last couple of years kind of swung back in the positive direction when there was a few years there where it was a dearth of you know, offensive line draft classes in the pass rushers were coming out every single year six seven, eight deep, and you have this disparity that kind of causes a worse product, I would say, in.
The National Football League. So it's good to see that the offensive line's head in that way.
Plus for Miami, you know, we're in the throes of a really fun season and I want to get too far ahead of ourselves here, but the offensive line is like all up for contracts next year, so who the heck knows what it looks like going into twenty twenty four.
So definitely worth looking at that position here. And then my other kind of point that came across my mind when you were talking about that was it's nice to have an offense where like you can watch a college game like that looks like a Miami Dolphin, Like I know that that fits and translates into our system. I think it used to be that way defensively in the previous regime, where you knew, you know, heavy handed pass rushers that could play at the edge and not overrun
the quarterback and press man corners. We'll see if we can kind of develop that identity on defense in terms of knowing exactly what it looks like under Vic Fangio. But offensively, it seems like we have arrived at that point. So good stuff there, man, coach. I got some Oregon State football if you guys have not there, six and one, the only loss to Washington State, of course, obviously, but a good football team out there in the Pacific Northwest.
Is Kyle Is, you know, rolling his eyes of me.
Let's go ahead and move on to your alma mater that you don't talk about very often, which you know, I'm basically Andy from the office.
Like if anybody doesn't know I went to Cornell, I went to Washington State. I love telling everybody about it.
You don't talk a lot about Penn State. But they have a big football game this week. Is this the week they finally topple the buck guys?
So what's weird about the James Franklin era with Penn State is they have played them very tough, and they've had a couple of games where they've really had them on the ropes. Now I don't know that this is
the year. I do think Penn State has more offensive firepower than Ohio State does, which is ironic a give in the presence of Marvin Harrison Junior and Amecca Abuka and tight end Cad Stover like that they've got players at Ohio State, but with the departure c. J. Stroud, as much of the performance that Stroud is putting in Houston is kind of eye opening for what Stroud is as a player. His app since at Ohio State, I think speaks just as much of volumes where they're trying
to get rhythm going with Kyle McCord. Now, Ohio State defensively has a ton of talents where I think you look up and down the depth chart and there's NFL players that are probably going to be in this year's class. I know there's still a few players that have like that extra year of eligibility from the twenty twenty season. But starting on the front end, you got to Mulow, you got Tyler Williams, you got Jack Sawyer, you got Ty Hamilton, you got Michael Hall Junior. Those are all
defensive linemen for Ohio State. And you've got Tommy Iikenber. That name sounds familiar, right, Tommy Eikenberg. It's same family there, Denzel Burke at corner, Lathan Ransom, and Josh Proctor at state. So like you're going down the depth chart and you're like, oh, okay, there's like ten NFL players on the Ohio State defense this year. Going against Penn State with what they have and obviously a little bit of a new local offense. We Drew Aller at quarterback. So I think this will
be a very good game. I'm glad it's at noon because it's been tough if the past couple of Saturdays get up for the whole day of college football when the noon slate's kind of slow. So we're we're hitting the ground running tomorrow and I'm excited about that.
Hopefully another Texas Oklahoma type of game wing get. Speaking of that, we're back to that first question. Speaking of Texas, who's the receiver that runs fast than everybody else in football out there for Texas?
Xavier Worthy?
Yeah, what a fun player he is. Huh.
You know, any teams that like speed would probably be a big fan of Xavier Worthy.
I think we like some speed, and you know, speaking of Penn State Ohio State. If we can get a Penn State victory in that one and then roll into a Dolphins victory over the Eagles, I think OJ McDuffie might blast off into space with excitement at that point because he is so fired up for both these matchups.
What a big weekend for Juice.
And speaking of big matchups, we're going back down to the SEC for the second game you're looking at. I give us some prospects from South Carolina and Missouri.
Kyle Yeah, kind of a sneaky good game from a draft evaluation standpoint, where where South Carolina has Spencer Ratler a quarterback, and he's had quite a journey and has kind of found himself at South Carolina a little bit after kind of the unceremonious way in which he was benched for Caleb Williams in Oklahoma. But then South Carolina also has Zager Lagette at wide receiver, who is a
big bodied He's getting some debo comps. I think it's probably a little aggressive, but he's out here hitting twenty two miles per hour on the GPS tracking timing at six foot three, two hundred.
And twenty seven pounds listed on the depth chart.
So a guy who's big and explosive like that moves the needle. So he's had some chemistry with Spencer Ratler this year. You look at what Missouri has defensively, I think they have a couple players that are worth keeping your eye on. One of them is a corner and Chris Abrams Drain, who I would expect is probably going
to get some reps against Leget one on one. They also have a pass rusher that I like in Darius Robinson there and then Missouri also has an offensive tackle and Javon Foster, who this time last year had some potential top one hundred buzz as an offensive tackle. So we talked about that tackle class already, and lo and behold there's.
Another other big time program with another.
Proto type build type of offensive tackle that's eligible for this year's class.
That's good stuff.
Man.
I always love this time of year more because I feel like the matchups get a little more specific towards like actual guys that we've identified as you know, potential top whatever picks, and then they kind of clash in these big matchups.
Do you feel the same way where.
The scouting gets better this time of year because of that, Am I thinking out out of the class here?
No, I think you're certainly on point because you can see players that come in who weren't on your radar, or you know, teams that really prioritize seniority as far as opportunities, and guys got to wait their turn. And now you're about halfway through the college season, so these guys have had a chance to declare themselves and then you can really just sit down and say, okay, like
who's put themselves on the map. Like, think about what the the reputation was of Joe Burrow before the twenty nineteen college football season.
It's just an example, like.
Joe Burrow was routinely considered a Day three quarterback prospect and then they had that historic season. Right, You didn't start seeing Moncrafts putting Joe Burrow in the in the first round until October of that year, and he ended up going number one overall. So that's just an example for me that I do think the back half of the college season, once you have a little bit of resume to work with, really kind of kicks up the intensity in which you're watching the games.
Happens all the time, right, like I'm looking at THEO schedule right now. The Washington Commanders quarterback Sam Howe. I remember him being like linked to the first overall pick for a long time.
He winds up going in the fifth.
So like, man, what you think going into the year in the summer definitely does not translate all the time into what you get in the following spring. But before we get to the draft and college football and all that stuff, pretty big game on Sunday night, KYLEO.
Chances for the Dolphins to go.
Get a big, big road win and a big test against a big time football team.
You're going to be there, right, Yes, I am going to be there.
You're going to be there. What are you looking forward to in that game?
Hopefully a lot of Dolphins points and not a lot of Eagles points if i'd like, don But just to keep it simple, I'm really excited to see. There's been a lot that's been made about the quarterback matchup with a relationship that two and Jalen Hurts have with each other, understandably, so I am excited to see how both of those offenses perform. Excited to see how Miami continues to develop. I think you've seen good growth from the defense as
we've gotten a little deeper into this season. This is kind of the next big hurdle against a big time quarterback with a big contract and aj Brown who's got vel for hands where he catches everything even if you're playing physical with him. So how do they rise to the occasion there? I think I'm most excited to see that.
Can't wait to see the result on that one.
Hopefully Miamias six and one come Monday, And if they do, I know there's gonna be lots of receipts out there on Twitter talking about the strength of schedule and all the fun stuff we've debated here for the last couple of weeks here ahead of this big one on Sunday Night Football, Kyle Krabs locked on Dolphins, locked on NFL scouting.
Kyle, appreciate your time, man, Go get some sleep, my friend.
Thanks Dravis.
If Kyle sounded like a tired father of a brand new baby, that's exactly what he is. So good stuff there from him. As always, Let's get out of here. I'm very excited about this game on Sunday Night. We'll have a cover for you guys in the post game show as well. As the podcast following the game on Monday morning. In the meantime, you all please be sure to subscribe to the podcast on Apple, Spotify, wherever get your podcast from. Go ahead and follow me on social
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