Field Yates: People and Process

are world champions. We're gonna welcome in Field Yates of ESPN to talk about next steps for the Miami Dolphins. Will look back at the first two years under Chris Greer and Brian Flores and project where this team is going. All of that and more on this Tuesday, February, the ninth edition of the Drive Time Podcast. Miami Times And So, the Super Bowl is in the books. It's a rap not the game. I think from a competitive standpoint, the

neutral observer typically roots for. I was personally pulling for the a f C side, because typically I do root for the conference the Dolphins are in, unless it's been a division opponent over the last several years. But the Chiefs come up short to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Tom Brady's first year in Tampa Bay yields a Lombardi Trophy number seven for Brady all time. What a heck of a run he's had, What a heck of a career

he's had with that Buccaneers team. Thought it was kind of cool to seeing Dominican Sue get his first ring. A guy that's been a productive player in league for a long time, was a member of the Miami Dolphins for quite some time as well, he gets his first ring. So congratulations to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. They pull off the upset in the Super Bowl. I you know, I thought the Chiefs were gonna win that game, and they

just were sloppy from the start. It seemed like in terms of the penalties, how many flags came out in that game. They had double digit flags for over a hundred yards in that game. Patrick Mahomes on the move constantly throughout the course of the night. Some of the incompletions he had in that game were, I mean, the highlights of the game because of how impressive they were

throwing the ball falling to his side. One of the best memes I saw on Twitter on Super Bowl Sunday was a side by side shot of that incomplete past that Mahomes through on fourth down where he's basically parallel to the ground falling to the ground side by side with White Goodman from Dodgeball, Ben Stiller's character and that great Vince Fawn movie back in like two thousand and five, pretty much the exact same throw there from Patrick Mahomes.

So he remains ridiculous despite the fact that he and the Chiefs are now one and one in Super Bowls with that collection of players. But that means the end of the season now, it means it's all about one free agency on the periphery draft season, well within draft season right now. And I put the off season calendar for the NFL up in Monday's Blitz article up on Miami Dolphins dot com, where we look at the timeline

for and events to occur around the league. Of course, this year we're not going to have the scouting combine with everybody descending onto Indianapolis, but there is the window for the franchise and transitional player that is from February to March ninth, where teams can designate one franchise or

transitional player. From March fifteen, through seventeen. Those are the three days before free agency begins where clubs are permitted to contact and enter into contract negotiations with players with agents of players rather who will become unrestricted free agents on the new league year. And that new league year starts on March seventeenth at four pm Eastern. Set your calendars right now, set your alarm clocks for March seventeenth,

the start of the new league year. That's when everything really gets going here and that's on a Wednesday for you guys here. So free agency, we're gonna have that covered on Drivetown at Miami Dolphins dot com in depth. Every signing, every action we take will be all over that. So the official start of the new league year March seventeenth,

Wednesday at four pm Eastern. And on April nineteenth, offseason workout programs can begin, and on a bull the last day for restrictive free agents to sign their offer sheets occurs. And then finally we have the draft on April through May one, and the draft is scheduled to take place this year in Cleveland, Ohio. All R, let's go ahead and get to my guest now on this edition of

the Drivetime podcast, the Tuesday, February the ninth edition. Field Yates of ESPN and writing Shotgun Now on the Drivetime podcast is Field Yates. He's an NFL insider for ESPN and co host of the Fantasy Focus Football podcast and Field I think you're missing one major skill set here from the Twitter bio man Senior Bowl anchor extraordinaire. I had a lot of fun down there in Mobile. And you know, I'll go through the usual and say thank

you for the opportunity to my employer. But I'm easy to see when I say that, right, the ESPN put some faith in me to go down to Mobile and be a part of the tremendous coverage. Such a fun event though in so many ways, you know, I think in any year it's fun. But you know, I was talking about this with some of my colleagues that were down there in Lewis Red, my pant About and Todd McShay. Just so good to be on a football field. You know, many of us have not been in the football stadium

for close to a year. Much has been on the field to be a ground level to be amongst not just the players, but the two great coaching staffs, the Miami Dolphins and the Carolina Panthers. Was that's a pretty special opportunity to be Okay, Yeah, the things that we that we took for grant in the past, right, we no longer do. Like you mentioned that, there was actually

the Week two Dolphins and Bills game. I was there in the press box and the CBS feed had got cut for like three or four minutes, and so I was literally like tweeting out my fan base and they're like, Travis's Twitter's timeline is where we're gonna find the place

for the game today. So it's has been a crazy year, man, But I thought you killed it and and you mentioned McShay and Riddick and tannem baumb man, I wanted to ask you this because those are three, you know, heavy hitters in terms of football knowledge and football insight and resumes in the in the league. What is it like being around those guys when you're evaluating a hundred and thirty five prospects, like you have to soak up some information,

I'd imagine. Yeah, it's so unique because each one of them brings a different perspective as well. Right, you know, Mike Cannon almost start there obviously very familiar to Dolphins fans. He was, you know, either a GM or the e DP of football Operations for basically twenty years. Obviously led the show in Miami, led the show in New York. Yet and of course in the fact that it was a Dolphin staff mean there were time people that Michael

is very familiar with. I felt like I was walking around with the Mayor of mobiles when you were near Mike tannonbomb. But Mike has basically seen every single situation. Lewis Riddick did not just play the game. He also was a scout for many years, a working personnel for many years of both Washington football team and the Philadelphia Eagles. And now he's evolved into one of e fpn's foremost

game analysts. Obviously part of the Monday Nights Football Books broadcast, and you can tap into all the different uh tenets

of his coverage. I think you've got Todd McShay whos still library and I'm fortunate to do the podcast called The First Draft with Todd McShay and mel kiper Jr. Ever, single two they would drop an episode for PM E. Sterns I'm fired from the shameless plug and it never ceases too amazing that these two have an energy that is unmatched and a passion that's unmatched, rollnecks of information that's unmatched about these prospects. There thousands, and I'm not exaggerating.

There are players they are responsible to be somewhat familiar with. By the time the draft rolls around. Each of them could basically, uh discuss those players as if they were their own children. They have such good knowledge of them.

I love working with all those guys. That's what makes the draft, watching the entire seven round, you know, extravaganza for a week and an ESPN does such a great job on the coverage because you get these inside stories on these kids that you probably didn't know beforehand, like for instance, last year Solomon killing the big fish the lifeguard for the Miami Dolphins and that great story that that provided us so much content this year for Miami Dolphins dot Com and here on Drive Time that we

didn't know about before the ESPN shared that story. So that was that was really cool to see. And you mentioned, you know, being down there on the field and mobile for the press for the Senior Bowl, for all those practices and feel I think my favorite part of the coverage was the mic up segments with the coaches, like what was that from your what was that like from your guys perspective? As far as getting those coaches miked up and just hear what they had to say on

the practice field. Yeah, there's no two ways about it. That's the best part. And you know when we go down there at the four hours, well two hour broadcast, thirty minute breaks and then two hours more for each of the practices. And in speaking with our producer Brian Rider going into the event, you know, I was hammering him with questions like, what are you gonna do here? Is We're good, We're gonna hang for two hours. We're gonna watch football for two hours and talk about it.

And it's unlike anything else that we do, at least in terms of my response building the b SPN everything else. You know, you spend a day working on NFL Live Rundown and you know starts at seven am that morning until you go on the air at four pm. That's just so great about Senior is that the best part, without question is when the coaches are animated, the coaches are giving you sounds, you get to see the passion of East coaches, and there's not one way to skin

the cat when it comes to coaching. Not every coach has to be you know, in your face. Not ever, your coach has to be sort of this quiet, stoic leader. Not every coach has to be a guy who you know, doesn't with energy or enthusiasm or positivity or you know, criticism. Everybody is different, and that's what I really enjoyed watching both the Panthers and of course the Dolphins staff, as we got to see a handful of different Dolphins coaches,

Mike up and um. You know, it was great to be able to chat with them a little bit, you know, between drills and before practice as well, but to hear that sound when they're on the field doing what they love. I think it's the coolest part of the broadcast. Because football coaching sounds like a dream job to a lot of people, and it is for many. It's also a

life that is incredibly demanded. You might as well basically say good body to your family from the time of your report to training camp until the time the season is over. But the reason why they do it is not just because they want to feed their family and they want to provide you know, great life for their family is that they can. But it's because they love teachings. They love to be teaching, they love to be on the field with the players. And that's the sound that

you get. You can see how contagious their energy is. I've I've written so many pieces this year, Field about how Emmanuel Agba had a breakout season, or how Eric Row and you know, you're number six is having the best year of his career at a new position, or Bobby McCain moves to safety a new position and has you know, kind of a resurgence in his career as well. So it's not just exclusive to rookie's first year player second year players. I mean, guys developed all the time

at different stages of their career. And you know that brings me back to kind of an interesting point about where this Dolphins team is right now today. Field, you talk about the morning after the Super Bowl in one compared to where they were. Let's go back to when Brian Floors was hired the day after the Super Bowl, back after the eighteen season, where this team was coming in. They knew they had some contracts to get off the books.

They had to kind of restock the draft capital. Like where was your thirty thousand foot view be of where this team has? Like how far they've come in those twenty four months from the day Brian Floors was hired with Chris Careers the GM to now where they are with all this draft capital. They're they're in good shape, cap Y, They've got a much better roster. How would you say they've kind of grown those twenty four months masterfully?

And I'm not trying. This is not one of those where you go on a podcast that runs on the team's website and you do your best to say as many nice things so it sounds like a great interview and you get a bunch of listons and clicks and retweets and all that. I'm saying this because it's back and and maybe Dolphins fans don't want to revisit this two years ago, less than two years ago. At this point, the Dolphins were losing games and historic fashion. There's always

that joke that rears itself on Twitter. Could Alabama beat the worst team in the NFL. That's and it's always lame and it's obviously never gonna happen, And would the Dolphins at the time would have creamed the Alabama Crimson time. But the point is that this team reached about as low of an on field performance point as you could in the NFL. We haven't seen and and we all understand this was you know, short term pain for long

term game. But I wasn't expecting that long term game to happen a year later, right, And so we got to address a few things. The people and the people are unquestionably the right ones in place. You know, Brian Flores, you know we didn't did not win it, but it's you told me, Brian Flores, with the nfls Coach of the Year the past year, I would have said, good, he deserved it. Chris career, phenomenal job, outstanding person, level head and leaders process. How's the process been? Have they

made investments that have proved worthwhile? We just mentioned Emmanuel as an example. Guys really good maybe and Howard a players they've developed themselves by the way, the second round tack and I know that was the previous regime, but still player who was right there in the stick of the defensive Player of the Year conversation. Guys on the offensive side of the ball that we're rookies that were contributing right away, Salm and Kamley, Robert Hunt playing something

this past year. Guys like Jesse Davis who are under the radar acquisitions in time that have evolved into other team fastins or useful pieces. So process, I am on board with people. I on board with. The big question is simply going to be and I'm not trying to make this about one person, but as you know, the quarterback German League too makes that next step watch out. It's just a fact and you and obviously there's some

pieces you gotta probably reinforced. I think you could stand at a little more size at wide receiver, um, but this is a team but I think is equipped to make more strides going forward. As as you kind of gather the you know, to go back to the quarterback position, like you mentioned their fields, you kind of gauge the temperature of the league. Is that a pretty general expectation for the quarterback from year one to year two to

make that jump? Like why for fans that maybe don't understand the difficulty of going from college to the NFL At that position where lights, camera, action, man, everything's on you.

There's thirty two faces of the franchise when it comes to the quarterback position, what's the biggest challenge for that big step And is there a league wide expectation Like, yeah, once the guys out of that rookie season, especially in a pandemic driven off season where there is no off season where this guy's coming back off of a hip injury that basically he had to rehab the whole off season, is there a general expectation for a pretty big leap there. Yeah.

I don't know that I've heard this specifically from Brian flores Um, but I know that I heard this for many years when spending a lot of time around the Patriots and also spending a little bit of time covering them too. Is Bill Belichick has always remarked on how typically the player's biggest leap in his NFL career is

going to be from year one day year two. You know, I always laughed at like people ask what happens during rookie mini camp when these guys arrived from the facility under normal circumtas for the first time, and it's like they teach them where about the locker roommates and like what the person who, like, you know, the security guards name is right, it's not like they're getting right in. So here's how we're gonna play cover two and just you know, down in distance. It's no, no, no no, not

like it's fundamentally you're learning. Like I know this sounds ridiculous, but one of the first installs you'll have is for offensive players, how do we huddle up? Where's the left tackle? Where's the right tackle? Some guys obviously never huddling college, and sometimes it's a little bit different than how other

guys who did huddle in college. So my point is that typically that jump happened between the first and second years, that we've also seen it between years two and three we thought was somebody like Josh Josh Allen, excuse me. And then there are other players who it might happen later, like Sam Donald might be an example of the guy that circumstantially hasn't had quite the same pieces around him.

So that's why I think this upcoming year could potentially be one that we have all eyes on Tom because let's let's just operate unto this presumption he's the guy going into the season, and that the Dolphins used some of their resources available to maybe pad the offensive playmakers a little bit, whether that's addressing as I mentioned, wide receiver to me is an area they could add some depth. And then I don't know that running backs is a

need or if it's not a need. The reason why I say that is that on the one hand, Miles Gaskin seventh round pick and Savan Akhmed a waiver wire add play tremendous when given the opportunity. On the other hand, the Dolphins also turned to five running backs this year. For stretches between those two players. Plush Jordan Howard before he was waived, but Matt Brita, who's gonna be a free what Patrick Lair? So maybe the team says, hey, guys, let's streamline, let's go to you know, let's let's find

one workforce back for lacking better a term. So if those pieces are put in place, and assuming that the system, which I don't think we'll be overhaul because the two promotions to co offensive coordinators, I think that too could be primed for quite elape this year. Now, I did see the Fantasy the Fantasy Focus Football podcast love for

both Gasing and Akmed fields. We appreciate that definitely here on the Drivetime podcast, and you know, I'm glad you mentioned the story about having the rookies find the locker room, for instance, because I got a good story for you real quickly. Here. This was my first year in Miami covering the team, and my first week in the building. You know, our old practice facility, which will be well, will move to the stadium this year at in Miami Gardens.

But the practice facility and Davy the upstairs hallways, it's amaze. It's an absolute maze. And if your first time up there, you do not know where you're going. And it was like my third day on and I was still trying to find the kitchen, where the bathroom was and stuff like that, because you just get lost up there. And

ray Kwon Davis. So you've got hundred fifty pound me and three d thirty pound ray Kwon Davis comes intersection and we I saw him in the in the lobby earlier and he's like, where the hell am I going. I'm like, I think you turn around and go that way, but I'm not sure. Luckily I was right, so it

looked like I knew what I was doing. But just a fun little story about how you know you gotta find your way around the building first before you can worry about playing three technique, right, totally, I mean I know what you're talking about. I mean it's much different scale and not that being in the SPN employee is as physically demanding as being an NFL player. But remember I first got here. I showed up to the gym first time I get there and they're like, oh, you

gotta bring your own power. So like I finished up with workout and I'm like, great, where is it? You know? Much mean, you know, I'm like walking back into uh, into the office with the sweaty forehead. It's like these a little filly you know, tiny steps that you gotta take that that impact your day to day that you gotta learn in your a rookie or a new person on the job. Yeah, exactly. You mentioned the Super Bowl happened on Sunday. And remember Chris Godwin on Hard Knocks

one time. They the coaches were so impressed, like this guy went guys ONWN apartment. He went and took care of his own things. Like it's it's a different a different world for a rookie coming in to the league, especially you know guys that are going out on their own for the first time. So, uh, you know, speaking of that Super Bowl, I wanted to ask you kind of you know, going back to the Chris Career and you talked about the people in the process. I thought

that was a great quote. Field you mentioned, you know, Chris Career putting together this his personnel staff. I I've known that he's he's good at delegating. He has plenty of people that he puts into position of power to to make these decisions and help them kind of collaborate on a team effort. But we just saw the Tampa Bay Buccaneers shut down what, in my opinion is the greatest offensive engine of all time, and and Indie Reid

and Patrick Mahomes and all those guys. And we saw the Chiefs get there because of that offensive engine and that quarterback. So when you consider the end of the season and how far teams that won ten games like Miami are to these teams that are competing for Super Bowls, what have we learned from that Super Bowl And how can the Dolphins kind of apply that to the off season to get closer and close that gap between Day

and the Chiefs and the Buccaneers of the world. So I would start here, is you're right, is it was a great performance last night by the Buccaneers, masterfull defensive efforts in so many ways. I mean, I think most people, um, you know, watch the game and are acutely aware of what happens. I'm not going to rehast you know, every single detail of what the Bucks did right or wrong. I will just say that there were some lessons that

were reinforced last night. Because I mentioned earlier to quarterback Durman League and I'll stand by that. But it's a team game, right. That's what we forget sometimes is that the masterful performances of somebody like Patrick Mahomes sometimes numbs up to the impact of everybody else on the field. And I'm not saying I think sometimes people get like they may be misconstrue analysis and that Patrick Mahomes could have been better last night. He could have His offensive

line was completely overmactual last night. And we knew coming into the game that offensive tackle injuries were concerned for the Chiefs. They stepped up in a major way last night. Those injuries did right if they reared themselves in a major way last night. So the team building lesson is that it's a team team building, right. Um. I also think Travis, one thing that's really interesting to me is that this is being the Super Bowl champion is really tough.

You know, it's been sixteen years as we had a repeat champion, and that's the longest stretch ever in NFL history. A matter of fact, I looked it up this morning. It's twice as long as the next longest stretch, right, And so what it reinforced to me. Another reinforcement reference is that not only is it hard to get back to the mountain top, but any given Sunday, it takes out the elements a predictability that you can sometimes see

other sports. And I'm not saying that other champions aren't deserving, but as we know in the n b A tomorrow, this reference right now, like the Lakers are gonna be really tough to beat, provided in Lebron James and Anthony Davis are on the court for seven games. Right. In football, I don't know how many times the Bucks beat the Chiefs or the Chiefs beat the Bucks if they play a hundred simulations, maybe it's fifty five, maybe it's I don't know, but it didn't matter because they played once

in one game that matters. And so for the Dolphin, it's not just addressing the needs. It's not just elevation of quarterback play from two and next year. It's also that you've got layers of depth because it's the ultimate team building sport. And if you've got the layers of depth, you've got a chance. Yeah, exactly right, especially when you when you think about the the you know, coaching up a scheme or or developing a scheme for a certain

game plan. We saw that with the Bucks in that game and Todd Bowls and the fantastic job he did in that game. I want to ask you one more thing here, Field with regards to the roster building idea, because I'm curious and it pertains to the idea of, you know, having a multi year snapshot as far as how you build a full ball team. And maybe this is back to more of a general question for you.

Since you are plugged into all thirty two franchises. You know, we're in year three hour or approaching your number three here with Brian Floors and Chris Career. Is there a certain point in an organization where whether it's the timeline of the rookie quarterback contractor the third year of the process, fourth year of the process, where you switch and say, now maybe it's not so much about acquiring all that

draft capital. Maybe we turn the wheel a little bit now and we get aggressive, like, for instance, the best example for me is Los Angeles Rams and this goes back to before these recent trades, and they'll go out and get Brandon Cooks or a key to leave. Is there a point in the franchise where you say, okay, now we're ready to twist the screws and be more aggressive. I don't think so, only because you know, here's how it's said. It's not based off of the year. It's

based off of the quarterbacks readiness. Right, So for the Chiefs just to go back to them for a second, their quarterbacks proved in year two he was ready to be a league altering player. So a year after after the Chiefs they lost in the h championship game that year, well, they're gonna go out there and they're gonna they're gonna take some big swings now, right because they know they can. They acquired Frank Clark as an example trade for a

trade for the Seattle Seahawks. Those are the kind of things you do because you're like, you know what, let's do it. Our quarterback is ready to do it, and that might be the difference between us winning and losing. But conversely, if your quarterback is not there by year two, you might need to keep waiting. I will say this though, if your quarterback proves that he's ready during the first three seasons of his rookie contract, you start thinking about it.

The only thing, it's just a financial thing. It just is. Quarterbacks becomes extension eligible after year three. Usually a team is motivated to extend the player if he is worthwhile an extension already. Unquestionably after year three. There are some advantages to both five. So if you have a quarterback that shows he's ready been the first three years in

the contract, the wheel does turn a little bit. To borrow your pleas, yeah, yes, and it's certainly easier when those draft picks come in the late twenties too, opposed to you know, like you mentioned, having the third pick in the draft this year, definitely a benefit hopefully an area of the Dolphins not picking in very very often for very long here under Brian Floors and Chris career Field, Yates he's at Field Dates on Twitter, the host of

the fantasy focused football podcast NFL Insider at ESPN, and the best dance Senior Bowl anchor in the game Field. I appreciate your time today, man. If you've got to get back on the peloton, I understand, but I appreciate your time today, sir. I live. I love that that peloton, man, that thing is awesome. So I appreciate you. And that's the luster in the off season. And hope catch up again sometimes here soon sounds good. Feel appreciate it, man,

all right, and there he goes. Man, how great was that? Just some good nuggets there about not just the Dolphins, but the league in general. Some really good insight there into how things kind of operate this time of year. I've said it before in the podcast, the off seasons kind of where you know, a fan like myself lives because you get a chance to to play with the scenarios and it's not so black and white like a

result on game day. There's so many different simulations and permutations you can operate with and mock drafts and and if you guys are a fan of of doing the mock drafts, like the Draft Network stuff. Also check out fans Speaks mock off season simulator. A lot of fun you can have there with giving out players contracts and stuff like that. Just a lot of fun to participate

as a fan this time year. Put the GM head on as we trust Brian Floors and Chris we are to build this Dolphins team to their vision and continue that trajectory they are on. So Field Yates ESPN check out his work. He's a great follow, a great fantasy football expert, a great insider. Plenty of great stuff to

say about Field here on the podcast. As for this edition of the Drive Time podcast, that is going to be my time you all, please be sure to subscribe, rate review, follow me on Twitter at Wingfield NFL, follow the team at Miami Dolphins, check out the Fish Tank and the Audible podcast, and of course Miami Dolphins dot com. And until next time, fins up.