Kyle Van Noy's Value to a Multiple Defense

some tangible evidence about versatility and flexibility. How Christian Wilkins and Kyle Van Noy set the table from the defensive line and linebackers, a proclamation from a well respected analyst that Miami's defense could be not just top ten, maybe even as high as top six or seven. Plus a note on two a tongue of Vloa and the quarterbacks. And with my former hobby turning into a full time job these last couple of years, I think I may have finally found a new hobby to be place my

old one. All of that and more on this Monday, June the fifte edition of the Drive Time Podcast. And it's the middle of June, kind of the dearth of the off season, particularly when we're in the midst of an exclusively virtual offseason program. So we kind of make our own news and our own topics here in the sports world on the Miami Dolphins Drive Time podcast and working off some recent news or recent items. Is how we're gonna do this episode on this Monday. Another weekend

is in the books. I was able to get back to the links for the second time in as many weeks. And I have two very close friends that love golf with June birthdays, so that's typically the annual get together we all do. And what's funny about it is that I've spent the last few years as the d D on the course. And no that doesn't mean designated driver. I pretty much just hop in the car with a case of beer and another one of my non golf playing friends is out there with me to have a

good time on the course. Now, don't gets twisted. I know I serve in this role as a nerdy football analyst that works out of his quote unquote parents basement. But pretty much from the time I could walk, I played sports growing up. I'd run home from school and grab my basketball and go shoot hoops or get my glove and throw the baseball up as high as I could over and over and over again and catch it

on its descent. We're talking hours and hours of doing this my entire life, at least up through junior college. And all of that is to say, and with a little bit of a pat on my own back, that your boy can swing, whether it's a baseball bat, is more natural. And the plaque I have somewhere in my garage that denotes my for a All State Washington Honorable Mention, All State second baseman distinction from Camiake in high school two thousand and six does sit in that box somewhere

in my shed in my garage. And not to go completely Uncle Rico here on you, but a golf swing is also natural for me. So three years between playing a round of eighteen, I was able to get back out there. And I'm really more of a drink a few beers, enjoy the sunshine, enjoy the pristine look of a professional golf course, and just grip it and rip it, baby, Just get out there and play. I'm not out there measuring up shots and requesting quiet at the t block.

In fact, quite the opposite. The happy Gilmour let's make some noise type of golfing and so because my long layoff between rounds, I typically go last in these two man teams of four drafts that we have and they assign me with the worst possible handicap imaginable. Then I show up and knocked down the third or fourth lowest score among the entire group. And through all of this, I'm kind of catching a little bit of the golf bug. Man.

I really enjoy playing all of a sudden, and I think that when I move to South Florida, which is just one month from today, I'm gonna get myself a nice set of clubs. And right, there's another note. I don't even own my own golf clubs and really really dive into the sports. So that was my weekend, on top of watching the movie Blue Chips on Friday night, which I tweeted about as having the best live action sports scenes for any sports movie out there. And that's

because they use some actual game play. But they also shot at for Hollywood, or at least somebody told me they did, where they would wrap up those games and then shoot some scenes afterwards, and of course having Shack and Anfrenny Hardaway certainly helps that. But man, the way they edited those scenes together, the sideline shots, with the strategizing from the coaches like Bobby Knight, Rick Patino on the sidelines on those timeouts, and the way they tracked

the flow of the game. I just thought it was so well done and again to go back to my high school prowess, the coaching points are spot on all things I've heard before and huddles, practices, locker rooms, you name it. And I saw plenty of other submissions out there. My guy Rashad Butler, you've heard him here on the Drivetime podcast. He suggested the program as tops. No real argument there, but I do want to point out the sleeper of the group. Pat Perk on Twitter talks about

the Replacements with Keanu Reeves and Gene Hackman. That's a highly underrated suggest, Jen, because despite having Keanu Reeves as your quarterback, the gameplay in that movie is actually really, really good. I always enjoyed Jon Favreau as Danny Bateman, the linebacker on the Replacements, So some of the best movies out there. I want to hear your suggestions. We had plenty in there. For Love of the Game is a good one. I saw somebody suggest Major League and

don't get me wrong. That's not only far and away my favorite sports movie of all time both one and two, but forget about three. Get out of Here with Back to the Minors. Major League is one of my favorite all time movies just period, not just sports movies, but the gameplay in it. I have to give some pushback on that suggestion, because I thought the gameplay was always atrocious in that movie. The actor that plays Jake Taylor, I think it's Tom Berenger has likely never swung a

baseball bat before in his life. And Harris the picture, come on, you and I both know that any of us are taking those pitches he throws yacht sie in real life. So I did really enjoy the debate on Twitter for which movie does have the best live action sports scenes within it. I think this has a chance to be a good running bit on the show going forward. The way who is the best basketball player on the team from the players themselves was so maybe I'll start

asking some of the guys their opinions on this. And speaking of asking the players, let's go ahead and turn to football now. And you know. On Thursday's podcast, we talked to both Teddy Carriss and Christian Wilkins. I have a couple more notes I want to get to on those guys that we didn't get to on the podcast,

And I had mentioned last Sunday. Two Sundays ago, the NFL network was re airing the team playoffs and I playoffs, and I made it a point to get back and watch the Chiefs and Patriots a f C title game, as well as the Super Bowl Patriots and Rams from that season, which, by the way, we've become so accustomed to great Super Bowl games that one without the offensive firepower really didn't seem like a super Bowl when I

rewatched it. Compared to all the pageantry and all the fireworks on the field and off of the other ones we've seen, especially all the late game drama, that one just kind of went along. It was quick, it was or not a lot of offensive firepower. Just seemed different than a lot of the Super Bowls we've had in the past. But the one constant in that game was the Patriots defense turning it up on that side of

the ball. But to go back to the point here, that Super Bowl those playoff games coincided with a tweet from my personal favorite football analyst out there. He used to work for the NFL Network as a production assistant, and he told me he would just hang out with the players offset and talk football and learn football. He is Brett Coleman, friend of the podcast, been on Drivetime a couple of times, been on Lockdown Dolphins a few times as well. He's the host of the Film Room

on YouTube. And he had a tweet about Miami's defense and the expectations this season in and that dove tailed into some points about Kyle van Noy and the Dolphins

linebacker corps in general. So I'll touch on that with some thoughts and just real quick as we prepare for the start of training camp a little bit more than one month away, and how this Dolphins team, this Dolphins offense, all these players, particularly in the quarterback room, helps set the table with providing that extension of the coach on the football field and really setting the table for how

to work as a member of the Miami Dolphins. And based on reports and history, it sounds like the Dolphins have four guys that can really execute that message and

relay it to the rest of the team. And you go back to a lot of full as his audio when he speaks to the media about the way the three quarterbacks on the roster last year, and Ryan Fitzpatrick, Josh Rosen, and Jake Rudoc the group that to a tongue of voloa now joins, and how Fitzpatrick helped so much with his experience and the ability to quickly digest the playbook and to communicate the stuff to his teammates.

About the growth of Josh Rose and how much he grew from the time he got to Miami and minicamp all the way up through December, and working on the mental aspect of the game, getting his physical aspect, his leadership, his work in the classroom, all that stuff improving throughout the year. And of course the hard work that Jake Rudoc put in. You'll recall my training camp reports last year if you were with me on the Lockdown Dolphins podcast, how Rudoc would get out there early every day at

camp for extra work. So this entire quarterback room, the way they work, the way they prepare themselves, it's a hard working room. It kind of sets the table because quarterbacks are an extension of the coaching staff. They are the guys that are basically natural born leaders from their position.

That's what's called upon four quarterbacks to be leaders and you have four guys that's had a really good example in that quarterback room for how to work in South Florida, and on that topic, two guys that also set a leadership example for how to work and for how to be a pro. We had them available to us last week for the media availability on Thursday. It was Ted Carress,

it was Christian Wilkins. And in the spirit of the TNT that takes no talent Wall, something that became a little bit of a popular legend in Miami last summer. If you go back to his college career, Ted Carress for the final two seasons has had eight penalties over eighty five games with forty five starts. He was also Pro Football Focuses number two overall graded past blocking center

from weeks twelve to week seventeen. So down the stretch in December, really played his best ball, and we know that's when you want to play your best ball in this league. And then Christian Wilkins, I left some stats on the table. I tweeted about it on Friday because I was doing a bit more of a deep dive on Christian Wilkins and kind of looking at his season long splits how his his growth was from week one

through week seventeen. And I put this threat up on Twitter, talking about Christian wilkins growth and talking about the interesting dynamic of kind of the turning point of his season in that Week seven game in Buffalo when he only played one snap, and I tweeted that I'm fascinated by Wilkins for many reasons, the really outgoing personality that really just kind of attracts everybody to him and makes him

such a likable guy. There was the story last I think training camp talking about his frugal spending habits that he has where he doesn't even turn the air conditioning on because he wants to save money. And then of course you have the little shimmy and splits dance he did after Clemson's national title. Just a very well rounded guy and a very interesting person, and he really came on strong mid season after that game in Buffalo. So

I went back and looked at it. You go through six games last year, Wilkins this of courtesy of Pro Football Focus, only have five run stops on the season and six quarterback pressures. But then over the final ten games, he racks up twenty four run stops and twenty four quarterback pressures, and that sixth game was kind of the

turning point. He was ejected from that game, and Brian Flores was asked about the penalty that did result in the ejection and if maybe it had something to do with a penalty he drew two weeks earlier against the Chargers for a personal foul and if those two plays were tied together. He was asked about it at a media availability, and this was Flora's response, quote, Wilkins is a young player trying to play aggressive, trying to play

with a fight and a vigor and a quote. I'm not backing down from any one type of attitude end quote, but you've gotta play with poise. It's just losing your starting defensive tackle for an entire game. That's a tough loss for any defense. I think our guys fought through it. Christian was upset about it. Look, he's a good kid, There's no doubt about that. He works hard. This is important to him. But again, there are consequences in our actions.

I think that's something we all need to understand on the field and off the field. Aside from football, as a coach, that's what you're teaching these guys or trying to teach them. There's consequences for your actions. If you throw a punch in the game, you're gonna get kicked out. If you miss a meeting or you have an issue, there are consequences for your actions. That's not just an on the football field thing. That's life. We need to learn that and learn a lot of life lessons in

this game. That's part of coaching as well. And the reason I bring that up is because I think that that coaching point, that opportunity for Flora's to kind of get that message across to his team and to Christian, really took hold with Christian himself because the next two games, Wilkins has seven run stops and four quarterback pressures, almost

matching his total through the first six games. A nice bit, a nice display of accountability and really rising to the challenge of taking that personally and being better from their forward. And he was much better from there forward. From weeks seven through seventeen, he was twenty among all interior defensive lineman in the NFL and pressures and eight and run stops.

And I keep going back to this twenty nineteen season, and I really took notice of his work stacking and shedding against the Steelers in that Monday night game, which of course was the game after the Buffalo game, and he has plenty of work where he's working as a four eye technique or a four technique basically lined up in the realm of the inside shoulder of the tackle

outside shoulder of the guard. We'll talk more about that in just one second, where he has to kind of stack up, read the play, disengage the block, and make a tackle. And there were a few examples of that in that game. So with that, knowing that he played a lot of tackle inside as well in addition to that end position as the four five technique, I wanted to go back and look at his run stops on film and try to chart them and find out which positions they came from. Now, before I do that, I

want to make this perfectly crystal clear. I used game Pass and Pro Football Focus to sink this little mini project together. Pro Football Focus has n't for a total of twenty nine run stops in the season, so I searched each of wilkins tackles within two yards of the line of scrimmage and I came back with thirty. So maybe there's a little bit of a distinction there about

combined tackles. Who gets credit from Pro Football Focus probably a little bit subjective, but I think that it doesn't matter for this particular subject because we're just trying to find out how effective he is in different positions. So there was nine different positions in which he made a run stop. Let's go ahead and start with the most down to the least amount. As a three technique, he had eight run stops. That's the outside shoulder of the guard,

so more of a true defensive tackle position. As a four eye technique, that's the inside shoulder of the tackle, so kind of the same spot really just a slight shade of a gap over. He had six run stops, so fourteen of those run stops came from that three or four eye position. As a one tech, now this is more the beefier guys inside playing on the outside

shoulder of the center. This includes work both as the back and front side one technique, and those distinctions are important because they mean different roles in terms of pursuit and in terms of trying to hold the point. He had three run stops from those two positions, two as the backside, and both of those were in pursuit on runs away from him, which again shows you the effort that Flora has talked about. And one of those was the one tech on the front side where he has

to hold the point. Three plays run stops from the one tech position. He had two run stops at the nose tackle and that is head up over the center. He had two run stops as the five technique that's the outside shoulder of the tackle. He had two more run stops as a two technique that's head up over the offensive guard, two more as a four tech that's head up over the tackle, a two eye position. He had one stop there that's the inside shoulder of either guard.

And as a seven technique that's all the way out to the strong side of the formation, on the inside shoulder of the tight end. If there is a tight end there your seven technique. He had one run stop there. So nine positions with run stops. You see him work the stack, the shed, the quickness, the pursuit, the will to get out there and make plays, and he just had a lot of fun in those games making plays, celebrating the big plays he did make. We heard the trash talk on the inside the or the mic up

edition of him in the Bengals game. He was being really playful and colorful with the Bengals players. And Wilkins really is one of a variety of players that are combo type players, guys that can play multiple spots. And on that topic, on my lazy Sunday, I was able to really watch some football and digest some football, and it got me into this rabbit hole on the Dolphins linebacker unit and some tangible examples of how this defense can truly be adaptable on a week by week basis.

And so with a DVR full of playoff games to watch and really some Kyle van Noy action to watch, and the best part of those playoff broadcasts is you always get tremendous secondary angles replays with all the camera work they have on top of Tony Romo on the commentary, So really an elite production from CBS on both these two broadcasts I watched from the team playoffs, and this flame was really all still by a tweet sent out

again by Brett Coleman. He's at Brett Coleman. That's k O L l M. A n N on Twitter, and the tweet was this quote, Miami is gonna have a top six or seven defense in in my opinion, the only real weakness. And he does put those in quotation marks to really dispel himself for even calling it a weakness in the first place. And he does go on to explain that in a follow up tweet just in one second, we'll get to that. And I think that distinction is very important. But back to Brett's tweet, the

one weakness is not having a true alpha rusher. But that's about it. He says. Their rotation overall is pretty damn deep. They can stop the run and play man all day. You don't need much more than that and tweet. So I replied to Brett because well, I love talking ball and it always sparks a good football conversation when I reach out to him. So I said the following.

The depth at every position on defense is really impressive quality rotational candidates and guys that can fill in and do the job in the event of potential nix and bruises throughout the course of a season if a guy has to miss a game or two. I'd also say, and this is still from that tweet. The lack of a true edge rusher is made up for by the skill set. So many guys have to execute the multiple games that Flores calls on defense. And so what do

I mean by that? Well, when you watch the way we generated pressure last season, or the calls Flora has made in those playoff games, for instance, you're gonna get a lot of games twist stunts, slants, delayed pressure. And who was the guy that really really made that style possible in those playoff wins. It was Kyle van Noy and his flexibility on top of his vastly, vastly underrated rush skill set, in addition to his own flexibility playing

the hook zone, playing the curl flat. And that's just coverage responsibilities with linebacker has to find landmarks, has to find route combinations and get himself involved in pass coverage. He also fits the run as well as anybody I've seen on tape. It's just all chefs. Kiss babe. I love watching him play football. So we start in that Kansas any game and you get look at his impact instantly.

There is a mesh concept play, and all mesh means it's college, pro, high school, wherever you're gonna play football, you're gonna see mesh. It's just two guys crossing trying to create conflict for the linebackers in the middle of the field. Or it can also set a natural rub route when you're in man coverage, so trying to find a way to cross guys up by just crossing two routes from opposite sides of the formation. So they have

a mesh play in this Kansas City game. And anytime you watch and Andy Reid offense operate, there's gonna be guys moving motion, window dressing, jet sweeping, trying to get the defense thinking about something else other than their responsibility.

And I watched the way Kyle van Noy processes all that and goes through his mental checklist, the way he plays kind of working back to front, and the way he played that mesh concept, which in addition to trying to put him in conflict and coverage pre snap, they have jet motion. And if you want to know what jet motion is, it's the exact same thing that Albert Wilson scored on the famous high five Playen the motion the receiver towards the quarterback and you snap the football.

You can give it to him or it can just create a delay in linebackers because they have to honor

the fact that they might hand that ball off. So you have mesh, you have jet sweep, all these things he has to look for, and then on top of that, you have the very athletic and nimble and mobile Patrick Mahomes coming out of the pocket escaping left, so he has to check up for the jet sweep, he has to check up on this mesh route behind him, and then he has to pursue Patrick Mahomes and he just goes through it all quick, very very fast processing as

a linebacker. And this is also something I noticed with Andrew Van Ginkle playing at Wisconsin as well as late last year when he came off the injured reserve. It's also something I saw and Commu Gruge a Hill playing with the Eagles, working in that coverage, playing downhill and using his speed and trigger to make plays in front of him. The way that Van Noyd can corner around the edge as a stunter, whether it's working upfield off the tackle and then looping back inside to get pressure

up the middle or doing vice versa. You see a lot of that with Vince Bagel as well. Who can really drop his shoulder and turn the corner just like Kyle Van Noive. Can you have a run stuff in this game? I talked about the first three plays of

this game. You have a play from Van Noy, than a play from a Landon Roberts, who of course now is a Miami Dolphin, and then another play from Kyle Van Noy right after that, a run stuff where Roberts keys the play, attacks, initiates the contact, defeats the block, and makes a tackle for loss. Reminds me a lot

of Ray Kwon McMillan. So all of this is to say that I see a lot of these multiple versatile traits in a lot of these Dolphins linebackers, guys that are both incumbent and Ray Kwan and Jerome Baker and Andrew van Ginkl and Vince Beagle and the new additions, and Kyle Van Noy and Cammu gruge Hill and the land and Roberts. So many examples of being too deep at multiple rules. That just serves you so well for

the attrition of an NFL season. And I would be remiss if I didn't bring up this one last play I noticed from Kyle van Noy a screen pass to Damien Williams, and I talked about it on a tweet how you have to contextualize stats with what you see on film, because this play goes down as a five yard game to Damien Williams on a screen pass, but Kyle Van Noy has to fight through two blocks, and if he doesn't do that, if he doesn't beat both those blocks, this play might go out the gate for

ten twenty a mega thirty fifty yard game even could have been a massive play, but because Van Noy was so quick and had the effort and motor to get out there and beat those blocks, he cuts it down for a five yard game. So the versatility, the motor, the will, all those things seem like inherent traits with a lot of these additions on the front seven of the Miami Dolphins. So you just have this slew of players that can do multiple things, and what does that

make you on game day? Flexible? That's what it's all about. I know this has been a running topic on this show and maybe gets a little bit derivative with my explanations, but watching it through this lens, the lens of the linebacker, the lens of Kyle van Noy and how he can help create that flexibility and the thinking with these waves of players you have. And you heard Brett Coleman say the same is true on the defensive line as well.

And do I even have to mention how nasty the second therey can be with the additions we made there this offseason. I mean, I talk a lot about the structure of the defense and how I appreciate those differences from to up to last year and calls with the way the Dolphins defended third down and long for instance.

And now I look at the roster that Flora's has, the roster that he and Chris Career helped assemble here in Miami, the parts they have to that defense, I think you could see another evolution of the defense heading more in that direction of what Brian Flores specifically wants on defense as soon as this season. So you go back to the way those two games were played in that playoffs. And we had Evan Lazare of c LNS Media on with us last week and he covered coach

Flora's there in New England fromen. He told us that story about cover one in the Super Bowl. If you haven't heard it on the Thursday, or was it the Wednesday edition of the Drivetime podcast last week? Go back

and check that out. But I mentioned on Twitter again the dichotomy of the defense in the a f C Title game compared to the Super Bowl and the difference in approaches, and Evan replied to me and Twitter in agreement, and you can really appreciate it because of the differences between the Chiefs offense and the Rams offense that season. The Chiefs are more spread it out, hit you with speed, and really kind of vertically attack you and take advantage

of that athletic, very rare quarterback. So rather than being this team that just runs one style of defense for every single opponent and try to make your best beat what they do best, they adapted and they adjusted lots of to four fronts, more flexible gap options, plenty of chances to contain rush with twists and slants and trying to find a way to hem Patrick Mahomes in the pocket because once he escapes, here in so much trouble.

And that's a guy we have to defend this year in week fourteen, December one o'clock at hard Rock Stadium. So we've got to have that in mind and to go back to the idea of stunting up front and

trying to create different rush lanes. In that first possession, van Noy gets home on a stunt instantly, just like Vince Beagle did on a sack that I tweeted out last week in the Pittsburgh game, where he works up filled off the tackle and corners around the interi year and gets around Steelers center Marquees Pouncey for a quarterback hit on that one. They typically came out in this game with a three three or three too in short yardage.

It depended on the offensive personnel, and that three three matchup the three down lineman, three linebackers really matches up well with the twelve personnel package. Two tight ends, one running back, and two receivers. And this might make it more difficult to defend the run because you are outnumbered

with big bodies on big bodies up front. But that's why you go out there and acquire two hundred and seventy pounds ends like Shack Lawson and Emmanuel Ogba and a linebacker like Kyle van Noy who can key and diagnose the way he can. It's why you spend a second round pick on a guy that's built like Calais Campbell and ray Kwon Davis. So you can go in those three two or three three packages and still be viable against the run, but also helped against these athletic quarterbacks.

And then just one week later, as we have once again that same Rams team with Jared Goffin, Sean McVeigh on the schedule and the week numbers, week number eight, November one, one o'clock again at hard Rock Stadium, and you come out of that game with four down linemen opposed to just the two that you showed in that Kansas City game. Because it's a different offense, much more condensed, tighter splits, having receivers come in tight to the formation.

That's kind of the McVeigh offense, or at least it was that particular year, and you have to imagine you want to match the Rams receivers where you have to count for more backs and tight ends against Kansas City. Again, this was pre me Cole Hardman and a very limited Tyreek Hill in that game, as the Patriots did well

to kind of limit his production. And you have Kyle van Noy in those tight splits of the Rams helping to reroute the receivers, which of course gives the cornerbacks and safeties more time to cover up on the back end. And then you also see Van Noy working in these four two sets with four down linemen and then two linebackers, and Van Noy would walk up on the line of scrimmage where Donte high Tower would be off line of scrimmage.

So you're really just finding a way to get Kyle van Noy's versatility involved, and he really serves as a lynch pin to keep everything flexible and to keep your plans versatile and multiple. It was just a lot of fun to watch, a lot of fun to watch how he operates and how he could operate in this defense. I am very, very excited if you can't tell about Kyle van Noy and this defense heading in to alright, that is gonna be my time on this edition of

the Drivetime podcast. You all please be sure to subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcast, Leave us a rating, leave us a review, give me a follow on Twitter. It's at Wingfield, NFL. Follow the Dolphins at Miami Dolphins, check out the Fish Tank and the Audible podcast, and of course Miami Dolphins dot Com. Until next time finds up