Potential for Offensive Breakthrough and Unrivaled Effort

what is up? Dolph fans and welcome to the Drivetime 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, it is midweek and that means we turn the page to the Detroit Lions. Will do that with head coach Mike McDaniel and quarterback to a Tongue of Valoa at the podium at their

Wednesday media availabilities. Plus five big picture things I think, including some sound from Hall of Famer Larry Sonka from the Baptist Health Studios inside the Baptist Health Training Complex. This is the drive. So these big picture Thoughts Takeaways podcast get a little bit easier the more the sample size builds for us here over the course of the season.

And I'm really enjoying it as an ever so slight departure from your typical daily topical podcast because it gives me a chance to step back a little bit and think about just that the big picture. Let's go ahead and get first to the first part. I should say of the five things I think through seven weeks, and number one thing, I think that the offense is really really close. And I want to make this twofold one with the passing game and one with the run game.

And I think the best way to mention the run game is to go to a Hall of Famer who just a few days after the fiftieth anniversary celebration of the undefeated season, and a few days before that, I should say, we had Larry Sonka on the Twitter space with me, Seth and o J from the fish Tank podcast, part of the Myvy Dolphins podcast network, on our weekly Wednesday Twitter spaces, and son had all kinds of knowledge for us. First of all, if you have not heard

it It's recorded up on my Twitter timeline. You're gonna have to scroll through a bunch of tweets to find it, but it was last Wednesday. Go check that out and you'll hear some great stories from Song about the seventy two team, about modern football, about how they watch these undefeated teams make their runs late into the season together and have fun. Like there was so much cool stuff. The best part of the entire thing, to me was

the fans. We had asked him questions and just hearing the excitement and their voices and the reaction on Twitter was freaking awesome. But you guys know that I had to ask Song, Hey, let's talk about the current team. Uh, tell me what you see in this running game. Here's a legend. It shows signs, not necessarily signs of brute style third and one smash you in the face cent not that, but it shows signs of communication between the

lineman backfield. In other words, the guy that's carrying the ball understands what is offensive, blind how they're going to attack. He understands the calls that are paid in the middlesecond between the time the ball is about to be snapped and he erupts the theme. In other words, he understands what they're going to do and he isn't going to collide with his office the belidman. He's going to fit into the gap, however small it is, or or know where the hole is going to be if there is

a hole. That kind of understanding and communication starts to show up when you see that in a game. Most fans don't see that from up on the fort yard line, don't have the angle and you have to look forward on the people a and they don't get that. But they do understand when a guy throws it, a guy catches, But the intricate parts of the running game that don't

see unless you're a next player watching it. You know, I feel good about it because I'm starting to see some of that communication between the guy carrying the ball

on a short yardage situation and his offensive blindman. He's not running into them, he's running into the gap in between them, and it starts to show that there's some communication, that there's been some discipline on that there's been talk about it, they've studied it, and they're starting to understand that offensive back has a responsibility to know how his men in front of him, is WindMan in front of

him are going to block that play? And if he knows it as fast as they know it, or perhaps even faster, it makes a difference at the point of impact. I mean, didn't soun kind of call his shot out there? Our second best yardage output in the run game this season. We average four point one one yards a clip, whereheem was just under five yards of the clip, and according to Pro Football Focus, it was our most yards before contact, which again speaks to what Sonka said about guys hitting

the holes with conviction. It was our second most ten plus yard runs in a game this season and the second most first downs we achieved via the ground game this season. Then there's the passing game, which we used Mike McDaniel's audio four on Tuesday as he kind of told us where he thinks some things can be tweaked and fine tune. But from my statistical standpoint, I think the proof comes from the offense in general, through the yards per play aspect, and watching the game back on Sunday.

You know, it feels like every second or third play is like a fifteen plus yard game, doesn't it, Like, go watch the broadcast again. It felt like the Dolphins just went up and down the field. And you know, I watched the game live, I see the tape on the AL twenty two, then I watched the broadcast later in the week, and I think that if you remove the scoreboard from watching the game, you would have thought to yourself, Man, Miami is probably winning this game by

a lot of points right now. And of course we know better than that, and we also know better than to say that anything besides the scoreboard matters. But for the sake of evaluation and trying to project future outcomes, which is what we like doing here, or what you know, all analysis is is trying to project what might happen in the future and also trying to see what you do well, what's working, what you can count on as

team identities and strengths. To me, the ability to chew up yardage and chunk yardage at a high clip, it's there. That's why your quarterback is number one right now in yards per passed in the NFL. And then you see the outside zone run really really getting better each and every week, and off of that, man, things can become

even more difficult to deal with for opposing defenses. You're already seeing defenses play this offense with the most respect in the league in terms of speed and the coverage to protect against that speed. Only the Buffalo Bills have faced a higher rate of two high pre snap looks. That's two safeties high in the structure. The league average of two high looks this year on first and second downs is thirty four point two percent. That's way up

from previous years. From Miami, two hundred and thirty six of the four dred and twenty four plays on offense have come against two high looks. That is fifty six percent over the average. It's amazing what happens when you have two elite four three speed receivers. As a result, that opens up the middle of the field. It's a big reason why Miami right now has one hundred plays of ten plus yards. One fourth of our plays go for ten plus. Think about that, tied for third in

the NFL. They've also got thirty plays of twenty plus yards that's tied for seventh most. And when you really pare it down, the twenty six completions of twenty plus our third most behind the Chiefs and Patriots. It's kind of interesting. Shoehorn there, and the Bills have one less at twenty six. So Miami has more twenty plus yard complations in the Buffalo Bills, but they've played one less game.

I digress, and then the three pass plays of fifty plus yards for your Miami Dolphins is tied for third most in the NFL. Four is the league leads. You're one away from having a share of the league lead, and the vast majority of those are those intermediate too deep shots. Like you know, usually intermediate means ten to nineteen yards deepest twenty plus, but that fifteen to twenty five yard range the throat to surefield. A lot of

those throws a tyrek and waddle. Their speed is helping create space in the middle of the football field, especially when you get your ground game cranking in the way that Miami had it working on Sunday night with those

seven eight twelve yard chunks. I mean pretty much felt like the run game was either eight yards or like a loss in that game, which is why I thought the average kind of dipped down below what the actual production was, because not only do you remove the safeties from dropping down with that run game, but you then widen the backers and create more space and force the

defense to defend more blades of grass. And we discussed that on Tuesday, right like how To's ability to look backers off and use his eyes and shoulders and hips and feet and body position to clear those windows and clear space for himself. And the run game does the exact same thing when you can successfully hit those runs off tackle, like we routinely did running behind Armstead and Shell in that game on Sunday. So I think the offense has shown it's pretty adept at creating those chunk

games already. And then you look at red zone and goal to go efficiency, currently fifth in the NFL with a sixty five percent red zone efficiency and market scoring touchdowns, and currently third on goal to go efficiency at eight eight point nine percent. That's been a superpower of two a tongue of by Lows in his career, and man, when we get the ball into the ten year oldline, we pretty much knock it in for a touchdown. That's been the case for two of going back to his

rookie season. So you ask, well, why the hell are we not scoring more points? Why are we nineteen in the NFL? And points? That's the part that is up to the coaching staff to figure out and for the players to get corrected on the field. My entire point is, I think we have the right people to make it happen. And if you want to look at historically, while the Dolphins ranked nineteenth and points per game, there's six point one yards per play is tied for fourth right now

in the NFL, actually it's sixth because the fractions. But if you look at Pro Football Reference, six point one they round up around down is tied for fourth. So it's a top five yards per play offense. Of the other four teams rinding up the top five and offensive efficiency, Miami's points per game mark is the biggest outlier. Twenty one points per game is four points per contest, shy of the Saints, who also average six point one points per game. Think about that over seven games, four points

per game, that's twenty eight points. That's four touchdowns. Seattle is third with six point three yards per play and they average twenty six point one per game. And then the top two offenses, Kansas City and Buffalo both average thirty points per game. Between those two sides, or give or take Buffalo's I think at twenty nine point eight and Casey is like thirty point four. So yeah, I took some liberties there in uh in assuming and rounding. All of this is to say the historically the points

typically catch up to the yards per play metric. The last team to finish in the top five and yards per play and average fewer than twenty five points per game game you have to go back to team and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and they were only at twenty four points per game. So Miami still a ways off from that. It's up to the Dolphins to clean up

the misques and execute in those critical situations. But the ability to move the ball is clearly present and something has to give on this stat I think it'll be the points catching up to the yards per play and not vice versa. That's a long thing. I think to kick it off here, let's go ahead and do number two before the first break. Number two is a pair of in season additions have been two of the most valuable. I think this offseason was an absolute feather in the

cap of Chris Career and the Dolphins front office. I mean, Armstead has been tremendous. Tyreek leads the league in catches and receiving yards. Connor Williams has been, for my money, if not the very best center, one of the top three centers in the NFL. Where he most is really getting rolling right now at four point five yards of rush. Melvin Ingram one defensive player of September. What else? Keion Cross and stepped in and gave you a lot of

good reps at corner when he was healthy. Not to mention the impact of a U d F A like kater cohu alec Ingold is a key cog on offense. Trent Sherfield makes a big play every week, a great blocker outside. Thomas Morestead has been great at flipping the field. Am I forgetting any like it's been a guy after a guy that we've brought in here and he's had a big impact. But how about Brandon Shell and Justin Bethel.

First with Bethel, his value was already incredibly apparent on special teams, beating the jammers, getting downfield to down those ponds or wrap up returnment before they can even get going. But then for him to step in on defense and play such a damn good game last week after a really good showing and a smaller sample size against the

Vikings the Sunday prior. I mean this guy is handling three way goes from the slot all alone and picking off the pass on a slot fade, one of the toughest routes to defending football to the boundary short side of the field. A guy who's fitting the run fearlessly by sticking his face right in the fan, taking on blockers, stringing out the run game, getting off blocks in the screen game, and thought in the quick passing game. He's been an absolute ace and a big time addition on

both defense and special teams. And he got here September one big time. Then how about Brandon Shell brought in on the practice squad, gets his feet underneath him in the program and the building gets a call up and shows out left tackle didn't really work out, but the right tackle position he gives you the versatility. He's been fantastic the last two weeks at right tackle against Pittsburgh in Minnesota with just four pressures on pass blocking snaps.

That's just a hair under ninety six for pass blocking efficiency. It's a great number for your tackle. Just one of those pressures is a QB hit two. So keeping his quarterback clean on of his past blocking snaps. Every year around the league, you'll see a couple of these. Last year, Russeul Douglas made the Pro Bowl after getting cut from the Eagles going over to the Packers. It's early, but the returns on Shell and Bethel have already been fantastic.

And when you consider that they were street free agents and brought in here mid season, the fact that they impacted one game is enough that that is that is proof in the pudding that those were valuable additions. There are already two games into this two good games from both these guys, and they're giving you a big boost at two spots where you need it because you've had some injury issues on the offensive line and at the

cornerback position. Let's go ahead and take our first break and come back and finish up with the three things I think heading into week eight, one and two in the books, three through five coming your way next on the Draft Time Podcast, your host Travis Wingfield, brought to you by Auto Nation. Back here on the Drive Time Podcast, Wednesday edition, October the Oh Ship. My birthday is coming up on Friday. I forget it every year, and this year it's even more so because I don't want to

turn thirty five. But I digress number three. The third thing I think, big picture wise, in the middle of week number eight, how many game changing plays and big time games can that draft class make for us? Because it feels like a lot, and it's been a while since we did this. I like taking you know, every four games are so looking back at the off season or draft classes and frankly, you you can do this. The last few classes before that to has been awesome.

Twenty nineteen was a good class. Team was a fantastic class. Typically it's three years before you start to kind of make your nearly final conclusions. I don't think we should ever finalize conclusions on players ever ever. But you have a good idea three years in, and man, I think you have to feel pretty good about what you have with your first three picks. One. This is shaping up those three picks to be an all time draft class.

Three players who are starting to look like not just three starters at three key positions of three premium spots and guys that play fifty plus snaps every single game. Guys that are starting to look like some of the best players at their respective positions in the entire NFL. Do you understand how rare that is to get one of those guys in the draft class, much less potentially three.

Jalen Waddle the six pick in the draft. We also got a first round pick by trading back for him, by the way, and I'm really glad they went up to get him because he is a top five receiver. He's fourth in the NFL and receiving six one yards through seven games. That's eight point seven yards per game, which is fifth in the NFL, the same rank as his eight teen point three yards per reception. His eleven

point five yards per target is sixth best. His twenty seven first downs are eighth most, sixth most among wide receivers, and he's tied for twelve with three touchdowns. He has two hundred and seventy yards after the catch, that's sixth most in the NFL. His two point six nine nice yards per route ran is fourth behind Tyreek Hill, Stefon Diggs, and Justin Jefferson other guys in that top ten of that stat which I think is one of the best

measurements of who's performing the highest year after year. Like go look at top ten yards per target every year, you're gonna see ten guys that you would say top ten receivers in the NFL. Well, Tyreek, Stavon Dig, Justin Jefferson, Jillin, waddle A J. Brown, Cooper Cup, Alman ross A Brown.

Really really good company there. Jillen Phillips. He currently ranks thirteen among edges a PFF stat and classification for edge although he plays all over the defense and pressures with twenty five and run stops and fit with fifteen, so top thirteen edge player right now. Across the two most important stats for pass rushing and run defense, he was number ten among outside linebackers and defensive ends and ESPNS run stop win rate entering week seven. He will enter

week eight at number five at thirty six percent. He's drawing double teams, he's rushing the edge, inside outside, playing the run, he's playing coverage. And his effort. Man, when you get the type of effort with the athlete that he is. We all remember that Pro day where he just tested like an absolute robot. It's gonna be hard to not be productive. Phillips looking every bit the part of a first round pick, and then some and then you might have your best one in the top of

the second round with Javon Holland. Only eleven players have more than two picks this year, so he's right there, tied for twelve with a bunch of other guys with interceptions. We know he was number two among all safeties last year and quarterback pressures behind only Brandon Jones. This year, he only has three pressures, but he's only come on the pass rush eleven times. Two of those produced sacks.

I mean, what is that sack rate when you come on a pass rush and he has one force fumble that basically was you know, every point the Buffalo game was valuable, but that was a touchdown basically that he put on the board and that big one over Buffalo. The coverage numbers say he's been targeted eight times with four completions for forty five yards. But I think that staff given where he plays in this defense right now, playing deep into the post almost every snap, I think

this stat tells the story better. Opposing quarterbacks are throwing the ball twenty plus eight yards on us this year at this clip, eleven for twenty eight What is that? You might cald clear her out stand by music? Who's got it for me? For four? Seventeen yards, a couple of the big plays that obviously come from the deep passes, one touchdown, three picks, and a passer rating of fifty

nine point three. That's a team stat. But we say on the film review each week he's closing off those deep routes, timing up his post nap rotation, and really closing off a lot of those downfield lanes. And Durham Smith told us in camp this past summer that you can see Javon play both his role ole but also expand his role on a given play and be in a position that he never should have been able to

get to in the first place. That is the ultimate compliment so Minko Fitzpatrick did in that game on Sunday Night. It's what ed Rey did for years of the Baltimore Ravens, plus his leadership, the communication of the defense. It's rare to land those traits. And a player who's only played twenty three career games Chavon halland looks pretty special. That one draft class looks awfully awfully rare right now. The thing I think number four is the effort is off

the charts for the Miami Dolphins. After seeing the game live watching the tape seeing the broadcast version, I always

learned something new along the way. During the broadcast rewatch, Collinsworth talked about their conversations they had with Mike McDaniel and the pre production meeting that broadcast teams have with each head coach each week, and collins Worth mentioned a conversation about Tyree Hill and his impact and beyond the fact that he's the leading receiver in the NFL right now, that coach McDaniel told Collinsworth and Mike Tarrico that Tyreek really kind of taught them how to practice how it's

supposed to look, not in terms of the schedule or structure anything like that. McDaniels got that covered, not even a concern, but what practice effort looks like. If I do it this way, you guys should do it that way too. Because I'm Tyreek Hill. We talked about that on the podcast a lot this summer. It's unlike anything

I've ever seen before, the way that dude practice. We even talked him about it and pressors after practice and he was just like, Yeah, that's what I do, man, Like those go routes over and over again, the conditioning, the way he kind of just raises a level, raises the standards. It's unique. We heard from coach on the effort of Jalen Phillips down the stretch in that game. On the Tuesday podcast, I saw Andrew van Ginkl selling out to cover ground as a spy on the quarterback.

I saw Zack Heeler retrace a play for a big hit down the field. We see Christian Wilkins do that almost weekly, most notably the Buffalo game. I just watched these tapes each week, and if you want to know what the Dolphins identity is, and I think there's a lot of options. You can talk about their ability to marry up the run and the play action game, the intermediate passing game, the defense is attacking mindset. All of

those are good things. But the one thing that I know I see for sure every week on tape is effort. It's coached and it's carried out. It's awesome to see that thing. I think Number five is the a f C East, the best division. It's gonna be a dog fight this year. We knew Buffalo was good. The one loss they have is to us, and they've beaten the Chiefs at Arrowhead. The Ravens in Baltimore and the Rams in Los Angeles. The Pats, I think, are gonna be fine.

Uh well, you know what is fine. But I mean, just as recently as one in three, we heard the rhetoric about the rebuild, how they're gonna finish last YadA yad ya, all that stuff, and all they do is go out and stomp back to back uppons to get back to five. Now the Monday night football game is a bit of a concern. Obviously. They've bounced back from that type of effort time and time again over the last two decades. Well not time and time again, because

they haven't faced that situation many times. But when they do, they always respond. The quarterback situation, that's the murky part that they have to get sorted out. But we know the Patriots are gonna respond and play good football and be a tough out right. And then the Jets are five and two with four straight wins them how their defense is legit. Robert sala is starting to see, you know, the personnel truly match his aggressive scheme that he wants

to run. And my goodness, they generate a lot of pressure upfront. Plus Sauce Gardner is tremendous. DJ Read has been really good in his own right. Breece Hall and Elijah Vera Tucker are killer killer losses. But I mean they're winning these games without having to throw the football three passing yards over the last three wins. If our guy did that, it would be trade for everybody else they get to see Josh Allen, Kirk Cousins, Josh Allen, you know, Smith and two of the rest of the way.

So it's like five good quarters, like really good quarterbacks on there on their schedule. The rest of the way, you'll need more than a hundred and thirty yards to beat those guys in a game. But that said, the schedule stays pretty They got some wins on there. I think that's why I think they can hang around five hundred. But sure they've certainly, you know, kind of hit the jackpot with your early season schedule so far, getting four backup quarterbacks in a row, and then obviously, you know

how I feel about our squad. You might wind up with three winning teams in this division, and frankly it could be four. But I think somebody's gonna have to fall below the five hundred lines simply because of beating up on one another. The Jets have an interesting three game stretch here over the next four weeks with a buy the Bills and the Patriots twice, we should learn a lot about the division over the next month. I'm not sure the Bills will lose a game the rest

of the way. I mean, they look they looked apart. I think we can get through the first week of December personally at eight and three, ahead of that tough stretch of games we when the games were supposed to I think the Patriots will hover just south of five hundred. I think the Jets are staring reality in the face here. Very soon we'll see. I can't wait for that week A team game, man, bring it back on after all that social media trash shock we saw. All right, let's

go ahead and take our last break. We'll come back and hear from coach Mike McDaniel and quarterback to a tongue Baloa. That's next. On the Wednesday edition of the Drivetime podcast, your host Travis Wingfield, brought to you by Auto Nation, we heard from head coach Mike McDaniel and

quarterback to a Tongue of Byla. On Wednesday afternoon, let's go ahead and pick it up with Mike mcday neil, who addressed mhmm a few of the injury situations right now for the Miami Dolphins, saying that he's optimistic about kater cohu Key on crossing and Emmanuel Ogba, praising the fact that he knows that if they're able to go, those guys will do everything they can to get themselves into playing shape to play on Sunday, and again, optimism

the word around those guys. Excuse me, we heard about one other injury. Brandon Jones will go ahead and play that sound for you here in just a second, But first I want to play four straight audio clips from McDaniel's Wednesday media availability. First talking about a subject we covered on the podcast, the yards per play and the

points scored and the correlation between those two. Let's go ahead and hear from Mike McDaniel about how you can get the points to match your red zone production, your goal to go production, and your yards per play and explosive production. Here's Mike McDaniel. We're doing a good job, um taking advantage of some explosive opportunities, so we are getting with which every team, every offense has to do, and um, that's usually the hardest thing to get accomplished. UM.

But uh, you know, I think as UM. You know that that's the name of the game for good teams in this league. It's the simplest formula. UM, But it happens every single year, and it seems like people missmiss it, which is there's so many distractions that occur. Just think about it from an individual standpoint. Am I playing enough? Did it? How did I play this last game? Um?

I got extra family in town. All this stuff. The teams that are good get better during the season, and it's hard to because there's so many other things that can take your mind and you're tired. You know, it's six days a week for players, seven days a week, so all of those things. Um, when we're better at our fundamentals within and I'm talking about every position involved

in the in the run game. When we're collectively better at that, when we're better at executing our fundamentals, I think you'll start to feel um because because there's sometimes that we'll go down and we'll be able to we won't pump for three or four series consecutively, and then then you start hunting for three possessions in a row.

It's because of the fundamentals are a little off. So when our game gets better, um, you know, because I think most of those yards are are a factor of our ability to get those chunk plays and we need to um sustain drives more, be better in the red zone, better at all of it, which just comes down to being better and you're not given that urin it. Up next,

as promised, he talked about Brandon Jones. I want to go ahead and just play this audio for you because he did conform confirm that it wasn't a c L injury. But I just thought the approach and the way the team has kind of, you know, sadly embraced what happened to Brandon Jones and the reaction to it, I should say as really pro frowned. Here's coach talking about his safety and really a dang good player in Brandon Jones.

It was his a c L um and yeah, I don't uh not planning on for him to return this season, which, um, you know you're you're really in situations like this, It's I feel terrible, absolutely terrible for a guy that was playing at a very very high level. Um, the good news about him in particular is when things like this happened to people like him, UM, they tend to come out, um finding a way to be better somehow, some way.

But he was you know it was uh today this morning, watching it with the team, watching some of our game, UM putting its bed. It was it was you could hear like the hurt with the team when his hlights would come on, because there's a ton of them. So UM, you know, I do know that uh, people like him end up finding a way to be even better than they were before. But it's a shame because I don't think it's it's hard to give the credit to what he was doing or that it deserves to what he

was doing on the field. UM, for our group and the whole team definitely felt that. Up next, Coach was asked about Cedric Wilson, and you might remember that he had a rib injury early on this season that I think kind of gets forgotten about goes by the wayside a little bit. Here's coach talking about Cedric Wilson and his role in the offense and how it's not about what he hasn't done, but what a guy like Trent Schurfield has done. Here's Mike McDaniel. No, he's progressing in

the offense. There was a also a portion of the season um that you know, he got a little dinged up um with his ribs that he's playing through. Um and we're kind of limited as you she is there, but UM, given circumstances, UM with you know, it's less about what he hasn't done. He's doing. He's getting better and better every week and UM we'll continue to become um more and more featured within our offense. But it's not about what he hasn't done, and UM, more about

you know what a guy like Trent Sherfield has done. Um. You know those are things that you don't you know, you don't go into a season. That's why I don't magnetize and stare at depth charts because that's a very

fluid thing. Um. When when you're asking players to um sacrifice um all that they sacrifice, and when you're uh, you know, when they're putting themselves on the line, they have to know that it's not only appreciated, but um, the bottom line will be whatever is on the tape that given week, UM, Well we get more opportunities to be on tape because as the guys are gonna get

the most opportunities. So UM, Hill continue to progress his role. UM. I'm comfortable with where he's at in working on his game, UM, and UH should expect to see more from him. UM. You know, I'm expecting that, and I think he's expecting that.

UM as the season progresses. We finish up here as coach was asked about the other receivers on the roster, Tyreek Hill and Jalen Waddle and what has surprised coach about what they've done so far this season in a year where they had high expectations from the coaching staff, from McDaniel and from the outsiders looking in, how have they gone above and beyond and still surprise coach with their performance, their production and the way they handle themselves.

Great answer here from Mike McDaniel. There acceptance of the burden that is high expectations. UM. A lot of people feel as though, you know, UM, it's a gift or like such a it's so cool. What if you wanted to be a star player? Well, star players have to UM really put the most on their shoulders with their UH given preparation each week. They can't afford to have to just take a game off, UM, and then when

pressure situations happen, UM, they have to perform. I think their commitment and yearning for UM, wanting to be in conversations for duos and stuff that UM, all all of those things that has been the most surprising UM on the field and and with that, they've also have been extremely coachable. I don't think we've seen nearly the best from them, UM in terms of I don't I don't know about numbers, but talk about play them being able to make plays that other people can't. I don't think

we've totally seen all of that even yet. UM. I think they would agree with that, UM. And that's been surprising UM because you just don't know until you know. And they are UM great athletes, but UM more than that, they're committed teammates UM, and they have a lot of commitment UM from a ton of people in that locker room that are doing all of the right things so that they can have that production. So UM, it's it's cool for the whole team. You will never see anybody

in the sport accomplish anything alone. And with that, we move on to quarterback to a tongue of Byloa, who addressed the media on Wednesday afternoon, starting with this tidbit about how much can being back for a second game help you shake off some of the cobwebs, some of the potential rust and get back into that routine. Quicker, here's two on the benefit of having a second game

back now after missing some time. Yeah, I think you start to get into a rhythm again, and you start to get back into how how your routine was, uh, you know, coming off of the first week to the second week and then you know, staying in that rhythm of doing things. So I think it'll help a lot. Topic of the day sort of seems to be points

per game comparative yards per play. Let's go ahead and hear from two on the disc check between those two stats and why they're so far off right now, I think we gotta finish drives at the end of the day, we gotta finish drives. Um. I mean, we can march down the field to the ten yard line and kick field goes every time, or we can march to the

thirty and kick field goes every time. But I mean that really that that doesn't that doesn't matter if we don't, you know, if we're not able to finish, you know and put put the ball in the ends on. So, uh, you know that that's something that we definitely got to hone in on and we got to get better with as far as communicating, executing, and things like that. Like coach McDaniel too was asked about Brandon Jones has impact

as far as not being here anymore. Here's two on his teammate in the next and we learned today his locker neighbor Brennan has I don't know how many of you guys talked to him, but Brandon has a pretty big impact, um, you know, on on that defense and outside of you know, his impact on the defense. I mean, dudes love being around this guy. Um, whether it's it's been on the ping pong table or just you know having a chat with this guy, like guys rally around

around him. You know, he's he's a really good guy. Um, he would definitely be missed, But I mean, for me, that's that's my boy. You know, he's he's his lockers next to mine. So I mean, that's my guy, and you know, it sucks to see that. Um, it sucks to see him go through that, and his family have to go through that with him as well. But my thoughts and prayers are always with him, um and hoping that he can recover fast from this and come back

stronger next year. We'll finish up with two of discussing the past protection the team gave him in the game on Sunday night. We talked about the moving pockets, the execution, and his job getting the ball out quick. All that stuff was shining on Sunday night. Here's two on his pass pro and what they did to create pockets for him in the game plan. So I loved it. It

was great. Um. You know, I think Mike schemed it up really well too, only because we were getting the ball out quick, and it was kind of hard, I think for their d line to get a feel with their rush patterns and then also get a feel of where the spot was for the quarterback, so you know, we're moving spots in the back there and not just

catching the ball and dropping back. So I thought they did really well, so well in fact, that it was actually the lowest pressure rate at eight point six in his entire NFL career, and it was the fifth fastest time to throw at two point three eight seconds for two on Sunday Night against the stealers. The way they create those pockets and manufacture pockets with the game plan to slide thanks to go against the flow of play

action really really impressive. More of a tip of the cap to the coaching staff here as we go forward, talked about it all all preseason. Now all season. The execution of the blocking, the quarterback that gets the ball in his hands quickly, and the game plan to create those pockets have all been much better this year for this Miami Dolphins front. Let's go ahead and call it a podcast right there. We'll come back with you guys

on Thursday for the preview podcast. Plenty of work going into that one, watching some Lions games, looking at the stats, looking at the tape, all that fun stuff. We'll have that for you on Thursday. And then Friday are crossover, our Opponent Perspective podcast. We'll have that for you guys on Friday. A little bit low energy if you can't tell,

I'm not really filming the best right now. Uh, Sunday night football really takes away sleep and then Caroline takes a way sleep as well, So I'm I'm pushing to get through. But uh, we'll go ahead and do that. I'll go ahead and call it a podcast right here. You all please be sure to subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcast, Leave us a rating, leave us a review. You can follow me on Twitter at Wingfield NFL, follow

the team at Miami Dolphins. Check out the fish Tank Podcast with Seth and Juice, our postgame show on five six w q AM that's after every single Miami Dolphins game. Are International Podcast Network, and of course our Twitter spaces every Wednesday night at eight o'clock that is tonight. Of course, check out the team YouTube channel for mediavailabilities, Dolphins Today, fish Tank and Drivetime content, and last but not least,

Miami Dolphins dot com. Until next time finds up, Caroline Denny has more to do for after that, I'm coming up