Week to Week League Deep Dive and Coordinators Detail Struggles

I'm gonna explore some expectations versus actual results. We'll hear from the coordinators as they spoke to the media on Monday, and we'll play another SoundBite from the post game show from the Baptist Health Studios inside the Baptist Health Training Complex. This is the Drivetime Podcast, Dophins. You guys ever has with soup? You know, I never was a soup guy, and then I got to Miami and the stuff here

is fire. And it's it's interesting that you get to Miami and all of a sudden you're interested in the hottest type of food that there is. But I think it's partly because the office is here are pretty cold to kind of offset the heat outside. But man, I got into the different types of soup, starting with a chicken dumpling soup, and I'm like, I'm thirty four. I think I turned thirty four this month. I just discovered dumplings, Like dumplings are an elite food if you ask me,

and especially in these different turkey or chicken soups. My goodness, it me soup guy at this point. But enough of that. I had to mention that because that's what we had for lunch today and it was very, very good. And I just cannot stop messing with all the soup around here. And this is typically our deep dive podcast, but we'll call it a shallow dive today and talk about things like soup. I became curious about the week to week league mentality and extrapolating that over year to year and

even multiple year to multiple year. And I'm not sure if this was subconscious of me or just two things that found each other in my brain or whatever, because with this job, I'm basically always working because my brain is always thinking about different ideas or concepts or research ideas to explore on the podcast or on Miami Dolphins dot com. But there was a thread by Chris Coffin. You guys know who he is on Twitter at c

K Parrot does a bunch of great Dolphins content. He had a great threat on Twitter a couple of weeks ago, Actually, why don't we go ahead and pulled up here. I'm gonna pull this thing up real quick, pause the podcast and come right back. And no time went by there because it's a podcast. But I found the thread, and in this threat he details the fluid nature of the sport and of this league. And I think it's more so the NFL than college, but for the sport in general,

things can definitely change. Look at or dron at l s U and that's about where the deep dive today starts. And you've heard me complain about this a lot, right, And I think complain is the right word, because even I'm sick of it at this point. But the point does remain that we tend to come to these grand conclusions based on one or two events. It can be a play or a drive or a quarter, and usually it's a game, but sometimes it can be whittled down

to those very small events. An example, I talked about this in draft season, how I really liked Waddle and Smith way more than the rest of the receiver class. Right, and then Jamar Chase has about as difficult of a

camp and summer as one player can possibly endure. Reports about him talking about the difference between the stripes on the college ball versus the all brown NFL ball, talking about him dropping multiple passes in practice then walking to the other end of the field with his head and a towel like it sounded dire before he even played his first game. Now we're five games in and he has Randy Moss types of production in terms of first

five games of his career. So the point is that things are fluid week to week most of the time, but way more so year to year. So to see case thread here, And this is back on September twenty nine, so it's a couple of weeks old. And I want to start Dolphins related first, and not about the quarterback, because he did go to a defensive end and he says, remember when Jason Taylor was a hot young pass rusher who had been exposed the book had been written on him.

Chris writes that the way to negate j t S skill or production was to be physical and body him. Then second year he's a nine sack player, you're number four. He's an All Pro. By year ten, he's the defensive player of the leader in the NFL. And I won't go through this whole thing, but that's the gist of it. And just for you know, Posterity Drew Brees early on while they drafted Philip Rivers. After his first three years there, he goes to New Orleans and basically rewrites the history

of the Saints franchise. C K mentions Josh Freeman's ten rookie season compared to fellow classmate and banged up rookie Matthew Stafford. What happened to Josh Streaman after that? And mass Stafford now? He mentions r G threeeve rookie season compared to Andrew Luck or even Russell Wilson and Ryan Tannehill to that degree. He mentions Baker and Dak and the ups and downs they've had. Blake Bortles in season with forty passing yards or total yards rather and thirty

seven touchdowns. Talks about Cam Newton going from being a player who was lighting college football up, but you cannot draft that guy in the first round. Then he winds up being the first pick of the draft to number two league MVP after being the number one overall pick. Very few things in this league are linear. I mean, shoot, remember when people are writing off Aaron Rodgers a couple of years ago, even week one this season, remember how Tom Brady was. And I really want to emphasize the

air quotes done after nineteen Yeah. And look, if this sounds like some plea to tell you to be patient or to be okay with losing now because it might change next week, that's not my intent here, I promise. I don't want to blow that smoke in your guy's direction. I'm just tired of trying to do that. And my intent here is to show you that the evidence you have now can be instructive, but it's hardly a definitive

actor of future success and future results. And that's just with regards to the quarterback position and the expansion into the other thoughts are ideals. I wanted to look at teams in this way, entire operations, and this is entirely opinion based. How can it not be because we don't have defined media darlings each season, but a consensus grows,

and that's how expectations begin to develop. A team you talked about through the course of spring, after a good draft and into summer and O T A s. Then they put it on the training camp practice field and you get all the tweets and reports about that, and expectations develop over the course of the off season. And I don't think the Dolphins were that specific team this year.

I think it was probably the Chargers, maybe the forty Niners, maybe the Rams, though the Patriots in there too as a team that everyone thought was gonna make a huge jump, and they still might. I mean, that's not it's part of the argument. Two of those teams are off to

a hot start, the other two not so much. But the point here is something I mentioned on yesterday's podcast that there was a budding consensus that's Dolphins team was on the rise and someone to be reckoned with with great coaching, a great defense, and a quarterback who could have sent to that next level as long as he had the offensive line production protection around him because he

now has all the weapons to work with. That was the idea, right And so I wanted to go back and look at some of the previous teams that were kind of defined that way by local and social media and especially the fan base. I think, you know, just being on Dolphins Twitter all the time, I think there was a lot of excitement going into this year about

this Dolphins team. But what about the Cardinals? I think were that team and they started off hot, they were I think a was it a five and two football team before the Dolphins beat them in like Week ate last year, and people bought all the way in on that Cardinals team, and that includes me because I'm such a big Kyler Murray fan. Then they stumbled down the stretch and finish the season eight and eight, and all you hear all off season is Cliff Kingsbury's Texas Tech record.

He had Patrick Mahomes and he still couldn't have a five hundred record there at Texas Tech. It's all you saw in Cardinals Twitter all summer long. Now they're five and oh the only unbeaten team in the National Football League, and that might change, but right now it's what they are. What about a team that found its footing in last year? It was a Cleveland Browns team one year after they had big expectations in twenty nine team because they acquire

Odell Beckham Jr. Sheldon Richardson, Olivier Vernon, Kareem Hunt. I think there was another big one that too, But I forget they go six and ten after a two and six start, no less, then they go eleven and five and your number two after expectations, and now they're three and two. But that's what a tough loss in an incredible game against the Chargers, and even tougher loss against the you know, reigning a f C champions twice over three times over in the Kansas City Chiefs two times, yeah,

the last two times. Every year you go back, there are examples of this factor in losing your quarterback was a sixty four minutes into the season this year, I'm just gonna need some more games, some bigger sample size before I opened up the evaluation mode and start playing around with the mock draft simulators like it's October. Man. I can't. We just did all. I can't get back into that. I want to see more evidence and not put work into something that will certainly change over the

next twelve weeks. So again, just to really drive this point home, this does not mean it will automatically turn around from Miami. But the point is that hope is not all lost. It never is in this game, because you're only as good as the day of work you've just put in. So let's get back to work, shall we. And speaking of getting back to work, we had Coordinator Media on Monday, and I want to cover that here briefly. Then we'll play a postgame show segment and get out

of here for a short Wednesday podcast. Tomorrow we have the preview podcast coming up, the in depth, deep dive look at the Jacksonville Jaguars in a game that hopefully Miami can get back into the winner circle in and I want to play the sound bites for the comments

I found most interesting at Coordinator Media on Monday. And let's start with George Godzy COOC starting with him talking about pre snap process, and if you recall the mail bag a couple of weeks ago, I talked about all the things there are to check pre snap as just an observer, someone trying to get good notes for a podcast. So I wanted to play this from coach Godzi because for those guys, especially someone that watches the entire offense, not just a position coach, it's tenfold let's go ahead

and go to George Godzi. Um, you know, there's a there's a lot of things that you know, I feel like I see before the before the snap. So as much as as you know, I can communicate to those guys, um, you know, especially from upstairs, I think will help them. Um, whether it's just breaking the huddle communication offensively, defensively, whether our line right. Um. So I think that that streamlined things a lot. Um. Yeah, and uh, I kind of

leave it to that. Some pretty interesting comments there from coach Godzy about being upstairs and being able to communicate that with this quarterback as well as streamline they process there. And leaving that at that. Another hot topic is the offensive line. Why don't we go ahead and hear from coach Godzi on his evaluation of the Dolphins offensive line, which of course we saw re shuffled offensive line for

this Week five game in Tampa Bay. Coach gods He was asked about how he feels Liam and Austin did in those positions and how the Dolphins feel about that offensive line going forward. Yeah. I think that that there are some plays that that you know, we're really impressive, honestly, and then some that we'd like to, you know, get corrected. UM. I think Austin's kind of working his way through some things. Uh. And for you know, within a week he made some

pretty big steps there. Um. Liam is just going to continue to get better. UM and Uh, hopefully that group can maintain some consistency and some um cohesiveness we've had, whether it's that position that that group or the receiver group kind of been some plug and play with some different players. And the more cohesive and consistent we can be with the same people out there, the better off

will be. And you hear a coach talk there about continuity and hopefully that cohesion can be a thing to develop over the final where's the twelve third team weeks of this football season? I love to see the same offensive line combination play going forward. Hopefully they can get to a place where they feel comfortable about that. Hopefully we also get to a place where you feel comfortable.

Abou getting too a tungul By Lowa back under center on the field, coach was asked about what toa can build on from what he did before he was injured to go ahead and continue the success he saw in that first game through training camp to the summer. I don't want to play two sound bites here from coach Godzi, one about that, but also one about what they have to see from two to feel comfortable to play him on Sunday in the game against Jacksonville. Let's play the

first part here from coach Gotzi. You know it was it was basically, you know, we go and play the New England game and we had some I said, a couple of couple of plays or a couple of plays within the series that we'd like to have back. But overall, as far as leading the group, you know, it was pretty consistently done. Um, and you know that was starting to build some relationships with you know, each position, and so you know, whenever there's a lapse of time like that,

it's kind of I want to say restarting. But you know, we're getting back on the field now. There's a little bit of an injury deal, so um, it's getting back that confidence that really you develop all training camp. So for for two of it will be getting back on out there on the field, being decisive, um, you know, getting back that silent alarm and and really getting back to you know where he was he was building off from training camp, um, you know, and and kind of

taking it from there. Found that answer very interesting because we talked all summer long about how good of a camp to a did have and week one is so wonky and so awkward, and look at the Buffalo Bills was into the Pittsburgh Steelers back in week one. You just there's not a lot that could be taken away

long term from week number one. And hopefully what you get back here as Too comes back and gets cranking is he develops and builds upon that stuff we saw in the training camp portion of this season, this year, this calendar year. And if he does that, well, then I feel pretty goo about going forward into the season. And beyond that, let's go ahead and finish up here with coach Gudzia with what they have to see from Too in order to feel comfortable playing him in a

game on Sunday against Jacksonville. That's a unique week to Amar, you know, with us traveling and and uh and and getting ready here for the you know, the London it's called itinerary. So but you know, whenever there's an injury at any position obviously or looking to see you know, what happens. You know, on a hit or you know, get get tackled, whether it's another position or not. So you know, maybe won't be able to find those things

out honestly till till game time. But as far as certain throws, making sure you know, he's able to rip a ball out to the sideline if he asked to, you know, show some touch over some linebackers avoid movements

in the pocket. Those are obviously things that are gonna happen throughout the game that you'd like to get a look at and practice and hopefully they come up him a um, you know, just and whether it's the play that develops a defensive linement that kind of gets an edge on an offensive linement, you'd like to see those movements take place. It's a little bit different when there are no movements, which is kind of what's going on right now. Um, just to make sure that you actually

have the functionality to execute that when that happens. So, um, it's always a touchy thing with all injuries, but obviously when he has a ball in his hand, still be

making those movements. And um, you know, we'll take a day by this week and see if we can kind of arrive at a place that we feel comfortable with before for the game, and if you guys are following me on Twitter at Wingfield NFL, I'll be out there getting you updates on practice on Wednesday, let you know about the status of QB one as well as what coach says on this press conference. Dad, you probably already happened or we'll be happening here soon, depending on when

you hear the podcast. We'll have you updated on that on my timeline, on the podcast and everywhere in between.

We cover this team inside and out. Speaking of that, let's go ahead and move ard here to Josh Boyer, who discussed rub routes and man coverage and the difficulty of defending those types of looks with that type of look I thought it was a very intriguing insight offered here from coach Boyer, and he was specifically asked about linebackers roles in that man coverage and crossing routes, but he went further and and talked more about it because there's more than just a couple of players in the

field that deal with that. So let's go to coach Boyer on man coverage versus rub routes. Well, it depends like if you're sometimes you pure man coverage, like those guys could have particular coverage as well, like we we don't always have somebody free. Uh sometimes um, you know they are free, and you know they'll force one crosser, you know, to go in a different direction. But if you've got multiple crossers, then obviously you can't get all

of them in that situation. And again, um, you know that there's you know, different coverages, different things that you can do to those crossers, and you know, and then there's different ways you can handle man too, So there's a lot of variables that go into that. So um, you know, again, obviously I've got to do a better job putting our players in position to defend those. So there's coach talking about those rub routes and man coverage.

I want to finish up here with Boyer with his comment about you know, I talked to Rashad Butler and playing about playing on a team that started nine and one and one that started oh and five, and he talked about how it's never as good or as bad as you might think it is, and the fan reaction after a bad performance is going to be who do you have to replace? Like, who's the blame on that you can replace that guy with a free agent or a draft pick, or a new high or whatever the

case may be. That's generally the thought that fans have, and I get it. It's therapeutic and it helps you maybe cope with the difficulties of losing because in this game and as a sports fan, winning is so great because losing sucks so bad, and when you do lose, I get it. We all want solutions and resolution. We want it now. We want to know it's gonna be

better next week and going forward. But the truth is, the real growth and turnaround almost always occurs from within, which is why I want to play this SoundBite here from Josh Boyer when he was asked about his earlier comment about maybe changing some things up. What does that mean? Let's listen in. Well, you know, I think again, all of our guys, you know that you see out there

on the field, we feel comfortable with. So I think, you know, it's it's a matter of you know, finding fine tuning better, whether it's schemes or you know, whatever it may be, or different calls in different situations, you know, to put the players in better position. Like ultimately, that's what we're trying to do. And I would just say for me that that that's where it starts. The term fine tuning was the point of emphasis. They're gott to fine tune this thing because your results are not going

to come from outside help. You have to get it fixed internally. And that's what the Dolphins have to The challenge they're facing right now is to find ways to get this thing right at internally here with his Miami Dolphins team and coaching staff. And finally we hear from coach Crossman, who had a good Q and A about the direction of the kickoff part of the game and

the direct and it's trending. But he talked about how the numbers skew towards touchbacks this time a year, but as the year goes along, the typically will be more kickoffs that are in play. I thought that was very intriguing because he also talked about whether being a contributing factor to that point about more kickoffs, almost like home runs and baseball. There's your baseball reference there. Uh, that's one of my friends on Twitter mentioned that I talked

a lot about baseball and he has no clue. But in the summer months and baseball, the ball flies further and home run numbers go up. Something similar to what Coach Croftsman said here about kickoffs. Again, just interesting commentary and insight to me. Let's go ahead and hear from coach on Jalen Waddle as a punt returner and the limited opportunities he had on Sunday in that game. Well, I think you know he is. You know his history, very very gifted player history in their turn game, both

in points, in kickoffs in college. Maybe an opportunity get him some more touches. We feel like we have several good players and uh obviously with jail And being one of them, and got him out on the field on Sunday. Unfortunately didn't get many opportunities. So there you have Coach Crossmen talking about Jillen Waddles punt return prospects. That's it, all right? Where are we at? Do we have time for a postgame segment? I believe we have plenty of

time for that. Let's go ahead and get out of here though, and stay tuned after the outro for the postgame segment with myself, O J McDuffie and Seth Levitt. I thought our show on Sunday was great, So I want to bring you guys some more content from that show. In the meantime, Caroline Daddy is coming home. You all please be sure to subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcast. Leave us that rating, leave us they review if you wouldn't. If you haven't done so already, we'd really appreciate that.

Give me a follow on Twitter It's at Wingfield NFL. Follow the team at Miami Dolphins. Check out the fish Tank podcast with Irving Friar this week. Great job by Seth and o J. There YouTube channel and Miami Dolphins dot com for all your Dolphins content until next time. Vinza sold out already having there of course, they was such a good job over there of getting fans in the stands. One of my favorite things is watching all the different team jerseys even though they're not playing the

game and they're going crazy. They're chairing for for different touchdowns and field goals and they love the field. Yeah. It is a beautiful thing though over there in London, man. You know, you go over there and they almost make it like an NFL experience every week, you know, all

the different things that they actually do. It a super Bowl, you know, they have that type of like I think it's a high park because where we were last year when I last time I went there um to with the Dolphins, and it's it's really cool for the fans and they do love it. Man, It's such a great atmosphere. It's loud, it's entertaining, you know, and hopefully the game is entertaining for you know, for those for the fans. But look, let's just be real about this. A change

the venue is nice, but we're playing against Jacksonville. So change the venue and Jacksonville. Change the venue and Jacksonville should be should equal dub for us. It's better equal dub for us. But like these players can't say that way, can they, juice? They need to prepare like they're playing against Tom Brady and the defending Super Bowl champions, don't

they or you or you will get nicked. You will get beat if you if you're not ready for a team like jackson Look at me, Jacksonville got beat today by Tennessee. They ran for almost twohundred yards today, you know, so we gotta worry about that. And James Robinson, you know, Arvor Lawrence is he's going to be the truth don't they even start being the truth against us, you know what I mean? He had a heck of a day to two hundred seventy three yards passing, so it's not

gonna be a cake walk. But obviously Tennessee women there, you know, they're they're Derreck Henry way of doing things and running down their throats, you know, and that's that's that's always been a you know, a way of succeeding. But at the same time, though, man, you can't sleep on anybody in this league, especially a team like I mean, He's they're they're cornered on in five like we're sitting one in four there. They're desperate team as well. So

you got good damn right, they get paid. And I actually want to go to you on this again, Juice, because it springs up an interesting thought that I had, Uh, I mean just kind of came to me. But the podcast last year on Drivetime, we had all Vanois in the podcast and I talked to him about I think they were coming off of a four or five game winning streak. At some point he came on the podcast and I asked him, what was it that turned this

this season around? Because you'll recall last year they were one in three and they wind up finishing this season nine and three and obviously get on the doorstep of the playoffs there and Kyle said that the trip to San Francisco where they had an extra day to kind of hang out together, a long flight over there, he said that really galvanized the team. So maybe going to London can do the same thing. Have you ever had an experience like that and you're playing time where a

long trip kind of brought the team together. You know what? It's it's really weird because we never ever went out early. It seemed like there was maybe one time with Jimmy you might have gone out early, but for the most part, Man Schula and we we never went even even the West Coast trip, he still went on that Saturday, if

you might be Saturday morning instead of Saturday afternoon. So you really got there, you ate, you walked through, you played, you got back on a plane, So you didn't really get a chance to do one of the times you might have galvanized teams when you're doing some of the you know during training camp, when you working together with each other against other teams, like went out to San Diego, and I spent a lot more time with Danny and I ever, did you know it was actually with Junior?

Say I, which was nice because he was the king out there? Is that when you and John bakin Junior and that's what he said? Yeah, he was, he was our plus one on that one. But I don't I don't recall. I don't recall sixty being there. But hey, if he was there, he was there. Yeah, if he was there, he was there. So I hope that this works in our favorite, this trip works in our favorite. They get out there a little bit early. I think the last time that we kind of went almost like

it was just a regular road game. I don't think they were out there very long. I remember before teams just be out there for like a super Bowl week. But I think that this could be an opportunity for us to turn the page with Basically, that's what means the first quarter seasons over, it's time to move on, and I think London could be the answer versus Jacksonville. But like we said, Travis, like you said, they get paid too, so be ready. Well, look at last year

we talked about prior to this game. Hey, this is the same place that we found ourselves. Last year the team was one in three and then they got high and so on and so forth. Well, the reality is one in three. They played the Tampa Bay Buccaneers this year. So last year they beat Jacksonville and we saw fits come out with the shirt open and the hair and the whole thing and beating Jacksonville. While they lost to Seattle next week in a close game, I think they won.

Beating Jacksonville was the beginning of winning eight out of ten. So that you know, London whatever, I don't care long trip bonding. My hope is that this team can get a W and that it does propel them to getting on a streak where they start winning a significant amount of games because they need to. And here's the other thing I want to say about London. You talked about the podcast I don't know about you, Travis with drive Time.

When Juice and I go look at the metrics. Outside of this great listenership we have for the fish tank in the States, there's no country on this earth that listens to the fish tank more than London other than the United States. How how's your London, listeners? The UK is a phenomenal football country. It's the best. I mean they are just to put it how they have to

to even be fans of the game. The Sunday night game starts at like two o'clock in the morning for them, So if you want to watch primetime football, you basically don't sleep. And it's basically Monday morning football, Tuesday morning football, and Friday morning fooball not the typical Monday night Thursday nights. And then that we've could come used to here in

the United States. Those guys are die hard football fans over there, shows by the fact that they can sell out Jets and Falcons and and for sure Dolphins and Jaguars next week. We're still on the kind of Jacksonville here, I think red juice. I mean, one thing we talked about here a little bit was the second took a

little bit of time. But where we are, but one thing I guess we can discuss here before we get here just a few minutes, juice is I'm just curious for for people out there that don't know, how difficult is it to play a football game when your body clock is still waking up at like nine thirty am. Because next week Miami is gonna play a game that starts at nine thirty Eastern time and traveling on Thursday,

with the practice Friday, then off day Saturday. I have to imagine they're gonna stay on the same routine, same schedule. How tough is that? Yeah, it's going to be tough for them. You know, I've never obviously made that trip to play a game. I just made that trip, you know, just to kick it on on occasion. But you know, we've seen some of the you know, some of the West Coast teams have that same issue when they come over and play a one o'clock game. You know, when

the bodies used to being ten am. Um, you know what you think? I was thinking about that try we're talking about it. It's kind of like when training camp. You know, training camp, you have those morning practices. It's hard to get fired up and get going for him. But Jacksonville is on the same clock world body wise, you know body clock the world. I don't know when they're going over or whatever. So everybody's got to get up and take a couple of hits to wake up maybe,

but they'll be fine. They'll be fine, man, because it'll be what time of day is that over there? Five or so five thirties, five hours ahead, thirty three, they'll be okay, they'll be okay, They're they'll be They'll just by the end and they'll be ready to go. It wouldn't be a postgame show without me bringing up some type of baseball from my past. And it reminds me of those traveling tournament baseball eight am. The dust all in the grass and you gotta go face a kid

that's throwing low nineties. That was always my least favorite thing to do. But the football is different story as well. And then speaking of football, we have the Drivetime podcast coming up for you guys later on Sunday evening as well as the rest of the week. Five days a

week we have the show. The Tuesday show is the film review, my favorite one of the entire week, where I break down the all twenty two and tell you the good, the bad, and the ugly from the week that was of Miami Dolphins football.