The Audible Ep. 6 | Mike North

where they're supposed to be. And uh and it's kind of a secret thing, but it seems like half the schedule, I've seen rumors of we're gonna play this team on that day. I don't know where this I don't know where all this uh leakage comes from as far as as the NFL schedules concerned. Have we all learned though, And I know we still do it as fans. We we like to go, Okay, we can win this one. Oh that's gonna be a tough every year. But we've learned.

I don't pay attention. You don't know who's gonna be outside of a couple of teams. You know who's gonna be good, who's not. You know who's gonna be banged up with the injury bug and who's not. Well, that's the thing that gets me. Everyone talks about, jeez, how tough is the schedule? I said, well, you know what.

To me, the the NFL schedule, more than any schedule in sports, is fluid because you know, you're you're going along and here's this team there won four straight games and man, they look great, and you got to play them next week, and all of a sudden, their quarterback goes down, or they're running back goes down, or someone goes down. All of a sudden when you play them, they're not that same team that they were, and so they change all the time. You no, I agree with

you guys about that. What I've been looking at during schedules now is hey, where are we home or away? How many weeks are we away? Where's our bye week at? You know, we're compared to the other teams in the a f C East, so we can compare apples to apples, and I'd be interested to see how the teams are finishing the year now, because it seems like Joe and Camp for a number of years now. A f C East, You've got four four games, you know it left in

your schedule. Three of the four, four and through the gauntlet. Last year was four division games and Bills and Patriots in the last six games. And I think the league and I look you talk about looking at when when I look at the schedule, first thing I look at is when do we play the Patriots? When we play the Bills, when we play the Jets? I do that. That's the first. By the way, just being an old A f C skuy, I always looked at the three teams in the A f C s and when you're

playing them on the road. So here's the way I look up. And here's where where I go. I go division games? Where the where were we were the Jets and the Patriots and the Bills. That's one too cold weather warm weather? Three? What kind of food can we eat at all these places that were going to well priorities and and and three? Mate maye every now and jump and may jump above to one. Yeah, food wise

on game day, media food, the freeloading food, the Patriots. Man, that's and by the way, everything else is really good. I mean, God bless Mr Kraft. I mean they're going there ain't no budget up there. That's that stuff. No, no, no, I always make sure I make a trip up to the press boxing New just just to get some of that. I'm childer. I love when I go from my college football games. If we get an Old Miss game or a South Carolina getting barbecue and and you don't even

have to leave the booth. They got the trays in the back. You get spoiled. You. I'll be right back. No, you TV guys, the national TV guys get that well, No, no, Joe, don't. I don't. Don't paint the picture. It's all rosy for me. That's one place. The other places I'm going downstairs, watch those guys the CBS when the big guys come in during like Rock so they're needing the same food. Worry,

I know, I hear you. Are you well even? And then probably Harvey Green or someone's taken out for taking out for a big dinner kissing BECAUSEY wants to kick their ask because it's the only way he can get a free meal because by taking them out. So it's not so much about them, it's more about more about Harvey. Hey, So we got a lot of stuff to get in. We talked about the schedule. Uh, We're gonna talk with the NFL Senior director of Broadcasting, Michael North. He's involved

in from start to finish getting this schedule together. Obviously, talk about what's going on, the team will get to some of the questions that people are getting in UH and our podcast Apple Music. Joe, you can listen to it there any other place you can get it at Dolphins dot com maybe Miami Dolphins mobile app that I know you haven't loaded yet. Tune in radio that you have no idea, that's even though you're in the radio business. Episodes one day, what do they do every Thursday? Joe dropped,

They dropped. That's what they do every Thursday. They drop. It all happens. You're becoming. You're in a short in a short period of time since we've done a podcast, although neither of the three of us really understand what a podcast is. Now you've been getting very techno savvy in these last streaming video right now you're in the streaming video. Awesome. Yeah, I feel like, when are you gonna go? When are you gonna get to get to the point from a technical standpoint that answering your phone?

You feel like Joe's back in cal right now. This is one of his classes and start didn't start real well some but it's starting to get better. You're gett bit. You're not gonna be able to play against Fresidro State. You're okay, Oh you got Southern count You'll be all right. Don't go ahead, you get ready to go. Hey, I want to remind the fans. You can go ahead and send your questions in through Facebook, send him in through Twitter. We'll get to the questions and get everything going. Uh.

Talk about a couple of other things going on. Uh. The Dolphins go out and they sign it tight in Gavin Escobar. He was a forty seven overall picking two thousand thirteen by the Cowboys, playing sixty four games, seven stars during his career. Um, he's not the answer. No, he's just another another guy to come in and compete. Uh. And good bodies out there. And that's a position that we've talked about how much of a position they need.

That is. To me, it's kind of one of those Hey, you know what, bringing ten of them and and just put them through the sifter and whicheveryone's fall out and whichever two or three fall out, and then and then put them in the mix. They gotta get a homegrown they got to get one with no mileage on it that is raw that you can coach up. Oh yeah, and by the way, don't don't go down the line on it. Make it a top three round priority. So let me ask the conversations I've had with people regarding

tight ends. But he doesn't block. But he doesn't block, none of them. I don't care at this point, I don't care. Bring Anthony Fasano back, let him block and get someone out there that runs around. And how many players and guys how many plays those guys in there to block? Are not very many? Isn't many? Right now?

When you're in the red zone. Now, I've watched Adam Gates for two years now, when you're in the red zone, he wants to flex his tight end out, get him one on one, get three receivers of the other side he didn't need to block, get open right now. As we as where we sit right now right today, this team with with whoever they brought in, whoever they've signed, where they brought back, we don't have a starting tight end zero where we're standing right now. I mean, it's

just it's just the way it is. So something has to be done between now and then my assumption is it's it's I can't see this team coming out of the draft, which which quite frankly is next week. It's hard to believe it's already on the next week. Um, I can't see him coming out of the draft without a tight end. Well, they're gonna have a choice to

make second round, third round, fourth round. There's gonna be guys that have been productive college tight ends that are flexed out all the time, that are catching forty fifty sixty passes a year, and that are very athletics. So they're gonna have a choice now where they select that guy. The choices are gonna start to dwindle once you get past the third and fourth round. You know, there's not a whole lot of low hanging fruit that you say, well,

that's our guy. You know that can start in a national football You know, I'm with you, two round one or two one or two. To me, you either got to walk away with quarterback, line acker, tight end. And I think those quarterbacks gonna be gone. So I think I think if I was gonna look at my crystal ball, I would say, uh, linebacker at eleven and and a tight end and just go out and you know what, I know, it's it's it's not the position to need

theory out there. But if you're in that second round, you're sitting there and there's a tight end there that do you think, well, you know, jeez, you know, maybe maybe he should be drafted about three or four more picks, and maybe maybe maybe we jumped the gun, and we jumped the gun. Take the goddamn guy, get him in here. Let's get a tight end on a roster that can catch the ball and be a difference maker. I'm all for it because this offense is in need of playmakers.

Joe and I were talking before the show about you know, who's gonna replace all those catches in the slot. Well, doesn't necessarily have to be a slot. It can be dispersed in other areas. You know, we want, you want to Vaunte to rise up and be the guy he's gonna get some of those catches. But I do agree the formations that Adam Gaize's Adam Gates uses not only in the red zone but in the middle field. The quick passes. He's looking for mismatches, He's looking for an

opportunity to get the ball out quickly. The guys that can make a move, make somebody miss and get a first down or or explosive play. And that includes the tight end position. So one of the things is always I played tight end in junior college, but it was we were a running team, and so I didn't I didn't catch very many balls. But but the one thing about a tight end, Joe, you played the position your whole life. I mean that that always I thought was

always one of the tough parts. Is a lot of times as the tight end, as soon as the ball is coming to you're you're getting hit. You you gotta hit, you gotta catch and and protect. You know, wide receivers may sometimes you get a little more open, but very rarely you see a tight ends and it's not it's catching the ball and not being not not being attacked as soon as the ball hits. You know, we've lost

the last two years. How many plays can you guys remember us fronting down the scene, down to hash marks, down the numbers, just running between safety. It's not great where a guy just put it on you catch it, you're gonna get hit, just catch it. It's a yard play. I don't remember me. We haven't run that route and Charles playing was the last guy here that I remember. Tanneyhill a good time doing it, very productive, and that became that became a wide in the field out a

heck of a lot remind me passing offense. And it wasn't only down the middle. Joe's down the rail too. On the little wheel routes. Charles, you know, top throws and your back shoulder bang, you'd catch it and fall down, but hey, you know you got you got big place, you know. I remember one of one of the tough things for me always to cover was that tight end. It ran a little that that little take off. Just take it out to the sideline and turn it up, you know, And that's a that's a tough cover for

a linebacker. And if you can get that guy that can can do that and run down the seam and really adds a lot to your offense. It gives you a lot of options out in the field. And you flip that around, you flip that scenario around. We're talking about positions in the draft. That guy at eleven, if it happens to be a linebacker, and two guys that you know everybody's talking about, could be there and Edmonds

and Smith from Georgian and Virginia Tech, respectively. There's been a lot of room for opposing tight ends catching against the Miami Dolphins, and we're hoping if the Dolphins are there and the quarterbacks are gone and that's not you know in our conversation that one of those two guys are able to come in and help close that gap between the Dolphins defending an opposing and that kind of rolls into the to the other news that that came

out over last week. Kenny vecarl Uh safety was drafted by the Saints and the fifteen pick Uh pick in two came in for a visit. So so there's a safety there. And again, I think that belies what you're talking about, John, is that this team is dead set this year somehow during the off season of figuring out how to how to stop tight ends and the carro is a guy that comes in and is a cover guy. He's a he's a he's a he's a guy can

come up. But it also to me, it puts t. J. McDonald in a position where are you gonna make him

that hybrid guy. You're gonna put him that guy that's a safety slash linebacker to either be a physical guide the line of scrimmage with tight ends and get help over the top, or or what are you gonna do if you go out either draft or they didn't sign kennycarl but if you if you do sign something like that, Um, it shows the importance of I think to understand how important to wear in both sides of the tight end game offense. Yeah, you know, providing offense by the way

t J. McDonald and it's not a shot. He's still a mystery to me on what you can do. Yeah, well, look I gotta give him. I gotta give him a training camp and then given right on the field. Ye I don't I don't care what you say. You know they didn't work well together to say, well, how can you work well when you come in after eight weeks and just jump in a jump on board. I think his first game was up in Carolina, right, and it was they're flinging the ball all over the field out

there on it. It's so difficult for a player, and I don't care what your talent level is to have this build up of offseason conditioning and workouts, go through train in camp, go through the preseason and now you're done. He had nothing to carry over to Week nine or week and you know, it's a big It's like it's culture shock, really coming back and expecting that level of play to be where it was where everybody liked him

and signed him during the preseason. Hard to judge him by by that, based on based on doing that, and and look it and it opens the door for everyone to which everyone is doing kind of scratching their head, going, wait a minute, why the Dolphins extend this guy's contract when he's gonna miss eight games. I think they saw a lot out of him in training camp that they felt good about. But somewhere there's a disconnect between what they liked and training camp and what we saw when

he came back against the game of Carolina. Now played a little better along the way, But they've got they've got to, you know, coach games loving for alpha dogs. They had to alpha dogs. And look, the one thing I like about is both can step to the line of scrimmage. Both can be that guy. But but but they both got to be something different too. Yeah, I

think Joe Joe hit it. There's a big question mark on this football team, but at that position, just knowing how good is t J McDonald, How does he fit Matt Burke wants to do with him? And how do they how do they play together? How do they play off of each other? Who's really good at what? When they're both on the field at the same time, you gotta compliment each other once tackling, but but both of them gotta make plays. We just need more playmakers. That's

the playmakers. And that's that's what's all about. Bands on the football on defense or getting that book fall up, ball up in the air. That's right, get popping a guy getting the ball up in the air. Uh, that's the way you get the job done. Um, how come to one? Yells Oscar anymore? When they intercepted past, I thought that wasn't that a whole football? Wasn't that a whole football? The oh my god. Every place I've ever played Oscar was in the was in the vernacular, right,

pops in your right? I don't hear it anymore? You know it's it's it's going by the way up a human with the full Let me get you going, now. What was the last usually saw a linebacker line up on a tight end and keep him on the line of scrimmage. Don't give me some, don't give me. I just want to get him going. They'll just out of nowhere. Go get him a beer, and we'll watch the tight and run down the field, and he's got three or

four catch, you know, and I know it's coming. I'm wearing thong underwear right now, and they just pulled up. They just pulled my butt right now, just stuck half way up my butt. I don't know. If you better go get me a beer. You won't be doing this because now you got him going again with a look good. Hey. Uh so, so that's kind of the news. So what's

going on? Let me give this preseason schedules out week one, Tampa Bay at home, week to Carolina on the road, then the Ravens on the road and Braves at home and then the Atlanta back here. Uh schedules to schedule in preseason. What it is A question I've got is waiting to see if if, if, I if somewhere along the line the Dolphins decided they want to do one of those uh, you know, practice deals with him. I

think Baltimore would be the perfect team. But I think Baltimore has got something hooked up somebody got hooked up with Seattle. They're they're gonna do something with another partner. Hey, bo, how's the preseason road schedule? Look for food? Carolina? Not bad for food up there? Uh, Atlanta? That was alright, I'm just checking. I want quite frankly, when we go on the road, as long as someone else is buying the food, always pretty good. Line is always good on

the road, alright. So, speaking of schedule, NFL schedule is due out. Who knows, it could be out tonight, it could be out tomorrow, but it's coming out pretty soon. And we had a chance to uh, to talk to the guys that that that make the schedule out here UM, NFL Senior Director of Broadcasting, Michael North, what do you say, we say, we hear what to say about the You

can imagine that. Imagine the job of East team teams, of these guys to try to put the schedule together for thirty two teams and satisfy the teams, satisfy the owners, satisfy the fans, and most importantly satisfy the networks that are paying billions of dollars to put these games on their end. How about the other events you got called on with concerts, the stadiumable, and then you've got then then you've got weather things that we saw last year

with a hurricane that changed things. So a lot of things go into it. But uh, the guy to the Michael North's the guy to to find out from. So we'll hear what he had to say. Well, with the NFL schedule, UH fast approaching, we're gonna find out what it looks like for the Miami Dolphins and every other team in the National Football League joining us now the senior NFL Senior director of Broadcasting, Michael North, and Michael,

thanks for joining us. I know you've been Uh, i'd imagine you guys been pretty busy here over the last I don't know when when do you start this process of putting together a schedule for for an entire NFL season. Yeah, the process actually starts the day after the regular season ends.

That's the final piece to the puzzle. In terms of the two are and fifty six matchups, we know, based on rotation both inside and outside the conference, we know fourteen of the sixteen games really going out for the next ten, twelve, twenty four years. Even so, it's just those last two games that we need to know the final standings from the two thousand seventeen season, and then honestly,

we get right to work that very next day. Every club gets a form that says, now we know your opponents, Please tell us what we need to know when we start constructing this schedule, both in terms of stadium availability, travel requests, are you part of the International series this year? And anything that you know we need to know in terms of special celebrations in the market or or other events going on in the market that would impact the club's ability to host a game on any specific day.

So it really starts the day after the regular season ends, So you contact every team and find out what they may have in store. Um, as you said, celebrations this that or or or conflicts of stadium type things or those are all the things you go over with each and every team before you start putting pen to paper on this. Yep, that's exactly right. Every club gets a form that says, uh, tell us what we need to know,

mostly things like, uh, stadium availability. UM, you know, we obviously don't want to schedule a game at home for a team when they're building. Is is simply unavailable? Um, we keep an eye on some of the other sports, whether it's a Major League Baseball obviously know that Dolphins don't share a park anymore with the Marlins, but they

used to, so that was a consideration. And then there's obviously PG eight Tour golf events, there's NASCAR races, there's MLS soccer games, everything going on either in the stadium or or or in the stadium footprint, and also in the market. So every club gets to weigh in with here's what we need you to know when you guys are building our schedule, and then everybody waves in with some preferences in terms of, you know, we know we have to play this team this year if it's uh,

you know, a warm weather site. You know, no, nobody's volunteering to come and play in Florida in September when it's hot. Nobody's volunteering to go play in Green Bay or Cleveland or Pittsburgh in December when it's freezing. Everybody wants to open at home. Everybody wants to close at home. Everybody wants to mid season by uh, you know, obviously, with with everybody wanting those things, you know you're never

gonna be able to satisfy everybody. So the club's sort of send us a list, here's our priorities, and we do our best to hit the target for everybody, you know. Uh, speaking of different things weatherwise, we ran into a situation last year, uh you know where we got hit with a hurricane down here, canceled our first game, which was supposed to be a home game, got moved later on. Fortunately Tampa had by the same week. Uh, and we got sent out of town. Do you look is that

thing that that? Do you look at those types of things weather occurrences? Uh, you know, chances of it. I mean, I know I've been through a number of hurricanes down here in South Florida and they always I know, they always happened either towards the end of the preseason or right at the beginning of the season. Is that anything that enters in the conversation, at least as far as

down here in South Florida. Look, if our if our if our forecast was was that accurate, we would know not to put the Dolphins home the weekend of the

hurricane was gonna hit. But if we could, if we could wave a magic wand you know, maybe the first five six weeks of the season, the home games in Miami our division opponent, and that way, if you do find yourself in a weather situation, one of your options might be swapped the sites of the division series instead of hosting New England in Week two as scheduled or

whatever it is. If there's bad weather coming, you go up to New England in Week two and they'll come to you down in week thirteen or fourteen, whenever the Dolphins were scheduled to go to New England. Originally it didn't work out last year with Tampa. We were very fortunate that the Dolphins and the Bucks happened to share a bye week last year, so we were able to take that game out of Week one and and replace

it with the byes. I know there's been issues with a Titans game, maybe even a Stealers game down in South Florida. It's it's random. It's dumb luck. If we happen to land on a week where the weather gets bad and we have a division opponent scheduled, the swap becomes an option. But really, it's it's it's it's completely random, and we just gotta cross our fingers and hope if we find ourselves in a situation like that, there is

a viable solution. But is there a consideration to say, hey, early in the season, let's let's let's try to get a home game and then get them on the road a little bit, because that seems to be when when they occur. Yeah, I mean, look, you know this from your playing days. You know, sometimes the football side of the house and the marketing side of the house don't

always see eye to eye. You know, if if the head coach of the Dolphin, you know, might want September home games at one o'clock as many as he can and and and get the you know, the road team in the heat, whereas you know, the director of ticketing or the VP of marketing may wanna consider you know, fans surveys and and and they don't like those early season games in the heat. And I know that's part of why Mr Ross went through the stadium renovations that

he did. And uh, the answer is yes, it factors into every decision we make. But like I said earlier, you know, all thirty two teams have to make the same sort of decision, you know, football side versus marketing side. Submit those requests and then the league office has to take all that into account, and really, you know, reread that same needle. You could make the perfect quote unquote team schedule for all thirty two teams, everybody you know,

home away alternating weeks. Nobody catches a three game road trip, nobody plays a road game after a road Monday. You can get rid of all the buys in week four and five. You know, you could make really friendly team schedules. That's probably not going to be your best television schedule, and you know those are valuable partners as well. Flip side, you can make a fantastic television schedule all your biggest teams,

all your biggest brands, and all your national windows. That's probably gonna lead to a lot of team pain in terms of competitive issues. So, rather than going to either of those two extremes, were sort of looking for the balance right in the middle. What's the right mix of

you know, fan friendliness, competitive issues, friendly television schedules. It's a it's a it's a it's a tough, but it sounds like there's a lot of variables in there, both from a team standpoint, from the network standpoint, all the different things. How many people are involved in this and yeah, there's got to be some kind of computer programming algorithms that you use in this or this is all done manually. How do you how do you fit all the different

dynamics into coming out with a proper schedule. Yeah, I'll tell you that. The truth it really was, isn't that long ago that this was still being done by hand. Uh, certainly in your playing days that the schedule was created by hand, one game at a time. They used to come out and I think, yeah, exactly exactly that we were lucky to get one done. We were building it by hand. Um and there were things in those schedules that we certainly you know, wouldn't be proud of today.

Um As the you know, technology has improved, both from the software side and the hardware side. We partnered with a company out of Western Canada called Optimal Planning Solutions, and we've been with them about a dozen years now. Um As, you know, computers have gotten faster and less expensive. I remember it wasn't that long ago we had six or eight computers in the room and I thought that was you know, space shuttle technology. We were never going

to need more than that. Now, you know, with the cloud computing and the way you can spin up and spin down instances. We we've got hundreds, hundreds of computers running twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, and they're all thinking about the same thing. Where is that right balance between competitive fairness for the clubs, you know, fan friendliness in terms of you know, the ticket buying public,

and also television ratings. At the end of the day, you know, it is a television sport, and we are trying to you know, not so much generate the highest television ratings, necessarily so that our partners can sell more advertising. It's really more about getting those best games into television windows where as many fans as possible can see them. You know, we've got the Thursday Night Football package, now, Sunday Night Football, Monday Night Football, the key doubleheader games

Sunday afternoons at four Eastern time. You know, we wouldn't be doing our jobs, we wouldn't be doing right by the fans if those windows didn't have some of our best games in them. Any fan can look at the list the two and fifty six regular season matchups and identify, you know, the six fifteen games that are must see TV. We've got to make sure that those games end up

in windows where most of our fans can eason. We wouldn't do in our jobs if the best games were one o'clock on Sunday with six other games at the same time, and only then available to the country in a regional window on CBS or Fox. We're looking for, you know, the biggest windows for our best games, and

that is definitely one of the driving factors. I know you've got opportunities late in the season, flexing games and and this and that, but you know you got sit I'll give you a good example, like like you know, trying to set up games where you get those those matchups, those big matchups to see the you know, the premier teams playing the premier teams are great nights are great

Sunday afternoons or whatever. And then you've got a situation like in green Bay where all of a sudden, you know, you look at the green Bay Packers, one of the favorite teams going in it will certainly to be in the playoffs, possibly played for a Super Bowl, and their quarterback Aaron Rodgers, goes down. And now those great games where green Bay was gonna be a participating in a in a great game, all of a sudden they kind

of become a second tier team. That's gotta be a little a little frustrating, but it's the nature of the beast. So I guess you just you just live with it. Yeah, I mean though those kinds of things. Frankly, as one of the schedule makers, those those are gutting because you really do have to pick a handful of games right off the top and just commit to the fact that these games are gonna be on national television. They are MUFSIE TV. We've got to do everything we can to

get them in those big windows. And you look at a game last year like Packers at Steelers, you know, with the Inner Conference opponent like that. The Packers visit the Steelers once every eight years. And so here we had this incredible moment, this incredible opportunity to playoff teams Rogers and Roethlisberger, and what an opportunity to put this game on Sunday Night Football on NBC, you know, in November,

right when the playoff races are heating up. And that was you know, that was a lynch pin, a tent pole of our schedule last year. And then all of a sudden. You know, Rogers gets hurt, and you know Hunley played well in that game. They gave the Steelers everything they could handle, came right down to the end. But it's just not the same feel at the beginning. The you know, the initial tuneing wasn't there. It wasn't

quite as big as you had hoped, as we had hoped. Um. You know, as you do get later in this season though, like you said, there is flexible scheduling. If you've got a game schedule for Sunday night football and it just doesn't turn out the way you had hoped back in March or April, you do have an opportunity to move that game back into Sunday afternoon, but you have to find a Sunday afternoon game then that can move into

Sunday night that would actually be better. And I'm not sure we really had one last year, so we did end up staying with Packers. Steelers for Sunday Night turned out to be a great game, but certainly the ratings were a little disappointing and and certainly we we missed number twelve and Green no doubt who is who pushes more for what they want? Uh In scheduling the the NFL team's NFL owners or the networks themselves. They both pushed as hard as they can if that's the proper

way to say it. Um, you know, it's a very fine line in to try to tow my boss Howard Katz and and certainly his boss Brian roll Lapp and and you know obviously right up to the Commissioner Roger Goodell. Uh, nobody wants to see that schedule where we you know, quote unquote cave in to our television partners and all of our teams feel like they were disadvantaged or had an unfair schedule. Nobody would be proud of that. Um. On the flip side, you know, like I said earlier,

every team wants the same thing. And we're never gonna be able to open all thirty two teams at home, and we're never gonna be able to give all thirty two teams a week eight by somebody's gonna have to play in Florida in September, somebody's gonna have to go to lambeau Field in December. So what it really comes down to is is sort of managing expectations, understanding priorities, and and really just being honest with everybody. You're never gonna be able to get everything you asked for, team

or network. So what really is important to you? If we can't do this, could we do that instead? Is this uh suitable plan B? Is this an acceptable alternative if we can't deliver exactly what you asked for? Um? You know frankly that the guys who have been in the league the longest, whether it's coaches, a general managers, you know, I'll be honest with you, most of those guys, they really don't complain that much. Again, you probably remember

this from you're playing Dames. I don't think any coach wants to complain too much about any one game, whether it's because of travel or time zone or whatever it is, because I don't think they want to give their players, you know, any excuse, any reason to think, hey, we were not going to have a shot in this game. So more often than not, our teams, you know, to a man, they say the same thing you. You tell us when to show up and we'll be there. They

know they're at home and eight wrote opponents. We're just putting them in order. For the most part, the teams are are really really good about Hey, you you line them up and we'll play them when you tell us, how do the how the network sweeps where they're trying to uh get their books up so that that they can charge the advertising dollars they want, How does that come get involved in UM because certainly they want to have in their minds, and that's why I would assume

that's where they want to have their premier games. Yeah, you know, it's actually shifted a little bit over the last I would say six or eight years. I've been doing this about twenty. In the beginning, ye right weeks eight, nine, ten eleven, that was a priority for everybody. We tried to shove our best Sunday night games in there are best Sunday afternoon doubleheader games in there. Sweep sweeks were a big deal to our network partners. Over the last I would tell you five or ten years, I think

that's softened a little bit. I think they're more focused on depth and quality and season long averages as opposed to just, oh, we were excellent in November, but at

the expense of September or December. You know, I think our network partners now look at it more as Hey, there are very few places any long around the television dial where you're gonna be able to deliver ten, twelve, fifteen, eighteen million eyeballs to any one show and live sports is still something that at least so far, seems to be you know, DDR proof and can't really be time shifted.

So the fact that we can still put fifteen million people in front of a television whether it's on Thursday nights or Monday nights or Sunday afternoons, Um, I think it's more important to our partners that we do that consistently across the entire season as opposed to really trying to maximize, you know, one four week stretch is um, you know, last last year and I think this seems to be kind of a trend maybe or maybe I'm just you know, maybe it just seems that way to me.

But you know, last year, last towards the end of the season, we had uh really close back to back games against division opponents. Then we played Buffalo one time and then a game in between the Buffalo again, same

thing with New England late in the season. Is that something that that has become uh, something that that you guys want to try to do get more of those key divisional games late in the season when when, as you said, earlier in November, when uh, you know, when the playoff picture is really starting to come into focus and it makes those games much much bigger games than had they been somewhere earlier in the schedule. Yeah, that's right.

About six or eight years ago, we started playing all division games in week seventeen and whenever we can, we certainly look for those schedules. There are you know, dozens hundreds thousands of legal, playable, finished NFL schedules in any given scheduling season, and we're going through every one of them, sort of eyeballing the pros and cons and what makes this one better than that one? And one of the factors is always number of division games late in the season.

It tends to keep the playoff races a little bit tighter. You're less likely to have clinched your division if you still have more division games to go. Um. You know, it's sort of a uh, fan friendliness sort of thing. As the weather starts to turn in some of our cold weather outdoor stadiums, having a division opponent coming in

there keeps it special, keeps it interesting. Um. And then yes, the the offshoot of that, the unintended consequence of that, if you will, is sometimes you do see a division series, you know, weeks fifteen and seventeen, thirteen and sixteen, they do get a little close at the end. But is that better or worse than having, you know, all the division games finished by week nine on any one team schedule. So again, trying to thread the needle and find that balance.

It certainly makes things interesting, uh, towards the end of the year. I think the other thing you look at and I've had this, I've had this conversation with fans a lot over the years where they, you know, how come Mr Ross doesn't try to get more four o'clock games with this and that? And you know, my, my, Uh, you know, I've always believed and I mean, I assume I'm right. I mean I think, right is it to me? You know, four o'clock games? To me, those are national games.

You earn four o'clock games. You know, you're not one in fifteen and they're you're not throwing people in those four o'clock games late in the season. Um, So certainly record or expectation of quality of teams, uh, I would

assume comes into play for those four o'clock games. The highest rated windows, the most watched games tend to be Sunday afternoon and four, And some of that makes sense just logistically, we know, you know, living in the East Coast, it does get you know, up against eleven eleven thirty at night sometimes and it's hard to keep people tuned in all the way through those primetime games sometimes. But Sunday afternoon to four that's been our highest rated window.

That's where you see those really big games pop, those really big numbers. You'll remember New England Pittsburgh from last year week fifteen thirty million people, you know, watching a football game Sunday afternoon at four thirty. It becomes a

bit of a self fulfilling prophecy. Of course, as we see the window grow and as we see the ratings opportunity and the numbers of viewers increase for Sunday afternoon four, we do start thinking more about, Okay, we have to put our better games into those windows, knowing that's where we can find our fans, and our fans want to find our games. So you're you're right, the four Sunday afternoon window is where we put you know, our our our a level content, if you will, Our our best

games go into that spot. A little different here in the East Coast, obviously, because we have an opportunity to choose between a one o'clock and a four o'clock start. You know, out west, there's no such thing as an early window. There's no such thing as one o'clock Eastern time. That's ten am out there, So all the Western teams when they play at home have to play in that

late window. Therefore, if you want to have some sort of quality, some sort of quantity for the fans that do like to tune in at one o'clock on a Sunday, that's generally where you find your East Coast games. Thursday night games have become a norm in the league. They're they're not going anywhere, um, but there's more and more chatter about Thursday night games, players, injuries, all that, And I would assume that that that was a fairly good

topic of conversation. Um. Probably probably out of your hands, but certainly that involved the work you were doing, no no doubt about it. You know, those decisions were obviously made well above my pay grade. But um, yeah, Thursday night football is a staple certainly now Fox has signed on for another five years. Um, you know, I know

you played Thursday games, you know when you played. We we tend to think and we've heard from players and from coaches that yeah, the short week is obviously tough Sunday to Thursday, but nice to have a little bit of a break, almost like a mini by ten days after your Thursday before your next game. So we try to look that mini by maybe space it out as far as possible from the team's actual by kind of manage where the travel is the week before the Thursday.

And yeah, it's obviously, you know, tough on the body, but um, I think Thursday night football is is certainly here to stay. And and the fact that you know, Fox is willing to step up and make the commitment that they did, uh, certainly indicates that you know, it is it is certainly part of the fabric of the league right now. Well, look, I always look forward to

Thursday night game for that one reason. So looking to get that because we didn't have by you know when I played even at bye weeks, so that was really your that week where you go, man, we get we get you know, ten days off for our next game. That was a pretty good prize at the at whatever point because you use our Thursday games were later in

the season. I know, you played a couple of Thanksgivings, I remember, and then as the Thursday package, you know, slowly grew, right, it started with just the back half of the season, and now it's a full season's worth. You could argue that it's a little more fair now instead of you know, only a handful of teams having the ones short week. Now it's it's pretty much everybody.

We did get rid of the Thursday game in Week sixteen last couple of years, so that you don't get that one guy, you know, a ten day jump, uh, you know, or a three day jump, I should say on on his Week seventeen division opponent, where hopefully there's a playoff spot on the line. But you know, but for the Week sixteen, you know, there's a Thursday night game every week of the year, and and almost everybody's

gonna play one. Try to be judicious about you know, where teams are the week before and and and where they're going the week after, and uh, you know whose turn is it in terms of home and away Thursdays. Certainly a home Thursday's easier than a road Thursday. If you've been a couple of years in a row as a road Thursday team, it's it's probably time at some point to get you a home game or two. So

try to keep an eye on that. And then, like I said, it goes into every team's form when they feel like they are owed something, whether it's a home opener or a home Thursday or a mid season by, they're not shy about letting us know. Hey before before I let you go on and appreciate your time. Well, what's the what's the craziest request for something that some team or the network or somebody has wanted schedule wise?

Oh man, that's a good one, you know. Putting aside some of the competitive stuff, I think what you find sometimes is, I don't want to call it gaming the system, but but let's just say that every everybody's an expert. So you often get teams when they fill out that form in January and they say, okay, here's our stadium blocks and uh, here's our requests. You get a handful of teams that will fill out their entire schedule. They'll

send you a seventeen week schedule. We want to open with these guys go on the road here, then we're gonna come home on a Monday night. Then we're gonna play two home games in a road game. Then we're gonna have our buying wee gate and they literally set out their entire schedule for us. I'm pretty sure we've never actually able to accommodate that request. I can they can see that happen. Hey, uh, Michael, again, I really appreciate you spending some time with us. Uh Uh, this

stuff is gonna come out. Maybe we can get together with you afterwards and and kind of look at the Dolphin schedule and pick your brain on on on how you got to where you you got to with that and um. But but again, I appreciate you having, appreciate you having on the show, and uh, and you guys do a great job no matter what nobody I think this is one of those things where, um, everybody's every everybody's happy with the schedule, and nobody's happy with the

schedule probably at the same time. Right we we know that you're never gonna have thirty two happy teams and six happy network partners or five partners six packages. You know you're never gonna be able to make everybody happy, so hopefully everybody's you know, only a little bit disappointed. And hopefully equally, if there's somebody out there who's really really angry, that's probably not our best schedule. With there's somebody out there who's really really happy, that's probably not

our best schedule either. So it's really an exercise and pain management and uh, hopefully just disappointing everybody, equally. Said, a lot a lot of stuff going on and a lot of people are to solve. And I don't know how these guys, Uh, that's full time job. I don't know. I really don't know how they do it. Um and make everybody. Everybody happy because everybody's smiling. Yeah, I have noticed one thing. If you noticed the teams they think are gonna be bad, you get a lot of one

o'clock games, sure, no, no question about it. Well they look at you, go, well you got a Thursday night er. Oh boy, as you heard. We talked about that a little bit, and you know it's And I've had a lot of people over the years of tell me, hey, how come the dollars get don't get more four o'clock games? I said, well, they're in foro you gotta earn four

o'clock games. You start winning games, you know, you know, like take a look at the Steelers, take a look at the Patriots, take a look at the Cowboys, take a look at those teams have been consistently and you're gonna see three prime time games. You're gonna see maybe one or two one o'clock games, and us the time you can playing four o'clocks. And then later you go you get those cold weather games and you get those cities like Philadelphia, and you know what you're gonna get.

You get teams that are in the mix that haven't been there for a while. And it's a lot of funny. Even when we went out, you go out on on the West Coast and you get that taste of uh the year we played the Chargers and the Rams back to back, and that was kind of you felt like, hey, we're in this thing now. You know, it was fun. That was fun. Ended up being a lot better than I thought. Yeah, you know, I always love I used to love my favorite games played down here in South

Florida and obviously played the Orange Bowl. Uh. I love the four o'clock home games because to me, it was like two different games. You'd go out there, you play at four o'clock, it was sunny and everything. Maybe then you go in the locker room at halftime and you

come out and his black. It's pitch dark now and that lights wrong, so you kind of had a day game and and and I just love the atmosphere of that change, that time of the that time of the evening playing and going into the second half of the sun going down. It's always pretty cool. Did any part like one, you know, when you had a team coming in from cool weather though you didn't like it was

two degrees. Don't remember playing. I remember playing against the Bears early in my career, Walter Payton and then that whole crowd and we played him in a one o'clock game in the Orange Bowl and it was it was hottest sin and obviously we're wearing all whites and they got the black on and they had to Two offensive

linemen are on my side of line. Uh rev story and Noah Jackson will never if you get both of them were three hundred plus, but they were in old school three hundred plus fat asses, the guts hanging over the bell, you know. And I just remember every time I every time I'd rush, you know, I'd walk back by one of them, I go, Jesus hot out here for me. How are you guys standing this? They get yours out. I just kept trying to needle him a little bit. And then one of the one of the

last place in the first half. You know they did that when they break the huddle and they kind of turned around. They broke the huddle. Both of them jump turned around and bent over and puked. Right, I look at better to go. This one's done. So yeah, you like that? More of them? Get some of those against some of those good uh. Later on, let's take some questions with some of these people from our Facebook. Reggie Lewis, you guys meaning fans do realize that great quarterbacks are

hard to acquire, right. That's why with thirty two teams, you can count on one hand how many great quarterbacks there are in the lead. People people say, get rid of of Ryan Tanneville, But who are you gonna put in place? I I agree with that. And look, if you're not, you're not shining the light on on a

secret out here. Look around the National Football League, and you you know this is kind of an aberration this year when you got to the final four of the of the NFL season and you had one one one legitimate franchise quarterbacks, you know, and everyone else was just kind of, you know, backup, quarterback, backup the whole thing, right, So, but but I mean it wasn't but but that was certainly the exception to the rule because usually look at it, and you know, you look at the those guys that

are in the in the final you know, in the last you know, two weeks of the season including you get down to eight and four and six in all the good quarterbacks. And it's amazing too because that quarterback and Nick fails. He what was his first year in Philly through twenty six interceptions and maybe two touchdowns and two interceptions or something like that, and then he falls off the radar. He goes to a couple of teams, comes back and now he's the toast of Philly again.

Came back with with the right guy that believed in him, that they had him in Casey almost quit. Right, Well, we'll look at Alex Smith. Everywhere he goes. They want to get rid of him and want to get rid of him. We're watching that guy. Last year, we go to Kansas City and and I'm looking at my guys in and go. They want to get rid of this guy. They can't wait to get their first round, which we all knew. And you watch him though it all over

the field. He's making he played anybody last year in stretches that we're that we're in the National Football Mark Angelo on Facebook. I hope Ryan got the extra time to figure it all out. That bothers me did Ryan to figure it out? Ryan, Ryan, as much as anybody I've been around, knows this offense, understands this offense I figured out to me it it makes you, It makes you feel like maybe and maybe it looks Mark, maybe

I'm wrong. Maybe the way it seems to me like you look at him as a guy that's stumbling to to figure out what he's doing. I don't don't think that's the case with Ryan. So I thought last year was gonna be his year. I'm happy with the offseason moves today. The great draft could make it all come together. I'm all with that. But the thing about Ryan figuring it out, Listen, he's doing everything. He is a flat out Jim rap. He's here all the time, John, you're

here all the time. The guys always here. Um and he he works hard, both the physical part and mental part. And he's really picked up on this. You gotta be with your guys, with his receivers in the timing and the work. He understands. The deep passes don't just happen that you connect on him. You gotta work at it. I mean, I don't know how it's gonna work. I get a ball, I get a lot of people, Tanny Hill, as long as you got Tanny got no shot. Yeah, Okay. I like what both of you guys said at one

at one point. I don't know if it has been during the audible or we're just talking having conversation, But Ryan Tannehill to me and obviously to you guys, when he self scouts himself, he goes back and works on where he's deficient. He goes back and works on the things that coaches, head coaches, quarterback coaches, coordinators have told him, Hey, we need to improve in this area. But what has

he done. He's improved in those areas, whether it's off the field, whether it's on the field, and leadership, whether it's a deep ball, whether it's pocket awareness, whether it's sliding, getting down in the zone, read and whether it's extending plays. Whether he never had to work on throwing on the run.

He always did that well, he's always had pretty good But you remember was that he couldn't throw the deep ball, and he conquered that, came and had that great year with Kenny Stills and those guys years ago and just you know, deep balls, and so you don't know one's talking about that anymore, but that was that was what That's why he wasn't good him, Mike Wallace whatever, I mean you Mike didn't work at whatever did you didn't connect. But Kenny he worked at it. With this next group

said damn it, we're gonna work. You guys gonna run hard for me, run routes hard. So we get timing down on this thing. And he really did work on his relationship with leaderships, being aware of being accountable, being vocal, all those things he got he's gotten better at. Absolutely. He's like, you know, I don't want to I don't want to compare him too. But it was similar to Lebron James. When Lebron came out, he was the greatest player in the world. When he came out, right, but

oh you know, yeah, yeah, you know what. He but but he's got no post game. He got no pot Remember that he got no when they lost to Dallas. Well you know if Lebron had a post game. Well the next here he came out and he had a post game, right, he worked on it. But playing the post everybody and they go, well, you know what, yeah, but you know what, he he can't hit the three, he can't hit along, you can't get along. He works

on that. So so I think Ryan different. I'm not saying he's Lebron James, but I think it's a similar type of path where whatever his shortcomings were, every year, he's worked that offseason to make that better and I think we've seen it on the field. I can't wait to see Tanny. I think he's gonna be on a mission. He had a chance to to. Had to kill him watching football last year to come back here and be ready to go. Johan, you you saw him every week on the road. I mean he was out there every week.

He was out there in the field, and after the first couple of weeks out there throwing on the field. Yeah, it looks pretty good. Yeah, a little bit. You're right, Yeah, But I just like the fact that he was around, he was talking, he was still part of the team, and just you know, because someone's gonna some guys you know it. Well, look and there are a lot of guys that you look, if you're the starting quarterback in the team, they're gonna welcome you on the road. Some

guys you stay at home. We'll we'll, we'll catch it when we get Yeah, I think because they know me and would be making sure no one else, making sure no one else is out there. We want to be the last ones in just to make sure this last thing on Ryan Ryan Tanhill knows this a big year for him. He's looking at this is this is the last supper. This is a big Yeah. I agree with that. I think he's been because you know, he's you know, he's been out of side, out of mind really for

for for eighteen months now. Um, and so he needs to come back and re establish himself. And he's got a frool that you can run with the football. You know, he's not afraid to do that because I think that's a big part of what made him really good two years ago. Um. And then he's got to continue. He's gotta make these guys better around. He's gotta spread the ball around and and take advantage of all these these these weapons he's gotten. Hopefully, running game, Uh, you know

it is something that can help him help pass. The running game is gonna be good, man, I'm right, And it all starts there. When we're talking about good. We're gonna be on offense. I know you got to have a quarterback, but that offensive line has to be better, no doubt, no doubt. Hey, Uh, and getting better. Part of getting better is uh, is the draft coming up next? I can't hard to believe the draft is right here

on us. Next Thursday, Miami Dolphins are holding the two thousand eighteen NFL Draft Party presented by Publish at hard Rock Stadium in Miami. Gardens and fence. Gonna be down the field, guys, We're gonna be down in the field. Uh. We got any wardrobe? I know? Young, but well no, I worned on the phone that night, all be wearing full I'll be wearing full briefs. Yeah, yeah, because I don't because when I wear that thong sometimes when I'm sitting, I tend to sweat and I don't do that. I

don't need that image. We don't need image either, but that don't I really don't. I don't want to see that. But a lot of good stuff going on if you want to come out, as I said, presented by public, it's it's free to for the public to come in. Uh, live insider analysis. Owner, who's gonna give you that? Current former player, autographs the interactive game, photo opportunities, concessions, uh,

concession areas. It's just a fun night, you know, it's it's fun, you know, And I think we're a good position because we're might be you're not be sitting there late through the draft because you're down at twenty six and it starts lingering. Man, you know, who was that guy that just got drafted into two picks before us? You know, you know occasionally no, no, no, believe me, I'd prefer every maybe we can show no doubt about

it's gonna happen. It's gonna happen early and uh and and look, I don't care, I don't care what unless you draft the guard. Everyone's I got drafted the first round. Who Meanwhile, the place is empty and like there's someone said, you guys don't know anything. Oh what? Uh anyway, So there's uh preregistration for free tickets is available at the dolphins dot com slash Draft party. Um, the audible is gonna be there. Uh, We're gonna have there's a Dolphin

Football Experience, interactive for kids, Autographs, performances by the cheerleaders. UH, merchandise, garage, sale of old Dolphins ship that you can get right the old What do you mean I might get there. We're gonna be able to get some good I would say you could buy use jockstraps, but I don't think daven are you know he fooled him out of his realized that we pulled them out of their performance undergear.

Uh towards of hard Rock Stadium in the new luxury spaces, concessions available for purchase, so a lot of good things. All guests are encourage the R s v P. You can be ableble to win prizes throughout the event. So it's gonna be a good time next next Thursday at hard Rock Stadium. Always fun for the draft and always exciting to sit and see. Uh, you know who's gonna be the newest member of the Miami Dolphins. I'm trying to think of some lumps that I'd like to see

out there. The families like to see like se Marino out there. Yeah, you think we get Jane Walks out there where we're at in this like your mob city. He'd like to see Ryan Tannehill. I like to see Ryan Tannehill right anywhere. It was it last year or two years ago when they when they they all count address in New Universe. They the new uniforms. What they took one Colorado uniforms. They had to do a whole different. Are we doing that this year? We get a little hunie.

It could be. That was a cool picture I was in and with Tannehill Greece the three first round. That was cool and all had the uniform of their act. It was really nice. Yeah, I thought that was a pretty good thing there. Uh, to a chapman from a Facebook, pass rush is about to be crazy. We got good corners on our and our safeties are our beasts against the run. We'd just have to show up the linebacker room. Um, I'll tell you that. Pastor has got to be good.

Pastor's gotta better than than it was last year. We've done what we've done with the better they've got with the moves they've made. Um, Yeah, they've got ana be a big stop to run and let's have some fun. It's not across your fingers when we're talking about the past. Has to be got offense going after people and harists, you know. I mean it's it's you got a lot of third guys, first down and get after it. No doubt.

Tommy Clogg's Facebook put yours. I think Tommy's made I I quite frankly, I I don't know, but I think Tommy Cloggs is a made up guy. Yeah, I think that the logan or somebody made that up. I know a family of clogs. It's the clock name. I thought it was like the shoes, like those rubber shoes. Very common name is that I've never heard of before. And Tommy Cloggs it's made up. Why should we find out what he says? He's a made up guy. I don't think he is. I that logan or I thought it was.

I thought it was one of the guys in the back. I think Leon made that. Do you think No, Leon is not creative enough. They come up with Tommy Cloggs. We're just glad you have Leon back. I thought I thought he was on vacation for a year or two. He took off. You know, he's like a piece of gum on the bottom my shoe, you know, go away. He just won't go away. Once you think it's gone. I think it's gone, and then a sudden you step on something and it just stretches. Jesus Christ, that goddamn

gum can't shake. The kid didn't say dog what What did Tommy Cloggs say? I think Tommy Clogs is a little bit of that. I think he does. Put your GM hats on for for second, guys, if you were picking eleven, would you go with a purse or positional need or best player available? Well, that's kind of been the that's that's the question that always comes out on

every day and rations coming up. That is there. They always do that media that media availability before the draft right where you go in there for about an hour a week from Yeah, it's tomorrow. I'm not gonna be here, so I'm gonna miss I'm gonna miss it, but I'm not gonna miss anything. You're not. It'll be thirty minutes of nothing, of absolutely nothing. You know that question is gonna be asked when you know how do you go, do you know, how do you decide to pick you

the best available? Or you can't have enough good players? Take the best players? Playing bullshit? You to go to our board and whatever our boards boards. Well, by the way, our higher guy just happened to be a linement the best player available. Yeah, no doubt about that. Uh Dean Dean Katherine facebook Kiko was out of position a lot last year. Milan coming back. I'd love to get Tremaine Edmonds or ray Kwan Smith Kuan Kuan I called ray Kwan Smith in the first round, or Layton vander Vanderess

to kid from Boys state linebacker in the second. I'm look, if quarterback's not there, I'm saying, you gotta take one of those two guys, right, you gotta take y Kwan, you gotta take h Tremaine Edmonds. You gotta take one of those guys. I agree with some people, and if you follow these, a lot of people think it's gonna be real close. They could both be those top two

guys could be sitting right there either. Look, if that quarterback bundle goes if that bundle of four quarterback goes there, it's gonna be two linebackers sitting there for the Dolphins at eleven. I'm almost positive with that. So you know, you can't go wrong with either one of those guys. If they're there, then it then it comes back to Tommy Clogs. Yeah, what what is your what is your favorite guy? And what does he do well for you?

And both of them are pretty well positionedide of Virginia tech well and and look, I think and he's a speed guy. I think he comes for Yeah, he comes in with so you're so we go go back to that covering tight ends, try to neutralize tight ends somehow some way. Um and and that's I think where he fits in. This kid Vanderesh though, the kid from interesting looking kid there. He really impressed as he went through the you know, the combine and the pro days and

all that stuff because watching him play. I had it the first game last year. It was Troy at Boise State. Watched him play, good and stinctful player, a guy that moved kind of like a a wide out when he ran in space. You know, he was he was kind of a lucid type of guy, could stick his nose in there and run. You know. He reminds me of some of those old defensive ends that U M used to have. Remember Rusty Maderas had a run there of about four or five guys, they were the same guy.

There were six three, six, four, six, two thirty five to forty could run, could pass, could cover. And that's kind of where the kid Vanderesh really When I se him and watch him play, it kind of takes me back to those guy does and he doesn't look imposing, but he gets the job. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Uh this guy, this facebook raffie, uh dar darien Um. He wrote a book and here he is. Here's chapter one. I'm not the biggest Tan Hill fan, but I think he has

the tools to be a solid quarterback. His biggest asset. His biggest asset is his toughness. He has a tough son of a bitch garant. He takes big time, he hits and gets right up. I know a lot of people are concerned about his knee. I have seen tons of people have the same or similar procedures and come back just fine. Not to mention the quarterbacks, and not to mention the quarterbacks in the NFL who have done it as well. If your line can be not be swiss.

Cheese this season and give a guy more than one second to throw. I think they've done given him a little more once. I really think Raff he's tough man, right, all right, you don't give anybody any good. What do you say about the defense? Nothing, He's just he's focused on the back. That's it. An O line speaking of

him and two knees. Um just left a press conference with our our friend Frank Gore coming back to the Miami Dolphins, and he was talking a little bit and talking about his career, and you know, he's on the virgin becoming maybe the fourth leading rusher in NFL history, and and it was all I could do to keep myself from asking him, Frank, how good do you think?

Does he ever think about how good you would have been had you not had two A C. L injuries when you're universal, I mean a freshman, when you know when he was a freshman, of course, and you think Willis mcgahey, who was mcgahey. He ran for seventy yards every game late in the third and fourth because they were so far up in front, and he was I think I think Frank was average at the time before he I think he was as a freshman year, he was averaging like twelve yards to carry. He's the best

since I've been down here. And I remember I got drafted by I called my buddy. I said, look, this guy's had two really horrendous knee injury but you're gonna love this kid man. And and he's certainly paid big dividends. R Reeve did both those a c L Now they're all back together, right, and both when he was at the U. But what a career. What careers and old schools and you know what, he to me is a

perfect guy um for Kenyan Drake. But just because just like he said, he said, look, I'm not a big talker, but watch me practice, watch how I go about my business. That's where I'm gonna provide leadership football team. Everybody's been talking about what a great fit Frank Gore is gonna be for Kenyan and how that's gonna work. What a great fit this is for Frank Gore to come home and not have them he doesn't have to be there. And I think the pressures, I mean, whatever he gives

gives the Miami Dolphins is gravy. But it's a great fit for him too, because I think The flexibility of being in that position allows him to say, you know what, I'm gonna go for it, right, I'm gonna just lay it all out and and I think you can learn a lot from that. But I think it's also satisfying for Frank. I think he'll be in the rotation a little bit. Yeah, I think get it. And Frank catches

the ball, well, he can do that. Big numbers there too, looking And you know, that's the one thing Adam Gays tried to do last year with Damian Williams up in New England. Damian Williams and Kenyan. Put them both in the backfield and both can carry the ball, both can run routes for you both you know, certainly, certainly Damian blocks block better than Kenya. But but Kenyan stick his

head in there. You do the same thing with Frank, right, But Frank and Kenyan back there give you two backs back there that can do multiple things and it allows you really to do a lot with your offense. So it's gonna be interesting to see how they work at El Chopo Jr. Back in through Facebook all thirty two with all thirty two teams doing offseason training right now, what separates the good from the bad. Uh A hair talent? Yeah, hair, Look,

I would say that. Look, I would say the town that I really believe, still believe that the talent between top and body in this league is very very the difference tree topped bottom very narrow from A from A from a talent standpoint, and now you start factoring the quarterbacks, that's one of the big things in it. But I think, I, look, I don't. I don't see very many teams or very many players this day and age in the NFL that

that aren't in just phenomenal shape. You got no, you got no. Nobody's coming into camp or there there there. That's that's all. And look, a lot of these guys, like Frank was talking about all the different running backs he's working out with on a regular So so now they work out with their teams, they work out with different teams. Facebook, Leon, Yes that Leon, Leon sending Leon got nothing better to do than send stupid questions in it is a stupid question. You guys pay attention to

any mock drafts. If so, who do you think does the best out there? Well, I think I'm a big old Mark Kelly uh Mono. Draft you're a bad You're you're a bad. Man asked the question. He asked the question. I gave him my answer, right, you know what, you're a milk hyper junior junior. Man, Hey, you remind me, remind you, Joe remember mind you where you can see the podcat you can see it? Come on, man, right for this. I just want to remind doll our fans. You can find this show on the podcast. When does

it drop on Thursdays? Uh? Apple Music? You'll love everybody's going to Apple Music. You're listing to good music on Apple Music. I paid for it. Had good old website, dolphins dot com. You can never That's funny that dolphins not like websites now are becoming past they're they're kind kind of cliche. Now you gotta go to all this other sting. Can I get to another one that's become very popular? Which one is that? That's the Miami Dolphins mobile app and tune in radio. It will become popular

when you get the app. Jones and just dropping man, Yeah, I got all that right here. I bet you a Hunter Bucks. I'm gonna take my word if you're listening to this fiasco on right now on any one of those, in any one of those situations, right, we're done. Yeah, that's it. We're over by