00:00:00
Speaker 1: So you're seeing this flash and that was the point I made the first couple of days of practice. You get these flashes of honestly of brilliance and playmaking, then you're starting to measure the process and playing within the structure. I love the work on third down yesterday, we saw more of that today. The playmaking never vacates and there's real tangible progress in growth in the instructure stuff, and to me, it's very exciting.
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Speaker 2: YO.
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Speaker 1: What is up Dolphins? And welcome to the Draft Time podcast On today show, the pads came on, baby, and it was a fun day of Dolphins football. Back to back practice is full of really good quality football. We'll get into the notes at every position, plus some audio from special teams coordinator Chris Taber, tight end Ben Simms, and wide receiver Caleb Douglas. Good gods, much more. Practice note heavy today without a halfly press conference, which are honestly becoming my favorite part of these days, which if you talk to Travis two years ago, he would tell you're crazy for thinking that, but I just really enjoy getting his perspective. But I want to start with something that I usually kick off the show with when I see a new drill out there during practice, and this one came during INDI's with the front seven, the defensive line and linebackers, and they use this canopy for the defenders to play low. It's probably, I don't know, five feet tall, and you have to be able to play under it with knee bend and be able to close ground with that knee bend and not pop shit up in your stands. That's not new, that's out there every single day. But they had a defensive lineman in front of the canopy taking on a block, and then an off ball linebacker working under the canopy to go either scrape or stack that block and make a play right there where the defensive line stacks it up linebacker crashes. But the new part of the drill that I hadn't seen was yet another takeaway oriented focus. There was a defensive lineman standing outside of the canopy essentially waiting for the drill to conclude where that stack would be created. And then once that stack was there, you know, stacked up I should say, for lack of a better term, the additional defensive lineman on the outside I would seek the ball and punch it out. So it's like if you're on a block next to the action, and you get off your block, find the football because most likely that stacked up play, the running backs probably not gonna, you know, wiggle out of that and get free, and your additional weight on the tackle won't make a difference. So why not take a low risk, high reward maneuver and try to find the football? And they keep doing that at these practices. Man, football's on the ground, whether it's or picks or fumbles. The defense continues to find takeaways. And I've just been noting those margins where this team can really find the difference. And I mean we've seen this so many times with teams they're kind of young and you know, potential upstarts where they find ways to win in the margins. I mean, shoot, the Dolphins did that back in twenty nineteen, doing similar things, finding you know, wins in the penalty count and the turnover department, just finding ways to add value to your team outside of the core stuff that people think of when they think about what wins football games. And part of that is your special teams work, and the Dolphins have been very special teams focus early on in these practices, and Chris Taber, Dolphin Special Teams coordinator, had a really interesting press conference to day where he talked about the ability to kind of develop skills and drill certain things within the special teams period and kind of killing two birds with one stone, and he talked about the emphasis in the kicking game, which is a huge part of the game that I think so often gets kind of brushed over by most folks. And I'm guilty of it too, But I've talked so much about drilling these details and fundamentals and a lot of that does happen through these Special teams periods. And I just love this point that Chris Taber made about his job being made easier by the young team and the general hunger this roster has because they are here to compete every day and try to win jobs, and that could mean a starting position on the offense or defense, or getting extra work in the kicking game.
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Speaker 3: The nice part with the young rosters, they're all willing and they're all fighting for jobs, So that part is awesome.
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Speaker 1: But you know, in our world.
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Speaker 3: You're dealing with space. You know, speed and space. So the linebackers, the tight ends, the running backs, you got to be able to hopefully get something out of your wide receiver room, you know, and then and then your corners in safeties. It's really everybody but the bigs. And but now you can begin to incorporate some of the bigs into the kick return deal because you can shrink things down and they're now in their natural element of Titan spaces.
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Speaker 1: And before I get into this real quick, one more SoundBite from Chris Tabor, and I just want to make a mention that I thought Kyle Lewis on special teams work again today was jumped off the field, if you will. And I asked Taber about utilizing a player like him that when he reaches his peak ability, you assume he's going to be a guy that is so versatile in terms of how he can impact multiple areas of your defensive calls, whether it's in base or sub or whatever it might be. And his answer gave me a whole other insight into the player and the approach, which I just love. Here's the thinking behind Kyle Lewis and why Chris Taber likes him a heck of a lot.
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Speaker 3: Oh man, those are the guys you want, because when a guy can do all that stuff, you're saying he's a good football player, and that's what we want out. There's good football player, So that's an easy one for me. Yep.
00:05:02
Speaker 1: I was also intently watching the quarterbacks throw on air because well, it was right in front of us, and I took down some notes about this, and I always love to note when it looks different, Like if you watch a player next to other players, if one guy looks much different in a good way or a bad way, it tends to stand out and it just looks different. Man with Malik Willis, and not just this year, any year I've seen for that matter. I keep talking about it, but it's because it stands in the forefront of my mind. They're throwing this three route rotation in routes on air and individual work where they hit this net on the red line. If you come to practice, there's a red line that separates part of the fields. It's where the perimeter corners want to hold, or rather the receivers want to hold that line to give the quarterback space throw the ball down the field, and corners want to pin you into the sideline inside that red line, and so the nets on the red line about twenty five yards down the field. That's a fastball throw, put it in the net and stick that thing on your receiver's face mask. Then they would throw a fifty yard go ball over the top of that end of the end zone with touch and act and placement. Then they come back to an assistant who's standing behind the net for like a thirty five yard throw, give or taken. On that throw, the idea is to get it up and over the net, but have it have that little humpback shape to dive in there and get under the defense, so can your receiver. It can make a play, tap the toes and get out of bounds. But to get it to dive down like that behind the net requires a boatload of rotation on the football. You really have to generate torque across the ball as you throw it with velocity and spin to get it to to have that dive where it humps up over the corner of the linebacker and under the safety. Like Tua was really good at that on those middle of the throat middle of the field, throws right the timing anticipation, throws right behind the linebacker under the safety, and Malik was throwing with some absolute gas on these balls to the perimeter thirty five yards down the field with that similar trajectory where it gets up and over the defender. All three throws he just had them in the bag and it jumped out in a way that was very different. Again, not just towards this roster, but from what I've seen, you know, and many years of coming to practice, that's what I want to see out here. What can you do physically? Anything from a game plan standpoint can lead to some inaccurate conclusions, like we can create ideal scenarios for players with how we gain plan it. But in these practices, it's about drilling fundamentals and technique and finding out what you can do that I can game plan off of that. And what Malik has flashed, even just on air, is everything that I was hoping to see from him, quite frankly back when he was signed. And I know it's early, it's five practices, but I am very, very encouraged by what I've seen from the Dolphins quarterback. And we'll just keep it there with the quarterbacks because I tell you what, man, I watched practice with Juice O Jim McDuffie today and I want to just read his text, but he sent me and Seth in our group chat. Me and Seth oj is still very tight buddies, even though we don't work together anymore. But Willis is my top he wrote this, Willis is my top of mind today. He's going to be really special. He's going to make a few mistakes, but he's going to make huge plays for us this year. And that kind of got me thinking about just quarterback play in general, and some well general thoughts that I have about the position and how to evaluate it and what you're looking for. And there's some quarterbacks where you have to reframe the way you look at them and the position in general. And this was the case with Lamar Jackson, for instance, right in Baltimore, and I learned with him how to grade on a curve, even back at his time at Louisville. Now, if you've got a stationary quarterback who wins on timing and anticipation, then you better bat a thousand on the layups, the easy throws, the given throws. But if you can change a game with your arms and legs in terms of play making ability, I'm willing to take an eight hundred bating average on the layups in exchange for that play making ability, and that's an arbitrary number that doesn't apply to Malik. It's just an example that I'm using to make a point here. Malik had two plays a day where it got away from him, and frankly, the first one to pick six was quite a bit of bad luck after a production bust. And I'm going to circle back to why I start here today, because it was a pressure look where they walked the backers up, they bail out, they bring a safety, you know, rush game sim pressures. This is all invokest tough in the NFL in twenty twenty six. And this springs a leak in the protection and the rush winds up in Malik's face. And that's where you want it. When you're hot, you want the rusher in your face. Because I learned this great lesson from the Jto Sullivan Instructional Quarterback School videos a couple of years ago, where he talked about adjusting your protection to get the hot in your face so you can play with it in front of you, so you can adapt and adjust in front of you rather than having it beyond your blind side. And that's what happened here. And you could tell that Malik felt the heat. He knew it was a free run. He knew he had what one and a half seconds before the rush was in and he was going to be you know, sacked and a dead play, but he bought some time by drifting. He drops the arm slot to throw it around the six foot two defender directly in his face, and he actually gets the ball off. You know, that's in the vicinity of his hot option. Within that you get so many balls to get batted back in your face or you take the sack, whatever. But he gets it off. And in this case it's Cole Turner, but the ball is low and behind because you know, he had a telephone pull in front of him to throw the ball around, and Turner tries to make a play, it gets deflected up into the air and Tyreel Dotson's Johnny in the spot. He picks sex it and takes it back. But it, by the way, it just seems like every tipped ball at practice, and that's a sign of a defense that plays with tremendous effort gets picked off. Just a side note for you there, but on that play, I'm really not knocking Malik Willis too much, if at all, because I thought he did a good job to even get the football in there. But that's where I try to hammer this coaching point, because he had Caleb Douglas on the very next play on an inbreaker, wide open, and he just short hopped the ball, just an out and out miss. To me, it was the only outright miss that Malik had on the day, and that miss, well, to me, it's easy to forget because, Okay, now it's a second and ten compared to first and you know, I guess second and four whatever it would be, because the rest of the day was a damn highlight reel out there for the Dolphins. Quarterback like Juice, myself and Kyle Krabs were just kicking back and enjoying some high level quarterback play and some impressive, impressive throws from Malik Willis. It is so fun to come out here and watch consistent play making out of that position. Let's just talk about a few of them. His first throw of the day and team was a sixty yard completion to Malik Washington. He took a deep drop off play action. The route came across the field from the backside of the formation forty yards down the field in the air, you've got Juju Brents falling back from the playside kind of cloud sinking into that area, and he measures up his leap to try to make a play on the football. And anyone who's ever played football during recess back in the day an elementary school knows this. It's the thought of like, he can't throw it over my head, I'm just going to stand right here. Well, Malik Willis can and Juju Brent's misjudge that elevates ball sales over him and falls right into the bucket, which was Malik Washington in this instance along the sideline, and he turns it up and picks up twenty more yards before the backside safety comes over and takes him out of bounds. But it was the same throw with an added twenty yards or so that we saw in Indie's on the Net. And I really love the structure of practice because you see them walking through it then the same concepts and individuals, then it carries over into team. It's a really efficient way to build the part to hold that Halfley talks about, and quite frankly, for someone watching practice, it makes it a lot easier on us to know what's coming. I asked Caleb Douglas about the process of learning the installs and kind of building those blocks top each other. Here's Caleb Douglas on his process so far and picking up the concepts and the offensive passing game installs.
00:12:19
Speaker 3: I already taken it in pretty nicely, like we did a lot of it in the spring, So this is just a kind of just like part two of it.
00:12:25
Speaker 2: We're kind of going over the same thing.
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Speaker 3: So now it's kind of feeling like it's the back of my hand.
00:12:28
Speaker 1: Back to Malik. He finds the aforementioned Douglas on a quick hitter that goes for about eight yards on second and six, and a couple of plays later, he spins out to his left, this time traioy crossed in the field, drops the arm slot and shoots it about twenty yards over yet another sinking defender who cannot get a piece on it. And it's oohs and ahs from the crowd. So you're seeing this flash, and that was the point I made. The first couple of days of practice, you get these flashes of honestly of brilliance and playmaking. Then you're starting to measure the process and playing within the structure. I love the work on third down yesterday. We saw more of that today. The playmaking never vacates and there's real tangible progress in growth in the instructure stuff, and to me it's it's very exciting. But he wasn't done there. We get another big hitter to Malik Washington. Willis, this time moving to his left once again, throws a slingshot around the side of his body as a sidearm ball to Malik Washington, who turns it up and gets pushed out of balance after a gain of forty five. This one's like twenty five yards in the air. Once again. It's just really fun to watch. If you haven't made it out to practice yet, get out here and see it for yourself. Something I've tracked I'm tracking going forward is the growth of the rest of the room. In my opinion, there hasn't been a ton to move the needle there. Quinn Ewers mixes in some nice throws here and there. His biggest completion was what I thought was a miss, as he had an open man on that same crosser that they hit a few times with Willis, where the ball sales over the crosser's head, and then Taj Washington Is also in the area, but he's really well covered and it looked like it surprised the defense because Taj was the only guy that adjusted and makes a play on the football. In the two minute period, Malik Willis had a big air to Ben Simms, then threw a frozen rope to Jalen Rieger from the far hash on the outside shoulder with inside leverage cornerback in the hip pocket. An absolute dot out there from Willis. He made another play on the move where he had to flee to his left then throw back over the middle, and not only does he do it, he throws Cole Turner away from dangerous Chris Johnson's lurking and he puts on the back shoulder there. Then he hits a chan who makes a one handed catch against j Rod and goes incomplete. Then field goal converted, so he got three points out of his drive. Quinn Eewers got picked off on his first pass of the period. We'll cover that in the defensive portion, and then cam Miller's period did not produce points. That's the quarterbacks. We'll pick it back up with the rest of the offense on the other side of the break. Here on the draft time podcast brought to you by Auto Nation, segment two here on day number five, and I thought the tight Ends were one of the most impressive groups of the day out here in the first padded practice of the season. And that's in the absence of Greg Dolcich. Now, no dulcig shno Jamari Sawyer out there today. Austin Jackson was replaced at one point. I'm sure Jeff Haffley will be asked about those tomorrow and we will get updates if that's provided for us tomorrow. But in Dulcich's absence, I thought Sadu Treli looked the part man. I thought Ben Simms had a nice day and Will Kasmerck set a friggin tone with his first rep of the day. He had a down block on Josh Uccea. And I don't know if you guys recall or plug the tape in on the Ohio State Miami playoff game, but Kasmeric that was the tape where I was like, Okay, solely, I'm with solely on what he's talking about in terms of his ability as an inline blocker, because he had some dogfights with Ruben Bain and a key Mesador that was I mean, he looked like a tackle out there competing with those guys. He down blocks Ucci on this play and just he wiped him out and Ucha had a good day. So like, that's a player that's getting after it this camp. He came off the block and gets up to his feet and he is feeling it. He's he's very animated as he should be. Gets an immediate dap up from Ben Simms. So I asked Ben about that after practice. Here's what he had to say on Kasmeric and his physical nature.
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Speaker 2: Yeah. I think it was the first play of practice, right, uh, open practice with counter.
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Speaker 1: Uh.
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Speaker 2: Like I said, it's one of the one of our core values, toughness. And I saw that play on our script and I said, let's do it. So you know, Will is those values. You know he believes in that. Uh. So being able to do you know, counter on the first play that our first practice paths is uh, speaks to what we want to be about.
00:16:22
Speaker 1: And Ben Simms just keeps getting open man and he's got those chops to do that in the passing game to play in line. He talked about the versatility of the room and one thing I liked about Sadu Treori, going back to his Mississippi State tape was I did not expect him to see to see him doing as much inserting and kicking out and just general run game stuff that he did for the Bulldogs there and today that showed up when he kicked out the end man on the line of scrimmage on a Carlos Washington run that got through the first level. He then caught I don't know, five or six passes and team smooth hands pulls it in, just sticks to him like Velcro had that one hander you certainly have seen on social media by now. And I like the way that he transitions into a carrier once he puts the ball away. I know these thirteen personnel groupings and all the talk around that is the most InVogue thing across the National Football League right now. But when I think about how this team I think can run the football and what we're getting from tight ends early on across multiple players that can do multiple things, I'm really curious to see what it looks like in terms of how they want to approach this thing with their offensive groupings going forward and the frequency of which they use those groupings. Let's go back to Ben Simms. For a last note here on say Do treorri very athletic.
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Speaker 2: I mean, he's as of being a rookie. It's so hard to come in and just understand it all completely. So I get props to will and say Do for really coming in and putting their head down and getting to work. And they don't say a whole lot. They just work their tails off and I can respect that. So those two guys are gonna be great players.
00:17:48
Speaker 1: And just in general, man, this practice was physical. I'm not surprised. You could tell they were going to practice that way based off the first few days. But these guys were itching to get the pads on. It was obvious. There was some good thumping. Willie Gay had a nice pop coverage but did a good job pulling off to not make the hit too much on a coverage rep that I thought was really nice. Jackson Woodard threted up a back in team drills as well. Back to the passing game, I talked about Malik Washington. He's catching everything, he's getting open, he's got the full route, treat his disposal. He looks really good in my opinion. Kyle and I shared on on one on one duties where he watched the receivers and DB's and I was on the offensive line defensive line. Then we shared those so I'm sure you're gonna hear this on his show and my O line d line notes on his show. But here's what he had in the one on ones. In the passing game, he loved juju. Brentz said he was a little bit grabby, but super aggressive and physical. I actually did see one repper he broke on an out route and drove down under the route and almost had a diving pick, just did not survive the ground on the catch. He liked Marco Wilson, who I thought had a great day today and team as well. Some competitive juice that you see throughout practice. The Marco said he was sticky and competitive throughout the drill. Caleb Douglass got opened a couple of times on a post the ball didn't find him. Then he won an inbreaker crossing face on AJ Green. Washington didn't a rep. Kyle says he's built for those one on ones. Man, He's so shifty to drop the weight and get out of those breaks. Ethan Bonner had a pass break up staying in FaZe. Jason Marshall Junior had a sticky coverage rep where he wanted a jump ball on Jalen Rieger. He said, Chris Johnson got beat twice where he got shook at the top of the route. That might be the first time I've heard about Chris Johnson doing anything but like a glowing review. So maybe that's a good thing. Give him some film and some fire to go get even better, and we'll finish this segment talking about the trench play here of the offensive line in my one on one notes from that period, this is defensive line. But Zeke Biggers was the winner of the one on ones from my money. I saw him get four reps and I had him in the backfield each time. I thought Proctor and Jonah looked awesome in their one on ones. And I remember seeing last year, you know, in Detroit and Chicago some of the one on one driells for Jonah where he looked uncomfortable. And this was just night and day today. A great posture, good knee bend, absorbing power in those tree trunks that he has for legs, aggressive punch, well timed up. He can kind of break the synchronousy to there and be you know, in in balance either way he does it. Last year, I thought his his feet would go quiet when he had that contact, and that's a tough place to be because then you wind up leaning and get out over your skis. But today he was just smooth and unbeatable in the first one on one of the season. So great progress there for Jonah and Caden. Proctor might just be so big that he can't lose these because there's not enough space to get around him. His sheer mass really helps him. He's a very large human being. I saw Seeler try to bowl him twice and it looked effortless for Proctor, and you guys know Seler like he's one of the strongest human beings I've ever bit, I've ever stood around, you know, stood next to, and it looked challenging for Steiler to get movement on the rookie. On the rookie offensive lineman, I thought ooj had a nice period. He actually got Patrick Paul on a crossover inside. Later he rushed from a three tech that's on the outside shoulder of the guard and beat Josh preeb in there, So some versatility there for him. This is usually Pat Paul's drill. This is where he jumped out last year in a big way, was in these one on ones. But he got got today a couple of times Chopp got him on one. But those reps were so good for both those guys. The way that Chop can challenge the corner with speed really helps Pat get those vertical set but then redirect back inside because Chop can get back inside as well, and it challenges, you know, CHOP's ability to play with power through a big man like Patrick Paul. Those guys help each other probably as much as anybody on the roster. More on Chop and segment three, I actually thought all the tackles kind of you know, there was wins that went around across the tackles from the edges. I had Cleveland Ferrel with a win on Austin Jackson and David Ajabo on Charlie Heck as well, and then finally back inside. I thought Kenneth Grant was excellent in the one on ones. I saw him with a rip, a hump, and a push pull to get wins in that one on one period. As for the team portion of practice, one of my favorite reps was an incomplete deep shot by Malik where the defense unfurled the stunt on the outside with Paul and Procter and they picked it up and passed it off so beautifully. That was a great thing to see. After we heard Halfley talk about the game that got Procter. On Friday's practice, Aaron Brewer was excellent today. He's a guy that I often don't highlight because it's every rep with him, but he was moving guys in the running game and those one on ones. I was really impressed by his ability to handle Jordan Phillips's power because you look at the body composition side by side and it looks like a mismatch. But Phillips couldn't get off those blocks. And I want him to keep getting those reps because I think a little counter, maybe a little auspeed to his fastball, he has the traits to win those. I just think he's got to refine a little bit. And who better to do against than the best center in the National Football League. And I wanted to note this on the Moleak interception, Caden Proctor ran that thing down back to the end zone. I think that says a lot about his mindset and that was great to see. Let's go ahead and pause down one more time here for our last break. Come back and talk about the defense, which will also give us some offensive notes on the other side of the break. Draft Time Podcast brought to you by Auto Nation. All right, we pick it back up on the defensive line, and one of my favorite plays of the day was early on an outside run where Zach Seeler takes on Patrick Paul on a wide run where eight chance trying to press the edge, and it's a hand fight the entire way. They just keep on straining and they wind up getting stacked up and they never have a clear winner. But then here comes Jordan Brooks like a missile undred miles an hour off that stack for the stick on a chan and the stuff I mentioned the kasmeric block earlier on that play. Trey Moore squeezed it down for a stuff and he had a few plays today where he was doing multiple things from that off ball position. And later he slipped a block and thuded up on Carlos Washington Junior for a short gain. So Trey Moore getting some run looking pretty good that way. The run game didn't have quite the lanes today in general. There were some openings, but they were more five to ten yard runs and the ones that get out the gate. But a big part of that was the work of Kenneth Grant and Jordan Phillips. There was a play where they stacked up by Jyllan Wright run and then Jacob Rodriguez came in and cleaned it up for a short gain. But the offensive line just kept trying to wash down those two young defensive tackles and they couldn't get the movement that's required to do that. Speaking of young defensive tackles, Zeke Biggers took his one one work over to the team portion. He had a great day today. He might have been the practice player of the day. He had a quick dispatch back doing a play against the run for a stuff. Carlos Washington winds up finishing the play out and he was hawked by Kyle Lewis, which I thought was I love when that happens, when you get a play that winds up dead, but they continue it and then you get another note that comes off of that. So Bigger's really good work and then Kyle Lewis again, you learn about these guys when when you know the plays behind him and they have to chase it down and we saw Kyle Lewis and Kate and Proctor both do that. Today a couple of the edges feasted man and it starts with Chop Robinson. He had two wins on Charlie Heck in the two minute drill. The first one was speed around the outside. Then he went speed to power and kind of got Charlie's cleats off the ground and into retreat mode right away. The first was ruled a sack, the second one was allowed to continue, but I felt they were both sacks. So Chop Man, he's really out of that power element. You can see a real tangible impact from the work he did this offseason and it's showing up early on here in camp. And Cam Good was a fixture in the backfield today too. I had him with two pressures. One was a sack, possibly two sacks. He had one where he went around the edge and met at the quarterback with Zeke Biggers who split a double team on quinn ewers and two minute portion of practice. The other pressure from Cam was a looping inside rush on a game and again Halfley really opened it up in the back end of practice. It's been kind of a theme here with the defense starts hot. Hafley gets into the bag and it kind of evens out when he dials things up. But cam Good got some pressure so to David Ajabo. I had him with two sacks on back to back plays on quinn Ewers in that two minute drill. He had a really strong first week here as a Miami Dolphin. Robert Beale had a pass rush when where he flushed flushed out quinn Ewers, and then Willie gay Man did some really nice stuff today. I mentioned that hit where he pulled off that was a fifteen yard or so drop playing the curl flat and Crabs asked me who was in coverage there? I'm like, that was forty and he was surprised it wasn't a defensive back. Will He can do that, man, He can play away from the quarterback getting depth. He also came down and popped the back on a tackle for loss after a hard edge. A good day for forty In the defensive backfield, Jason Marshall punched a fumble out on Ben Simms. This just continues to happen for the Dolphins defense their ball hawking. He also had a good one on one period and had another coverage rep where he contested Douglas in phase and force an incompletion. Thought Ethan Bonner had a good day. He got a pick on a ball that you weers tried to kind of force into a contested area and Major Burns winds up tipping it into the air and Bonner runs to the football and he got rewarded. That's what happens. Run to the ball, he might get rewarded. He also had two plays in phase on targets that went incomplete. What else here? Miles Battle was in phase on a deep shot to ma Leak Washington for an incompletion. Alex Austin had a superb tackle on Jalen Wright out in space on a little swing throw, and Lonnie Johnson on a swing to Jyalen Wright also had a big pop on the running back for no gain. So those guys came from depth and made plays. Marco Wilson jumped a throw from Quinn to two to two and nearly picked it off. At one point in practice, Chris Johnson had a tackle for loss where he insert from the backside into the runfit and tagged off back there. Omar Brown pulled down one more takeaway a pick from Cam Miller. Cam was running to his right and he had a crosser that looked like he was there, and he sprints to the sideline, tries to get it up over Omar Brown with some touch, but Brown elevates and picks it off. And then one more takeaway Terrorist Marshall caught a past about twenty yards downfield or so, and here comes Lewis Moore to punch that thing out. And finally, how about some kicking competition updates. Miley Patterson and Zane Gonzalez both got three kick attempts today after those two minute periods fifty forty three and fifty two yards. Patterson went two for three, missing the forty three yard and Zane Gonzalez hit all three of his kicks. So there you go. That's a Monday here from Miami Gardens. We're back tomorrow on a Tuesday, off on Wednesday, and then three more practices Thursday, Friday, and then Saturday at hard Rock Stadium. I cannot wait to get back to the building and watch Dolphins play in their home stadium, but we have more work to go before that. In the meantime, you all please be sure subscribe, rate, review the podcast, follow me on social at Wingfold NFL. The team at Miami Dolphins, check out the YouTube channel for Dolphins HQ, media availabilities, and a heck of a lot more, and last but not least, Miami Dolphins dot com. Until next time, Caroline Cameron and Willow Daddy is coming home.
Speaker 1: So you're seeing this flash and that was the point I made the first couple of days of practice. You get these flashes of honestly of brilliance and playmaking, then you're starting to measure the process and playing within the structure. I love the work on third down yesterday, we saw more of that today. The playmaking never vacates and there's real tangible progress in growth in the instructure stuff, and to me, it's very exciting.
00:00:25
Speaker 2: YO.
00:00:25
Speaker 1: What is up Dolphins? And welcome to the Draft Time podcast On today show, the pads came on, baby, and it was a fun day of Dolphins football. Back to back practice is full of really good quality football. We'll get into the notes at every position, plus some audio from special teams coordinator Chris Taber, tight end Ben Simms, and wide receiver Caleb Douglas. Good gods, much more. Practice note heavy today without a halfly press conference, which are honestly becoming my favorite part of these days, which if you talk to Travis two years ago, he would tell you're crazy for thinking that, but I just really enjoy getting his perspective. But I want to start with something that I usually kick off the show with when I see a new drill out there during practice, and this one came during INDI's with the front seven, the defensive line and linebackers, and they use this canopy for the defenders to play low. It's probably, I don't know, five feet tall, and you have to be able to play under it with knee bend and be able to close ground with that knee bend and not pop shit up in your stands. That's not new, that's out there every single day. But they had a defensive lineman in front of the canopy taking on a block, and then an off ball linebacker working under the canopy to go either scrape or stack that block and make a play right there where the defensive line stacks it up linebacker crashes. But the new part of the drill that I hadn't seen was yet another takeaway oriented focus. There was a defensive lineman standing outside of the canopy essentially waiting for the drill to conclude where that stack would be created. And then once that stack was there, you know, stacked up I should say, for lack of a better term, the additional defensive lineman on the outside I would seek the ball and punch it out. So it's like if you're on a block next to the action, and you get off your block, find the football because most likely that stacked up play, the running backs probably not gonna, you know, wiggle out of that and get free, and your additional weight on the tackle won't make a difference. So why not take a low risk, high reward maneuver and try to find the football? And they keep doing that at these practices. Man, football's on the ground, whether it's or picks or fumbles. The defense continues to find takeaways. And I've just been noting those margins where this team can really find the difference. And I mean we've seen this so many times with teams they're kind of young and you know, potential upstarts where they find ways to win in the margins. I mean, shoot, the Dolphins did that back in twenty nineteen, doing similar things, finding you know, wins in the penalty count and the turnover department, just finding ways to add value to your team outside of the core stuff that people think of when they think about what wins football games. And part of that is your special teams work, and the Dolphins have been very special teams focus early on in these practices, and Chris Taber, Dolphin Special Teams coordinator, had a really interesting press conference to day where he talked about the ability to kind of develop skills and drill certain things within the special teams period and kind of killing two birds with one stone, and he talked about the emphasis in the kicking game, which is a huge part of the game that I think so often gets kind of brushed over by most folks. And I'm guilty of it too, But I've talked so much about drilling these details and fundamentals and a lot of that does happen through these Special teams periods. And I just love this point that Chris Taber made about his job being made easier by the young team and the general hunger this roster has because they are here to compete every day and try to win jobs, and that could mean a starting position on the offense or defense, or getting extra work in the kicking game.
00:03:46
Speaker 3: The nice part with the young rosters, they're all willing and they're all fighting for jobs, So that part is awesome.
00:03:52
Speaker 1: But you know, in our world.
00:03:53
Speaker 3: You're dealing with space. You know, speed and space. So the linebackers, the tight ends, the running backs, you got to be able to hopefully get something out of your wide receiver room, you know, and then and then your corners in safeties. It's really everybody but the bigs. And but now you can begin to incorporate some of the bigs into the kick return deal because you can shrink things down and they're now in their natural element of Titan spaces.
00:04:17
Speaker 1: And before I get into this real quick, one more SoundBite from Chris Tabor, and I just want to make a mention that I thought Kyle Lewis on special teams work again today was jumped off the field, if you will. And I asked Taber about utilizing a player like him that when he reaches his peak ability, you assume he's going to be a guy that is so versatile in terms of how he can impact multiple areas of your defensive calls, whether it's in base or sub or whatever it might be. And his answer gave me a whole other insight into the player and the approach, which I just love. Here's the thinking behind Kyle Lewis and why Chris Taber likes him a heck of a lot.
00:04:52
Speaker 3: Oh man, those are the guys you want, because when a guy can do all that stuff, you're saying he's a good football player, and that's what we want out. There's good football player, So that's an easy one for me. Yep.
00:05:02
Speaker 1: I was also intently watching the quarterbacks throw on air because well, it was right in front of us, and I took down some notes about this, and I always love to note when it looks different, Like if you watch a player next to other players, if one guy looks much different in a good way or a bad way, it tends to stand out and it just looks different. Man with Malik Willis, and not just this year, any year I've seen for that matter. I keep talking about it, but it's because it stands in the forefront of my mind. They're throwing this three route rotation in routes on air and individual work where they hit this net on the red line. If you come to practice, there's a red line that separates part of the fields. It's where the perimeter corners want to hold, or rather the receivers want to hold that line to give the quarterback space throw the ball down the field, and corners want to pin you into the sideline inside that red line, and so the nets on the red line about twenty five yards down the field. That's a fastball throw, put it in the net and stick that thing on your receiver's face mask. Then they would throw a fifty yard go ball over the top of that end of the end zone with touch and act and placement. Then they come back to an assistant who's standing behind the net for like a thirty five yard throw, give or taken. On that throw, the idea is to get it up and over the net, but have it have that little humpback shape to dive in there and get under the defense, so can your receiver. It can make a play, tap the toes and get out of bounds. But to get it to dive down like that behind the net requires a boatload of rotation on the football. You really have to generate torque across the ball as you throw it with velocity and spin to get it to to have that dive where it humps up over the corner of the linebacker and under the safety. Like Tua was really good at that on those middle of the throat middle of the field, throws right the timing anticipation, throws right behind the linebacker under the safety, and Malik was throwing with some absolute gas on these balls to the perimeter thirty five yards down the field with that similar trajectory where it gets up and over the defender. All three throws he just had them in the bag and it jumped out in a way that was very different. Again, not just towards this roster, but from what I've seen, you know, and many years of coming to practice, that's what I want to see out here. What can you do physically? Anything from a game plan standpoint can lead to some inaccurate conclusions, like we can create ideal scenarios for players with how we gain plan it. But in these practices, it's about drilling fundamentals and technique and finding out what you can do that I can game plan off of that. And what Malik has flashed, even just on air, is everything that I was hoping to see from him, quite frankly back when he was signed. And I know it's early, it's five practices, but I am very, very encouraged by what I've seen from the Dolphins quarterback. And we'll just keep it there with the quarterbacks because I tell you what, man, I watched practice with Juice O Jim McDuffie today and I want to just read his text, but he sent me and Seth in our group chat. Me and Seth oj is still very tight buddies, even though we don't work together anymore. But Willis is my top he wrote this, Willis is my top of mind today. He's going to be really special. He's going to make a few mistakes, but he's going to make huge plays for us this year. And that kind of got me thinking about just quarterback play in general, and some well general thoughts that I have about the position and how to evaluate it and what you're looking for. And there's some quarterbacks where you have to reframe the way you look at them and the position in general. And this was the case with Lamar Jackson, for instance, right in Baltimore, and I learned with him how to grade on a curve, even back at his time at Louisville. Now, if you've got a stationary quarterback who wins on timing and anticipation, then you better bat a thousand on the layups, the easy throws, the given throws. But if you can change a game with your arms and legs in terms of play making ability, I'm willing to take an eight hundred bating average on the layups in exchange for that play making ability, and that's an arbitrary number that doesn't apply to Malik. It's just an example that I'm using to make a point here. Malik had two plays a day where it got away from him, and frankly, the first one to pick six was quite a bit of bad luck after a production bust. And I'm going to circle back to why I start here today, because it was a pressure look where they walked the backers up, they bail out, they bring a safety, you know, rush game sim pressures. This is all invokest tough in the NFL in twenty twenty six. And this springs a leak in the protection and the rush winds up in Malik's face. And that's where you want it. When you're hot, you want the rusher in your face. Because I learned this great lesson from the Jto Sullivan Instructional Quarterback School videos a couple of years ago, where he talked about adjusting your protection to get the hot in your face so you can play with it in front of you, so you can adapt and adjust in front of you rather than having it beyond your blind side. And that's what happened here. And you could tell that Malik felt the heat. He knew it was a free run. He knew he had what one and a half seconds before the rush was in and he was going to be you know, sacked and a dead play, but he bought some time by drifting. He drops the arm slot to throw it around the six foot two defender directly in his face, and he actually gets the ball off. You know, that's in the vicinity of his hot option. Within that you get so many balls to get batted back in your face or you take the sack, whatever. But he gets it off. And in this case it's Cole Turner, but the ball is low and behind because you know, he had a telephone pull in front of him to throw the ball around, and Turner tries to make a play, it gets deflected up into the air and Tyreel Dotson's Johnny in the spot. He picks sex it and takes it back. But it, by the way, it just seems like every tipped ball at practice, and that's a sign of a defense that plays with tremendous effort gets picked off. Just a side note for you there, but on that play, I'm really not knocking Malik Willis too much, if at all, because I thought he did a good job to even get the football in there. But that's where I try to hammer this coaching point, because he had Caleb Douglas on the very next play on an inbreaker, wide open, and he just short hopped the ball, just an out and out miss. To me, it was the only outright miss that Malik had on the day, and that miss, well, to me, it's easy to forget because, Okay, now it's a second and ten compared to first and you know, I guess second and four whatever it would be, because the rest of the day was a damn highlight reel out there for the Dolphins. Quarterback like Juice, myself and Kyle Krabs were just kicking back and enjoying some high level quarterback play and some impressive, impressive throws from Malik Willis. It is so fun to come out here and watch consistent play making out of that position. Let's just talk about a few of them. His first throw of the day and team was a sixty yard completion to Malik Washington. He took a deep drop off play action. The route came across the field from the backside of the formation forty yards down the field in the air, you've got Juju Brents falling back from the playside kind of cloud sinking into that area, and he measures up his leap to try to make a play on the football. And anyone who's ever played football during recess back in the day an elementary school knows this. It's the thought of like, he can't throw it over my head, I'm just going to stand right here. Well, Malik Willis can and Juju Brent's misjudge that elevates ball sales over him and falls right into the bucket, which was Malik Washington in this instance along the sideline, and he turns it up and picks up twenty more yards before the backside safety comes over and takes him out of bounds. But it was the same throw with an added twenty yards or so that we saw in Indie's on the Net. And I really love the structure of practice because you see them walking through it then the same concepts and individuals, then it carries over into team. It's a really efficient way to build the part to hold that Halfley talks about, and quite frankly, for someone watching practice, it makes it a lot easier on us to know what's coming. I asked Caleb Douglas about the process of learning the installs and kind of building those blocks top each other. Here's Caleb Douglas on his process so far and picking up the concepts and the offensive passing game installs.
00:12:19
Speaker 3: I already taken it in pretty nicely, like we did a lot of it in the spring, So this is just a kind of just like part two of it.
00:12:25
Speaker 2: We're kind of going over the same thing.
00:12:26
Speaker 3: So now it's kind of feeling like it's the back of my hand.
00:12:28
Speaker 1: Back to Malik. He finds the aforementioned Douglas on a quick hitter that goes for about eight yards on second and six, and a couple of plays later, he spins out to his left, this time traioy crossed in the field, drops the arm slot and shoots it about twenty yards over yet another sinking defender who cannot get a piece on it. And it's oohs and ahs from the crowd. So you're seeing this flash, and that was the point I made. The first couple of days of practice, you get these flashes of honestly of brilliance and playmaking. Then you're starting to measure the process and playing within the structure. I love the work on third down yesterday. We saw more of that today. The playmaking never vacates and there's real tangible progress in growth in the instructure stuff, and to me it's it's very exciting. But he wasn't done there. We get another big hitter to Malik Washington. Willis, this time moving to his left once again, throws a slingshot around the side of his body as a sidearm ball to Malik Washington, who turns it up and gets pushed out of balance after a gain of forty five. This one's like twenty five yards in the air. Once again. It's just really fun to watch. If you haven't made it out to practice yet, get out here and see it for yourself. Something I've tracked I'm tracking going forward is the growth of the rest of the room. In my opinion, there hasn't been a ton to move the needle there. Quinn Ewers mixes in some nice throws here and there. His biggest completion was what I thought was a miss, as he had an open man on that same crosser that they hit a few times with Willis, where the ball sales over the crosser's head, and then Taj Washington Is also in the area, but he's really well covered and it looked like it surprised the defense because Taj was the only guy that adjusted and makes a play on the football. In the two minute period, Malik Willis had a big air to Ben Simms, then threw a frozen rope to Jalen Rieger from the far hash on the outside shoulder with inside leverage cornerback in the hip pocket. An absolute dot out there from Willis. He made another play on the move where he had to flee to his left then throw back over the middle, and not only does he do it, he throws Cole Turner away from dangerous Chris Johnson's lurking and he puts on the back shoulder there. Then he hits a chan who makes a one handed catch against j Rod and goes incomplete. Then field goal converted, so he got three points out of his drive. Quinn Eewers got picked off on his first pass of the period. We'll cover that in the defensive portion, and then cam Miller's period did not produce points. That's the quarterbacks. We'll pick it back up with the rest of the offense on the other side of the break. Here on the draft time podcast brought to you by Auto Nation, segment two here on day number five, and I thought the tight Ends were one of the most impressive groups of the day out here in the first padded practice of the season. And that's in the absence of Greg Dolcich. Now, no dulcig shno Jamari Sawyer out there today. Austin Jackson was replaced at one point. I'm sure Jeff Haffley will be asked about those tomorrow and we will get updates if that's provided for us tomorrow. But in Dulcich's absence, I thought Sadu Treli looked the part man. I thought Ben Simms had a nice day and Will Kasmerck set a friggin tone with his first rep of the day. He had a down block on Josh Uccea. And I don't know if you guys recall or plug the tape in on the Ohio State Miami playoff game, but Kasmeric that was the tape where I was like, Okay, solely, I'm with solely on what he's talking about in terms of his ability as an inline blocker, because he had some dogfights with Ruben Bain and a key Mesador that was I mean, he looked like a tackle out there competing with those guys. He down blocks Ucci on this play and just he wiped him out and Ucha had a good day. So like, that's a player that's getting after it this camp. He came off the block and gets up to his feet and he is feeling it. He's he's very animated as he should be. Gets an immediate dap up from Ben Simms. So I asked Ben about that after practice. Here's what he had to say on Kasmeric and his physical nature.
00:16:00
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think it was the first play of practice, right, uh, open practice with counter.
00:16:04
Speaker 1: Uh.
00:16:05
Speaker 2: Like I said, it's one of the one of our core values, toughness. And I saw that play on our script and I said, let's do it. So you know, Will is those values. You know he believes in that. Uh. So being able to do you know, counter on the first play that our first practice paths is uh, speaks to what we want to be about.
00:16:22
Speaker 1: And Ben Simms just keeps getting open man and he's got those chops to do that in the passing game to play in line. He talked about the versatility of the room and one thing I liked about Sadu Treori, going back to his Mississippi State tape was I did not expect him to see to see him doing as much inserting and kicking out and just general run game stuff that he did for the Bulldogs there and today that showed up when he kicked out the end man on the line of scrimmage on a Carlos Washington run that got through the first level. He then caught I don't know, five or six passes and team smooth hands pulls it in, just sticks to him like Velcro had that one hander you certainly have seen on social media by now. And I like the way that he transitions into a carrier once he puts the ball away. I know these thirteen personnel groupings and all the talk around that is the most InVogue thing across the National Football League right now. But when I think about how this team I think can run the football and what we're getting from tight ends early on across multiple players that can do multiple things, I'm really curious to see what it looks like in terms of how they want to approach this thing with their offensive groupings going forward and the frequency of which they use those groupings. Let's go back to Ben Simms. For a last note here on say Do treorri very athletic.
00:17:31
Speaker 2: I mean, he's as of being a rookie. It's so hard to come in and just understand it all completely. So I get props to will and say Do for really coming in and putting their head down and getting to work. And they don't say a whole lot. They just work their tails off and I can respect that. So those two guys are gonna be great players.
00:17:48
Speaker 1: And just in general, man, this practice was physical. I'm not surprised. You could tell they were going to practice that way based off the first few days. But these guys were itching to get the pads on. It was obvious. There was some good thumping. Willie Gay had a nice pop coverage but did a good job pulling off to not make the hit too much on a coverage rep that I thought was really nice. Jackson Woodard threted up a back in team drills as well. Back to the passing game, I talked about Malik Washington. He's catching everything, he's getting open, he's got the full route, treat his disposal. He looks really good in my opinion. Kyle and I shared on on one on one duties where he watched the receivers and DB's and I was on the offensive line defensive line. Then we shared those so I'm sure you're gonna hear this on his show and my O line d line notes on his show. But here's what he had in the one on ones. In the passing game, he loved juju. Brentz said he was a little bit grabby, but super aggressive and physical. I actually did see one repper he broke on an out route and drove down under the route and almost had a diving pick, just did not survive the ground on the catch. He liked Marco Wilson, who I thought had a great day today and team as well. Some competitive juice that you see throughout practice. The Marco said he was sticky and competitive throughout the drill. Caleb Douglass got opened a couple of times on a post the ball didn't find him. Then he won an inbreaker crossing face on AJ Green. Washington didn't a rep. Kyle says he's built for those one on ones. Man, He's so shifty to drop the weight and get out of those breaks. Ethan Bonner had a pass break up staying in FaZe. Jason Marshall Junior had a sticky coverage rep where he wanted a jump ball on Jalen Rieger. He said, Chris Johnson got beat twice where he got shook at the top of the route. That might be the first time I've heard about Chris Johnson doing anything but like a glowing review. So maybe that's a good thing. Give him some film and some fire to go get even better, and we'll finish this segment talking about the trench play here of the offensive line in my one on one notes from that period, this is defensive line. But Zeke Biggers was the winner of the one on ones from my money. I saw him get four reps and I had him in the backfield each time. I thought Proctor and Jonah looked awesome in their one on ones. And I remember seeing last year, you know, in Detroit and Chicago some of the one on one driells for Jonah where he looked uncomfortable. And this was just night and day today. A great posture, good knee bend, absorbing power in those tree trunks that he has for legs, aggressive punch, well timed up. He can kind of break the synchronousy to there and be you know, in in balance either way he does it. Last year, I thought his his feet would go quiet when he had that contact, and that's a tough place to be because then you wind up leaning and get out over your skis. But today he was just smooth and unbeatable in the first one on one of the season. So great progress there for Jonah and Caden. Proctor might just be so big that he can't lose these because there's not enough space to get around him. His sheer mass really helps him. He's a very large human being. I saw Seeler try to bowl him twice and it looked effortless for Proctor, and you guys know Seler like he's one of the strongest human beings I've ever bit, I've ever stood around, you know, stood next to, and it looked challenging for Steiler to get movement on the rookie. On the rookie offensive lineman, I thought ooj had a nice period. He actually got Patrick Paul on a crossover inside. Later he rushed from a three tech that's on the outside shoulder of the guard and beat Josh preeb in there, So some versatility there for him. This is usually Pat Paul's drill. This is where he jumped out last year in a big way, was in these one on ones. But he got got today a couple of times Chopp got him on one. But those reps were so good for both those guys. The way that Chop can challenge the corner with speed really helps Pat get those vertical set but then redirect back inside because Chop can get back inside as well, and it challenges, you know, CHOP's ability to play with power through a big man like Patrick Paul. Those guys help each other probably as much as anybody on the roster. More on Chop and segment three, I actually thought all the tackles kind of you know, there was wins that went around across the tackles from the edges. I had Cleveland Ferrel with a win on Austin Jackson and David Ajabo on Charlie Heck as well, and then finally back inside. I thought Kenneth Grant was excellent in the one on ones. I saw him with a rip, a hump, and a push pull to get wins in that one on one period. As for the team portion of practice, one of my favorite reps was an incomplete deep shot by Malik where the defense unfurled the stunt on the outside with Paul and Procter and they picked it up and passed it off so beautifully. That was a great thing to see. After we heard Halfley talk about the game that got Procter. On Friday's practice, Aaron Brewer was excellent today. He's a guy that I often don't highlight because it's every rep with him, but he was moving guys in the running game and those one on ones. I was really impressed by his ability to handle Jordan Phillips's power because you look at the body composition side by side and it looks like a mismatch. But Phillips couldn't get off those blocks. And I want him to keep getting those reps because I think a little counter, maybe a little auspeed to his fastball, he has the traits to win those. I just think he's got to refine a little bit. And who better to do against than the best center in the National Football League. And I wanted to note this on the Moleak interception, Caden Proctor ran that thing down back to the end zone. I think that says a lot about his mindset and that was great to see. Let's go ahead and pause down one more time here for our last break. Come back and talk about the defense, which will also give us some offensive notes on the other side of the break. Draft Time Podcast brought to you by Auto Nation. All right, we pick it back up on the defensive line, and one of my favorite plays of the day was early on an outside run where Zach Seeler takes on Patrick Paul on a wide run where eight chance trying to press the edge, and it's a hand fight the entire way. They just keep on straining and they wind up getting stacked up and they never have a clear winner. But then here comes Jordan Brooks like a missile undred miles an hour off that stack for the stick on a chan and the stuff I mentioned the kasmeric block earlier on that play. Trey Moore squeezed it down for a stuff and he had a few plays today where he was doing multiple things from that off ball position. And later he slipped a block and thuded up on Carlos Washington Junior for a short gain. So Trey Moore getting some run looking pretty good that way. The run game didn't have quite the lanes today in general. There were some openings, but they were more five to ten yard runs and the ones that get out the gate. But a big part of that was the work of Kenneth Grant and Jordan Phillips. There was a play where they stacked up by Jyllan Wright run and then Jacob Rodriguez came in and cleaned it up for a short gain. But the offensive line just kept trying to wash down those two young defensive tackles and they couldn't get the movement that's required to do that. Speaking of young defensive tackles, Zeke Biggers took his one one work over to the team portion. He had a great day today. He might have been the practice player of the day. He had a quick dispatch back doing a play against the run for a stuff. Carlos Washington winds up finishing the play out and he was hawked by Kyle Lewis, which I thought was I love when that happens, when you get a play that winds up dead, but they continue it and then you get another note that comes off of that. So Bigger's really good work and then Kyle Lewis again, you learn about these guys when when you know the plays behind him and they have to chase it down and we saw Kyle Lewis and Kate and Proctor both do that. Today a couple of the edges feasted man and it starts with Chop Robinson. He had two wins on Charlie Heck in the two minute drill. The first one was speed around the outside. Then he went speed to power and kind of got Charlie's cleats off the ground and into retreat mode right away. The first was ruled a sack, the second one was allowed to continue, but I felt they were both sacks. So Chop Man, he's really out of that power element. You can see a real tangible impact from the work he did this offseason and it's showing up early on here in camp. And Cam Good was a fixture in the backfield today too. I had him with two pressures. One was a sack, possibly two sacks. He had one where he went around the edge and met at the quarterback with Zeke Biggers who split a double team on quinn ewers and two minute portion of practice. The other pressure from Cam was a looping inside rush on a game and again Halfley really opened it up in the back end of practice. It's been kind of a theme here with the defense starts hot. Hafley gets into the bag and it kind of evens out when he dials things up. But cam Good got some pressure so to David Ajabo. I had him with two sacks on back to back plays on quinn Ewers in that two minute drill. He had a really strong first week here as a Miami Dolphin. Robert Beale had a pass rush when where he flushed flushed out quinn Ewers, and then Willie gay Man did some really nice stuff today. I mentioned that hit where he pulled off that was a fifteen yard or so drop playing the curl flat and Crabs asked me who was in coverage there? I'm like, that was forty and he was surprised it wasn't a defensive back. Will He can do that, man, He can play away from the quarterback getting depth. He also came down and popped the back on a tackle for loss after a hard edge. A good day for forty In the defensive backfield, Jason Marshall punched a fumble out on Ben Simms. This just continues to happen for the Dolphins defense their ball hawking. He also had a good one on one period and had another coverage rep where he contested Douglas in phase and force an incompletion. Thought Ethan Bonner had a good day. He got a pick on a ball that you weers tried to kind of force into a contested area and Major Burns winds up tipping it into the air and Bonner runs to the football and he got rewarded. That's what happens. Run to the ball, he might get rewarded. He also had two plays in phase on targets that went incomplete. What else here? Miles Battle was in phase on a deep shot to ma Leak Washington for an incompletion. Alex Austin had a superb tackle on Jalen Wright out in space on a little swing throw, and Lonnie Johnson on a swing to Jyalen Wright also had a big pop on the running back for no gain. So those guys came from depth and made plays. Marco Wilson jumped a throw from Quinn to two to two and nearly picked it off. At one point in practice, Chris Johnson had a tackle for loss where he insert from the backside into the runfit and tagged off back there. Omar Brown pulled down one more takeaway a pick from Cam Miller. Cam was running to his right and he had a crosser that looked like he was there, and he sprints to the sideline, tries to get it up over Omar Brown with some touch, but Brown elevates and picks it off. And then one more takeaway Terrorist Marshall caught a past about twenty yards downfield or so, and here comes Lewis Moore to punch that thing out. And finally, how about some kicking competition updates. Miley Patterson and Zane Gonzalez both got three kick attempts today after those two minute periods fifty forty three and fifty two yards. Patterson went two for three, missing the forty three yard and Zane Gonzalez hit all three of his kicks. So there you go. That's a Monday here from Miami Gardens. We're back tomorrow on a Tuesday, off on Wednesday, and then three more practices Thursday, Friday, and then Saturday at hard Rock Stadium. I cannot wait to get back to the building and watch Dolphins play in their home stadium, but we have more work to go before that. In the meantime, you all please be sure subscribe, rate, review the podcast, follow me on social at Wingfold NFL. The team at Miami Dolphins, check out the YouTube channel for Dolphins HQ, media availabilities, and a heck of a lot more, and last but not least, Miami Dolphins dot com. Until next time, Caroline Cameron and Willow Daddy is coming home.
