00:00:00
Speaker 1: This is Drivetime with Travis Wingfield.
00:00:12
Speaker 2: What is up Dolphins and welcome to the Draft Time Podcast. I am your host, Travis Wingfield, and on today's show, a heavy practice notes podcast, as we're taking a look at a very busy day out on that grass here at Dolphins Day eleven of training camp. We'll hear from Jalen Phillips to von Ah Chan and Patrick mc morris and talk about another bullet point being added to the connectivity of the back seven of the defense with a successful red zone period on Tuesday from the Baptist Health Studios inside the Baptist Health Training Complex. This is the Drive Time Podcast. One more practice before we ship out to Chicago, and I cannot wait to get out there.
00:00:52
Speaker 1: I should check the weather. I bet it's not as hot as it is here.
00:00:55
Speaker 2: That's tomorrow and then Thursday, I'm going to have a bonus episode covering the distant coaches media, Zach Steeler's contract extension, players to watch in Chicago, and I've got two big picture takeaways from training camp I'm kind of working through right now to put together on that podcast. As the Thursday practice in Chicago is supposed to be a bit more limited in terms of actual team reps. So I probably won't have a practice update podcast for you Thursday, but if there is anything of note, I will add it to the Friday podcast, which will cover joint practices with the Bears on that Friday.
00:01:30
Speaker 1: Sound good.
00:01:31
Speaker 2: I do have a couple of broad topics to get to today, but there were so many reps and I have so many individual notes that I thought I would flip the show and do that first seth Levitt the Fish Tank Coast, you got your wish man, We're gonna do practice notes first here today. And this was what the most I've seen them dial up deep shots and taking long throws down the field I think really since probably twenty twenty three and to a connected on a pair of fifty yards scoring strikes. I think one was forty eight yards, but you know gold a green jacket. One was to Tyreek Hill and one was to Malik Washington. The Reek one, he was wide open coming across the field, Like think about what was the one the Packers game a couple of years ago when two ultimately was was knocked out for the rest of the season, but he had a deep shot to Tyreek Hill down to the one yard line. It was kind of like that where he's coming like from sideline to sideline after getting vertical.
00:02:22
Speaker 1: That was what the first one looked like.
00:02:24
Speaker 2: The second one was like Tyreek's touchdown against the Bills in twenty twenty two. I feel like you better know the Dolphins if listening to this podcast when he had Trey White one on one coverage to the backside and he just basically ran a vertical and stacked him and too, it'll put the ball right on the money. That was the deep shot to Malik Washington for a touchdown. Just a perfect ball because Kendall Sheffield was he was in good shape. Now he got stacked, but he was there. He was in phase and just barely on the back. I guess that's not in phase if you're stacked, but he was like one step away from being in phase. But hey, you give this quarterback a window like that, he's usually gonna find it. And the ball was perfect, right and stride and he's gone off to the races for a fifty yard touchdown.
00:03:03
Speaker 1: And that was in a two minute period.
00:03:05
Speaker 2: And it came one play after two a ripped and absolute piss missile to Jalen Waddle for fifteen yards and again Kendall Sheffield was there in coverage on the back hit, and I would say this time he was in phase, but the ball was right on the upfield shoulder.
00:03:17
Speaker 1: And you just can't defend that.
00:03:19
Speaker 2: I felt like that was the body language we saw from Sheffield after the play, was like, what the hell am I supposed to do to that? Like, you know, they say there's no defense for a perfect pass. It's like when you see a picture, you know, dot up the outside corner at the bottom of the zone with one hundred mile prior heat, Like you tip the cap and say, hopefully you make a mistake on my next bat. The two misses were to Tyreek Hill. He went two for four on these deep shots, and the two that he missed were open plays to Tyreek Hill, who was on a heater getting downfield today. One ball was long, one was short. The underthrow I saw some of the reporters typing away quickly. They love to talk about the under throws of to a tongue of my low, and this one was that Now I Reek was open, but the it kind of was slow developing in the backfield, and I think Reek's route was a little bit out of rhythm, and this happens all the time across the National Football League. Tua gets more crap for it because he doesn't have the same arm as some of the bigger arm quarterbacks in the league. But we've seen Tua's like deep ball kind of max out between fifty five sixty in terms of accurate downfield throws right that he can step into and rip. That's kind of where Tyreek was when this ball came down, and he was the way Tyreek was running, he was going to be like at seventy yards. So it's tough to hit a guy that depth, and Tua just that's just a limitation of his game. He's not gonna be go all, throw the ball seventy yards and there's not many plays that do happen in the league like that. So I will acknowledge one and the other. Now, I saw a reply on Twitter, and there's no way to do this without singling out that individual. I'm not going to put his name on blast here, but we are going to make an example out of it because the reply was the secondary was obviously getting cooked, and I'm just like, you know, I get that we live in an age where You've got to have a take on everything for some reason, even though your name is like Steve and you are an accountant, sorry, sorry to the accountant's name Steve out there, and you've got a burner account with no profile picture like you don't have to have a take. It doesn't really matter. No one cares either way or the other, one way or the other. But you have got to have a take right on something you didn't even see. And that's wild to me to try to extrapolate something like that on something you didn't see based upon my notes where I did see it and I can tell you exactly what it was, and I'm gonna do it right now. You showed your ass on that one. But the entire deep ball period came against a coverage that we never get single high safety. The league is all split safety right now, right two high safeties. They're gonna put the roof on the defense. And you better be sharp in the short intermedia game to expose defenses and take advantage of the space that is created because nobody wants to give up explosive plays. It's a different time in a different era, and the first one the Tyreek was on a dead sprint against Elijah Campbell, who was basically flat footed. He's never gonna win that matchup. And the other was against Kendall Sheffield on the league Washington play without safety help, and there's good and bad to that, right Good because Tuas saw that matchup and even though Malik is not his pop vertical option, if we can get that without safety help and he can run a good route and stack him, and Tua says, I can throw a perfect ball, we can hit a touchdown, and that's that's a fun thing to do. Long touchdowns are pretty fun, and you know we'll we'll get those. We'll get some of those in season because we've talked about some of the podcast. Go ahead and look at other depth charts around the league. At cornerback there it's the thinnest position in the NFL right now. And and you know the three yards per carry, guys love them. I think they're great. I think there's a lot of negativity that's misplaced from a couple of those guys right now.
00:06:37
Speaker 1: You know, Alf has been here with me.
00:06:38
Speaker 2: At practice and we've both kind of been in locks up on some points. But I don't agree with the doom and gloom of Chris, Chris and Simon there, and I saw Simon talking about Jacry and Bennett being a trade option, and I'm like, brother, Jackry and Bennett, like the Raiders are super thin at cornerback if they're getting rid of him, you know when he gets cut on cut down day or whatever, like.
00:06:57
Speaker 1: Just don't, I don't, I don't get it.
00:06:59
Speaker 2: I think if we traded for Jack Coryan Bennett would see the same thing talking about how we don't have good enough corners.
00:07:03
Speaker 1: But that's neither here nor there.
00:07:06
Speaker 2: And the converse of that is, you know, if you the bad part about it is if you get beat on a vertical by Malake Washington, that's not the strength of his game. So what does it say about your coverage ability? It's two edges of that sword, right, It's good and bad. But quinn Ewers also got one deep to theoiese for twenty five yards in a touchdown, an I so little double move working against Isaiah Johnson. And Isaiah Johnson was a guy that I was kind of keeping an eye on coming into camp, and it hasn't blossomed yet there. For me, I thought the defense made Zach Wilson play very hesitant in his periods and Chop went off against him. Chopp was getting some run against that second team, and that's a mismatch. He shut down the entire Zach Wilson led two minute attack with back to back sacks.
00:07:48
Speaker 1: He just wins so quickly sometimes.
00:07:50
Speaker 2: And you guys were going to talk about to Ron Armstead's podcast here a little bit. He said that he puts Chop up there with Micah and Trey Hendrickson and Von Miller in terms of the get off, and like that's he's not wrong about that. He wins so quickly sometimes that it looks like they've schemed up a free run. And I kind of have to, you know, play the play back in my mind a little bit to think about where he came from, because it's most of the time just him running around the tackle with lightning quick get off and to kind of put evidence to the coverage not being just busted all the time. I thought that Patrick McMorris and Elijah Campbell both had really good practices in those red zone periods and their zone drops and playing the run and short passing game from depth and getting downhill, because if you don't do that, if you're gonna, you know, give the curl flat. You're gonna give that option up and say, hey, if you want to throw five three yard passes and if we can rally and tackle and make it second and seven, or if you slip a tackle, it's now second and four. Like, we'll take our chances. They're opposed to giving you options down the field. When you have safeties like mc morris and Campbell coming up and tackling like they were today, that can really help you play that coverage with confidence. And I thought we saw that throughout the course of the day. There was that red zone period, or a couple of red zone periods, but one in particular where all three quarterbacks had to throw away the football or just eat it and basically wait till the whistle blew and blew the play dead. And I think this was indicative of the defensive staff's emphasis on playing on a string on the back end and playing to their coverage rules. Because the pockets were good, the coverage was just better. Sometimes the coverage beat you, and I you know, you're not going to see that in our social media posts because we're not going to give away our you know, show that Indianapolis colts are coverage structures. But I can tell you from watching every single rep of practice, it's good. It's it's mostly good, and you know, we're gonna post the big plays and it's like, oh, the cornerbacks weren't there for that one play out of the fifty.
00:09:41
Speaker 1: Don't judge those for more than what they are for that play.
00:09:43
Speaker 2: Like it's it's such a small snapshot of what actually happens out here at practice. And like, I get it, there's some content creators that can only come down for a day or two, and that's great that you get a chance to do that, But to have a full camp takeaway based on two days is so disingenuous to the process and fly in the face of every single thing McDaniel talks about about. You know, thinking about a day ahead is short changing the process of the work today and for us to come away with these grandeur, you know, grand takes from two days of practice, Like, I think that's disingenuous, and I think doing the same thing off of a social media post from one rep is like substantially worse than even that. So I don't know, I've got a lot of takes today apparently, but these guys were doing a good job of making these quarterbacks think and have to process and get through multiple reads. And the pockets were good and the coverage was better. And if this defense can hold teams to red zone field goals with the way, I think this offense is going to score this year. And I've made no mistake that I made no you know, if fans and butts about it, I think that you know, thirty points per game with the other team kicking field goals in the red zone, you're gonna win a lot of football games that way. I asked Patrick McMorris about this concept of playing connected in that red zone period and how he feels that is telling of what this coverage can be in terms of playing together. Here is Patrick mc morris after practice on those red zone covers were successful plays.
00:11:01
Speaker 3: You know, on the back end, we got to be communative, especially in the red zone. A lot of moving pieces, especially with our offense, a lot of motions, a lot of crossers. Uh so, yeah, just being able to communicate and just make sure we're on the right page, on the same page.
00:11:15
Speaker 2: Do you feel there's a better sense of connection and second year under coach Weaver than there was last year.
00:11:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, most definitely. Yeah, like you said, second year, so a lot of guys that have been here. We we understand the defense a little more again, Coach Weaves a little more comfortable. Uh, we got all the plays in now and again just being able to communicate and talk over just uh, just some stuff that maybe didn't work last year or we had problems with last year, now fixing that and uh again, just communicated with Weave and the guys.
00:11:49
Speaker 2: Devon Hien just keeps getting better to me as a route runner. He had a couple of plays today where I had to check to make sure it wasn't a wide receiver out there making the making the catch and run. He beat Willie Gay running across the field for one reception and like Willie's one of the fastest linebackers in the league right but chasing a Chan it's the old longest yard line. Like when they get Nellie at running back and that one guy says, you know, he makes fast people look not fast. Let's hear from Devon ah Chan and his ability as a receiver right now and where he thinks his game is in that regard.
00:12:18
Speaker 4: I mean I feel like I'm down back, like I said, I could be in first, second, third, fourth, I could do a light as far as like ridding the ball, also kiss the ball, so I can say I think I was like they had like sending some recissions and you know, like I've never received at this point, but you know what I man, it's it's great to be out throwing every.
00:12:37
Speaker 1: Down, so uh, he just he looks awesome.
00:12:40
Speaker 2: And then Galen Wright had a pair of touchdown runs in that like mid red zone ten to twelve yard range. Really nice vertical acceleration on some of those rips where it's a one cut and wiggle through the secondary like you know, just full speed making moves and it's tough to keep up with that, like a you know, F one car or I guess a rally car.
00:12:57
Speaker 1: More so going around the track.
00:12:58
Speaker 2: A nice bounce back after he appeared to trip at the mesh point on a handoff from Tua earlier in the day. And I've struggled with rights camp because it's been puzzling to me. There's a lot of the stuff that stood out for me last year where yeah, like he's he's got the good rips that we see, but there's also been some mistakes and friend of the show, Eric Smith, who does a great job breaking down video on his YouTube channel with five Reasons and his social account as well. He talked about the negative runs that you know Right had last year, and a chunk of those being blocking breakdowns early on, but then as the year progressed, the negative runs kind of became more of the central blame around Right himself. And I tend to agree with that take, and I think it's a sign of him pressing in those looks, because you know, you get a couple of line drives that don't fall and they you know, they go right to defenders or to the outfield, and you start being like, I gotta press and make something happen here at the plate. You start expanding the zone and chasing bad pitches. I think there was something to that with Right's game last year, and I think he's dealing with a little bit of that right now, even though the blocking has been better. But it's kind of the last thing he saw in games, and I think that when he trusts it right now, it's really pretty. But when he doesn't, it looked like the fellat exchange he had was it last year? Yeah, it had to have been last year because he was a rookie against the Patriots when Tua came out of the game and we had to put Tua back in because we had a fumble six on the bad exchange there, Tanner Connor caught another handful of passes, including a nice rep from Tua up the sideline that went for about fifteen yards. Could have been a twenty five yard touchdown if he could make the safety miss an open space. And everything that Taran does right now is looking smoother and he looks healthy. So you know what a huge win that has been and would be if he kept it up for the entire season. I think that he and Farow Brown's role increase from where it was in the absence of alec Ingold. It was something to look for and something to have, like a contingency plan because Alex is going to be back sooner than later. But I think you've got you know, between the tight ends and alec Ingold, you've got a bunch of guys that can do multiple things across like those two position groups.
00:14:51
Speaker 1: What else here should we take a break?
00:14:53
Speaker 2: Let's go ahead and take a quick break and come back on the other side. Talk some more notes here I've got like half my notes still to go. So that's the next Draft Time podcast, brought to you by AutoNation.
00:15:04
Speaker 1: I think we left off on my Zach Sealer note.
00:15:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, Zach signs a mega extension yesterday, gets the orange jersey today, and just keeps on dominating. I had him for a sack and an assist. On another one, I did see Jonah Savit Naya jump set him and give him a pretty good displacement strike that I think was a little bit of a shock to Zach because like, hey, we don't we haven't had guards that have done that to me maybe since Robert Hunt. That's been a fun battle to watch. The interior three, speaking of those guys are getting pretty regular surge on the inside, and like I just want to be clear about this. When I tweet about like sacks, those are the ones that get the tweets, right, But we also have like a bunch of other plays that I'm not gonna tweet, like three yard run by a chin, right, Like I'm not gonna do a play by play, And on some of those runs, you're getting this surge from Jonah, Aaron Brewer, and James Daniels. On these downhill where it's a pivot to the scheme. It's more inside downhill, in your face, we're coming at you. And I just think there's such a better ability by this football team because of those two guards and why I've been on this freaking drum beat for months now, months to just be able to line up and play football and not have to motion our way to success or confuse the defense. I'm just gonna say, hey, you've got a three technique. I've got my guard. He's gonna push you off the football. We're gonna combo that and climb to the second level and our running back is gonna burrow in behind that. We're gonna get five yards and give ourselves a second and five and this fur minute offensive attack. And I had a Q and A with Frank Smith that I'm going to save until the Thursday podcast to run for you guys that I think verified the vision of the offseason and fixing what has been a shortcoming for like three years now. And I'm sure most you saw the press conference, but we'll talk about that on Thursday with Frank Smith and the upgrade at the guard position of what it means for the offense. Grayson Murphy continues to make plays. He had sacks of all three quarterbacks today. I'm not sure if anybody else in has done that yet. One of those was on Tua excuse me, in a low red zone period with a speed move, just cutting the corner off on Larry Boram, and that's kind of how Grayson has won. And he was also in on Zach Wilson earlier with a couple of pressures and I think I'm gonna give him a sack in one of those plays on red zone work. And he finished the day with a sack on quinn Ewers to end his red zone period and an end of game period. And then Mohammed Kamara had two nice plays. He had a run, stuff and a sack in this practice. I thought it was his best day so far. I thought Jordan Phillips really kind of displayed his power in a couple of sets where one he reset Daniel Brunskill a couple of yards deep in the backfield. Every day we see him do that where the technique is perfect and he uncorks all that power. And I think I was gonna stop right here. We already took the breaks. Let's go ahead and just continue on the notes here some additional notes. A lot of the passing plays reminded me of that deep ball to Reek against the Jags last year, the eighty yard touchdown. And I'm curious for those of you listen to other content out there, let me know if anybody else points this out, because it was much much different of a day in terms of the presentations of the defense, especially early on before the pressure and sim pressures came.
00:18:08
Speaker 1: Back to life.
00:18:09
Speaker 2: But Tua was ability to influence the defense, and that pairs with the fear that you have to play with. You know, when you don't have a roof on top of the house against these receivers, when you are playing single safety, single high safety, it's like not having a roof on your home here in South Florida in the summer. You're gonna have a ton of water in your home and you're gonna have to make a claim to your home insurance company. But he was, you know, catch rock and then reset and drive the ball down the field. There's just a lot you kind of have to keep up with in terms of how they they show you things in the backfield from the quarterback and running back perspective. One thing that I wasn't a fan of. In today's practice was the end of half, end of game situation. Stuff wasn't very sharp. There was a little more sloppiness in general, I thought in today's practice. And you know, I'm not gonna I've been so like upfront about how good and crisp these practices have been. I thought today was a little bit of a revert back to like sloppiness. It was the first day back in shells after a week of pads, after a day off, which I think can sometimes, you know, let some some complacency creep in, like you're gonna have to fight the dog days. You know, we're coming up on the Chicago trip, So I'm curious to see how they bounce back tomorrow. I think it's a teaching moment for the entire staff. You'd be like, hey, let's get back on our stuff here, because this is not good enough right now. And you you heard t Stead talking his podcast if you listen to it, about the emphasis on how every rep matters and the payoff of that, and I'm curious to kind of dig into more of that with questions for guys as we go forward here. I do continue to be a little bit concerned about what I've seen from Zach Wilson against like actual defensive structures against vanilla stuff. It's it's beautiful when it's like against the vanilla stuff, but it's like against game plan looks where there's like rotation and disguise and pressure and sim pressure. I think when you Weres has handled that better, which I suppose tracks because he does come from an offense that is much more akin to what you know we do here, where Zach Wilson never played an offense like this and he's still getting his feet wet. I guess that the Mike Lafleur offense with the Jets was that way, but he wasn't very good at running his brother's system. I know you guys love the Bad Days report, so I thought it was a challenge today for Keon Smith, where he's had a pretty good camp so far.
00:20:14
Speaker 1: I mentioned Kendall Sheffield. You know, I talked about.
00:20:17
Speaker 2: Noah Igbinoghany in that way a lot, like he's close, he's right there, but he keeps giving up these catches, like so I have to kind of balance that, like it's good coverage, but also let's make a play too, right, I thought Ethan Bonner struggled today. He got mossed by Tarik Black on one play. Julian Hill struggled both in the blocking and the catching game today. Thought Ryan Hayes was you could put a lot of those sacks on his stat count today. And I don't think it was Larry Borum's best day either. Some additional practice notes. Nick Westbrook a Kine had a handful of catches, including the one you saw in the back of the end zone on Twitter where he taps the toes and a little Layard touched pass from two about fifteen twenty yards out give or take two. Was talked about the importance of his chemistry and trust with wide receivers right He talked about it with Odell Beckham last year. He's talked about with Darren Waller this year, like, if you're not going to be up and practicing, it's gonna be hard to know where you're gonna be when you're gonna be there. And it makes sense because he plays with, for my money, the best anticipation in the entire league, and to maximize that, you need receivers at least close to his level in terms of how they process. And I'm not going to compare to Tom Brady, right, Okay, so just please don't clip this and put me on freaking callin Cowherd. But like that's what Brady had. So many receivers came through Brady's program and just couldn't get on his level. And again, Two was not on Brady's level, not saying that at all, but he is at a pretty high level when it comes to like seeing the field and being a general of like that leverage means this route and this coverage and this rotation means this type of spot throw. You better be on two level with that because if not, the ball's not coming your way. And Westbrook Aakine didn't catch a lot of balls early on in camp, and I think that's no mystery as to why that happened. But over the last week or so, he's come on and made a bunch of plays in critical areas and taking advantage of the space afford to him by the coverage being lifted by Wreak and Waddell and wide receivers coach Robert Prince called Nick a true professional at his media availabilit on Monday, and I think that's that's how he develops that, and I think we're seeing that chemistry with Tua in the trust develop here in real time.
00:22:08
Speaker 5: D S.
00:22:08
Speaker 2: Gridge had a nice touchdown grab from Zach Wilson on a ball on the end line. He did a good job on selling the route one way and breaking it off the other way. I mentioned the Elik Washington catch. I thought he was sharp all day, both as a blocker and with his routes. I mentioned Tarik Black having that catch over the top of Ethan Bonner. That was a really nice play. Zach also had a touchdown pass. Excuse me, goodness, gracious, those chicken tacos are rumblin. He had a touchdown pass to Eric Azukama with some pretty good zip on and Ee caught it sliding to the ground in the back of the end zone. Storm Duck had a really nice rep and this was one of the many red zone plays I talked about or I'm gonna talk about on Waddle where he pinned him to the perimeter and erased the window for two to a throw two. I'm sure a lot of you guys saw the toront Armstead podcast again. He said that he thinks storm Duck is one of, if not the most competitive players on the field when he straps it on and how much he craves those matchups against Reek Waddle, and you can argue that he won't see a two sum of receivers like those guys until week sixteen Jamar Chas and t Higgins totally different players, but like as good as those guys, and then the next week against the Bucks with with Mike Evans and Chris Godwin, but like the Commanders, maybe I don't think they're at that level. Like the point is, he's playing against one of the top wide receiver duos in practice every single day. I think Jack Jones has had a really good camp, and I thought today was his best day. It's like repetitive at this point. But the way he fires back down the stem out of a backpedal or firing out of his zone is just different. It He just moves different. He had a rep where he took away a corner route playing that cloud coverage that we see a lot around the league and for the Dolphins, and then felt a route coming underneath his coverage area and jumped it for what would have been a big collision on Pharaoh Brown. In a live setting, he also was all over Taje Washington on a deep ball, good mirror technique at the line of scrimmage. Good job staying in Faz got his head back around to the football and wanted it away at the catch point and did that strap thing that cornerbacks always do. I think we've got something here in Jack Jones, between Storm, Jack and Hilton. I have confidence in those three players. I have questions about the rest of the guys, which, if you stay healthy, I suppose you're okay. Would love to have Cater Kohu back in that mix, but I you know, I suspect there's another domino to fall at some point. From now until the thirty three days before opening day, Derek McClendon had two sacks in one period. He's had a nice camp so far. In fact, let's go ahead and hear from Jalen phillips on the depth of that edge group. As we've been shouting out Grayson Murphy, Quentin Bell, Cam Good, Mo Kamara, Derek McLendon on various podcasts. Here is Jalen Phillips on that edge group.
00:24:43
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm glad you asked about that, because you know they've been balling, and you know, I think a lot of them kind of going to the radar. Obviously, you guys talk about you know, us a lot, but I think you know, Q Bell is an absolute dog. It's one of my best friends, and you know, he's, you know, an incredible player, works his ass off, does all the right thing. D Mac is a savage, you know, freaking Grayson probably the best pure password forer on the team in my opinion. And then who else we got? Mo is a beast. You know, he's a powerful guy. You know, leverage is insane. So I think that's everybody. But you know, we are our outside linebacker room is extremely competitive. We're extremely close, and you know, every one of them deserves their flowers because, like I said, they worked their ass off and they're extremely talented, so you know, yeah, they're great people.
00:25:27
Speaker 2: One name he forgot was Cam Good, who's had a very nice camp as well, and t Stead talked about Cam as well on the show that he did where it's like he just got injured the wrong time when there was opportunity with JP and and Bradley down and of course Cam gets his leg taken out in that Buffalo finale back in twenty three. Just bad timing there, Let's go ahead though, and stay with Jalen to connect our very last practice note. Because I talked about Patrick Paul and his ability to recognize the rush where the extra guys come from, in the athletic ability it requires to squeeze and then expand against those outside rushes. There was another one today where he's The best way I can describe this within the report rules is that his range is so vast, like he can get inside against power and then shift his weight and get the width back outside and go cut off that speed rusher off the edge.
00:26:11
Speaker 1: It is. It's fun to watch.
00:26:12
Speaker 2: I I have to watch myself with this stuff sometimes, but I think we're seeing like an elite left tackle develop in front of our eyes.
00:26:22
Speaker 1: That's you know.
00:26:23
Speaker 2: In speaking of Toront's podcast, he talked about something I noticed earlier in camp, and this was like the ultimate affirmation for me. Was he talked about Pat's ability to absorb a loss of a rep and then quickly apply the correction on the next rep. So I asked Jalen Phillips about that. Here's JP on Patrick Paul. We'll play a couple of soundbites here because this was pretty damn good from Jalen Phillips on Patrick Paul.
00:26:43
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean I think that that Patrick has huge upside. He's annoying as hell to go against, I'll tell you that much, because he is a talker, and you know, I I during practice I hate him, But afterwards, you know, when you're I can just the only thing I can do is admire him and admire his physical presence, Admire his skill set, admire his athleticism, admire his work ethic and like you said, his ability to make adjustments and corrections. You know, I think he's going to be a fabulous player, and he already has made a big step in this league. So yeah, Patrick's badass. So he knows how I feel against about him. So just like I tell you, I hate going against him, he knows I hate going against him.
00:27:22
Speaker 2: And confidence is such an important trait for anybody in any sport, right, But for Patrick Paul to be talking his noise against Bradley Chubb and Jalien Phillips and Chop Robinson like probably pretty confident. Right. Here's Jalen Phillips on the confidence of the Dolphins second year left tackle.
00:27:37
Speaker 5: He's confident in himself, which I think is a really admirable trait, because at the end of the day, there's so many things that can kind of knock your confidence. And one thing that I've noticed with him is I've never seen his confidence shake no matter what, even if he's losing reps, and all he does every day is get our pass rushers better, get himself better, and bring other guys along.
00:27:55
Speaker 2: Let's hit one more break and then I have a quick segment to finish up the show with talking about that red zone own connectivity. That's next Draft Time podcast, brought to you by Auto Nation. So I have teased the Thursday show a little bit and we'll cover this more in depth then. But I thought there was a period of practice today on Tuesday, or a few of them rather where we saw something really come to life that I've been covering on the show all training camp long. Lots of red zone work today, some of the end of half, some of that end of game stuff, but also just some middle of the quarter clock is not a concern type of rep. And I lost count of how many reps there were where there was a a good clean pocket for the quarterback, but b they wound up eating a sack. Whether it was the coverage throwing it away or the play just gets blown dead by the coaching staff. And I think back to two comments that we've has made it multiple months apart. Back in OTA's it was the idea of playing connected on the back end, and regardless of who winds up being back there, as long as they play to their rules and play connected, we will play good defense. And the way that they can span the middle of the field from both the safety and linebacker positions, and with safeties who have corner and coverage backgrounds, right, I mean, Mika Fitzpatrick was a college star, which is a souped up slot position in Nick Saban's defense. If Imla fun was a cornerback in college, Ashton Davis played probably more in the nickel and that's why I loved his tape out of col Then he did it safety, and Dante Trader and Patrick mc morris and Elijah Campbell to me major as like you know, sub package big Nichols or dime backer type of players that can come down in the middle of the field and play that intermediate range and play the run from depth and play and coverage in those areas, and then all the linebackers and the stuff they can do with their drops. I mean the athletic ability and proof of concept that we have with Jordan Brooks and coverage last year and his Seahawks tape which was what really sold me on him last March, or Willie gave and why he was linebacker won for Travis and his you know, Chiefs tape and not the Saints tape which was poorly misusage in terms of that defense. But this is a guy that basically has the record for dropped as I've ever seen in practice, and he joked about that when we last talked to him. But some hyperbole they're talking about the record, But the point is he's always in the curl flat and hook zones, jumping in front of passes. I mean, here's how a handful of the reps that were one down there win. I had Jordan Brooks covering Devon a chan On like a little choice and he was all over it like no one can cover that but Jordan Brooks cam. There was two straight throwaways from Zach Wilson where you got reroutes from Jack Jones and Mike Hilton, and those led to brackets with the safety group to clog up those pictures. Like you're gonna have to throw in double coverage to beat this. You know a defense that plays like that when you can win with pressure up front with four down linemen. Mc morris pins e Chan to the perimeter on the sideline throw that goes incomplete. Tua has to move off of his spot, and he'd a solid five seconds on this particular rat before he throws the ball incomplete to d s Gridge with Cornell Armstrong back there. So they're finding ways to span the coverage to create pressure and try to marry those two things together. And I cannot wait to watch them throw this out there against somebody else, to see it in a game setting too, but more so when the games count for real come September. But first they're gonna keep stacking days and working towards Indianapolis, which is now just thirty three days away. All right, back at it tomorrow. We'll have a special Thursday edition podcast for you guys. Then joint practices on Friday in Chicago, off Saturday game recap on Sunday. There's not chicken taco again. It's just about go time. But for now that's gonna be my time. You all please be sure to subscribe to the show, leave us a rating, leave us a review, Follow me on social at winkel NFL. Check out the YouTube channel for media availabilities, drivetime content and the return of Dolphins HQ on August thirtieth, I Think is our debut back on CBS four and August twenty eighth on the YouTube channel, so don't miss that. And last butt not least Miami Dolphins dot com until next time. Foo's Up, Caroline Cameron and Willow Daddy come it on
Speaker 1: This is Drivetime with Travis Wingfield.
00:00:12
Speaker 2: What is up Dolphins and welcome to the Draft Time Podcast. I am your host, Travis Wingfield, and on today's show, a heavy practice notes podcast, as we're taking a look at a very busy day out on that grass here at Dolphins Day eleven of training camp. We'll hear from Jalen Phillips to von Ah Chan and Patrick mc morris and talk about another bullet point being added to the connectivity of the back seven of the defense with a successful red zone period on Tuesday from the Baptist Health Studios inside the Baptist Health Training Complex. This is the Drive Time Podcast. One more practice before we ship out to Chicago, and I cannot wait to get out there.
00:00:52
Speaker 1: I should check the weather. I bet it's not as hot as it is here.
00:00:55
Speaker 2: That's tomorrow and then Thursday, I'm going to have a bonus episode covering the distant coaches media, Zach Steeler's contract extension, players to watch in Chicago, and I've got two big picture takeaways from training camp I'm kind of working through right now to put together on that podcast. As the Thursday practice in Chicago is supposed to be a bit more limited in terms of actual team reps. So I probably won't have a practice update podcast for you Thursday, but if there is anything of note, I will add it to the Friday podcast, which will cover joint practices with the Bears on that Friday.
00:01:30
Speaker 1: Sound good.
00:01:31
Speaker 2: I do have a couple of broad topics to get to today, but there were so many reps and I have so many individual notes that I thought I would flip the show and do that first seth Levitt the Fish Tank Coast, you got your wish man, We're gonna do practice notes first here today. And this was what the most I've seen them dial up deep shots and taking long throws down the field I think really since probably twenty twenty three and to a connected on a pair of fifty yards scoring strikes. I think one was forty eight yards, but you know gold a green jacket. One was to Tyreek Hill and one was to Malik Washington. The Reek one, he was wide open coming across the field, Like think about what was the one the Packers game a couple of years ago when two ultimately was was knocked out for the rest of the season, but he had a deep shot to Tyreek Hill down to the one yard line. It was kind of like that where he's coming like from sideline to sideline after getting vertical.
00:02:22
Speaker 1: That was what the first one looked like.
00:02:24
Speaker 2: The second one was like Tyreek's touchdown against the Bills in twenty twenty two. I feel like you better know the Dolphins if listening to this podcast when he had Trey White one on one coverage to the backside and he just basically ran a vertical and stacked him and too, it'll put the ball right on the money. That was the deep shot to Malik Washington for a touchdown. Just a perfect ball because Kendall Sheffield was he was in good shape. Now he got stacked, but he was there. He was in phase and just barely on the back. I guess that's not in phase if you're stacked, but he was like one step away from being in phase. But hey, you give this quarterback a window like that, he's usually gonna find it. And the ball was perfect, right and stride and he's gone off to the races for a fifty yard touchdown.
00:03:03
Speaker 1: And that was in a two minute period.
00:03:05
Speaker 2: And it came one play after two a ripped and absolute piss missile to Jalen Waddle for fifteen yards and again Kendall Sheffield was there in coverage on the back hit, and I would say this time he was in phase, but the ball was right on the upfield shoulder.
00:03:17
Speaker 1: And you just can't defend that.
00:03:19
Speaker 2: I felt like that was the body language we saw from Sheffield after the play, was like, what the hell am I supposed to do to that? Like, you know, they say there's no defense for a perfect pass. It's like when you see a picture, you know, dot up the outside corner at the bottom of the zone with one hundred mile prior heat, Like you tip the cap and say, hopefully you make a mistake on my next bat. The two misses were to Tyreek Hill. He went two for four on these deep shots, and the two that he missed were open plays to Tyreek Hill, who was on a heater getting downfield today. One ball was long, one was short. The underthrow I saw some of the reporters typing away quickly. They love to talk about the under throws of to a tongue of my low, and this one was that Now I Reek was open, but the it kind of was slow developing in the backfield, and I think Reek's route was a little bit out of rhythm, and this happens all the time across the National Football League. Tua gets more crap for it because he doesn't have the same arm as some of the bigger arm quarterbacks in the league. But we've seen Tua's like deep ball kind of max out between fifty five sixty in terms of accurate downfield throws right that he can step into and rip. That's kind of where Tyreek was when this ball came down, and he was the way Tyreek was running, he was going to be like at seventy yards. So it's tough to hit a guy that depth, and Tua just that's just a limitation of his game. He's not gonna be go all, throw the ball seventy yards and there's not many plays that do happen in the league like that. So I will acknowledge one and the other. Now, I saw a reply on Twitter, and there's no way to do this without singling out that individual. I'm not going to put his name on blast here, but we are going to make an example out of it because the reply was the secondary was obviously getting cooked, and I'm just like, you know, I get that we live in an age where You've got to have a take on everything for some reason, even though your name is like Steve and you are an accountant, sorry, sorry to the accountant's name Steve out there, and you've got a burner account with no profile picture like you don't have to have a take. It doesn't really matter. No one cares either way or the other, one way or the other. But you have got to have a take right on something you didn't even see. And that's wild to me to try to extrapolate something like that on something you didn't see based upon my notes where I did see it and I can tell you exactly what it was, and I'm gonna do it right now. You showed your ass on that one. But the entire deep ball period came against a coverage that we never get single high safety. The league is all split safety right now, right two high safeties. They're gonna put the roof on the defense. And you better be sharp in the short intermedia game to expose defenses and take advantage of the space that is created because nobody wants to give up explosive plays. It's a different time in a different era, and the first one the Tyreek was on a dead sprint against Elijah Campbell, who was basically flat footed. He's never gonna win that matchup. And the other was against Kendall Sheffield on the league Washington play without safety help, and there's good and bad to that, right Good because Tuas saw that matchup and even though Malik is not his pop vertical option, if we can get that without safety help and he can run a good route and stack him, and Tua says, I can throw a perfect ball, we can hit a touchdown, and that's that's a fun thing to do. Long touchdowns are pretty fun, and you know we'll we'll get those. We'll get some of those in season because we've talked about some of the podcast. Go ahead and look at other depth charts around the league. At cornerback there it's the thinnest position in the NFL right now. And and you know the three yards per carry, guys love them. I think they're great. I think there's a lot of negativity that's misplaced from a couple of those guys right now.
00:06:37
Speaker 1: You know, Alf has been here with me.
00:06:38
Speaker 2: At practice and we've both kind of been in locks up on some points. But I don't agree with the doom and gloom of Chris, Chris and Simon there, and I saw Simon talking about Jacry and Bennett being a trade option, and I'm like, brother, Jackry and Bennett, like the Raiders are super thin at cornerback if they're getting rid of him, you know when he gets cut on cut down day or whatever, like.
00:06:57
Speaker 1: Just don't, I don't, I don't get it.
00:06:59
Speaker 2: I think if we traded for Jack Coryan Bennett would see the same thing talking about how we don't have good enough corners.
00:07:03
Speaker 1: But that's neither here nor there.
00:07:06
Speaker 2: And the converse of that is, you know, if you the bad part about it is if you get beat on a vertical by Malake Washington, that's not the strength of his game. So what does it say about your coverage ability? It's two edges of that sword, right, It's good and bad. But quinn Ewers also got one deep to theoiese for twenty five yards in a touchdown, an I so little double move working against Isaiah Johnson. And Isaiah Johnson was a guy that I was kind of keeping an eye on coming into camp, and it hasn't blossomed yet there. For me, I thought the defense made Zach Wilson play very hesitant in his periods and Chop went off against him. Chopp was getting some run against that second team, and that's a mismatch. He shut down the entire Zach Wilson led two minute attack with back to back sacks.
00:07:48
Speaker 1: He just wins so quickly sometimes.
00:07:50
Speaker 2: And you guys were going to talk about to Ron Armstead's podcast here a little bit. He said that he puts Chop up there with Micah and Trey Hendrickson and Von Miller in terms of the get off, and like that's he's not wrong about that. He wins so quickly sometimes that it looks like they've schemed up a free run. And I kind of have to, you know, play the play back in my mind a little bit to think about where he came from, because it's most of the time just him running around the tackle with lightning quick get off and to kind of put evidence to the coverage not being just busted all the time. I thought that Patrick McMorris and Elijah Campbell both had really good practices in those red zone periods and their zone drops and playing the run and short passing game from depth and getting downhill, because if you don't do that, if you're gonna, you know, give the curl flat. You're gonna give that option up and say, hey, if you want to throw five three yard passes and if we can rally and tackle and make it second and seven, or if you slip a tackle, it's now second and four. Like, we'll take our chances. They're opposed to giving you options down the field. When you have safeties like mc morris and Campbell coming up and tackling like they were today, that can really help you play that coverage with confidence. And I thought we saw that throughout the course of the day. There was that red zone period, or a couple of red zone periods, but one in particular where all three quarterbacks had to throw away the football or just eat it and basically wait till the whistle blew and blew the play dead. And I think this was indicative of the defensive staff's emphasis on playing on a string on the back end and playing to their coverage rules. Because the pockets were good, the coverage was just better. Sometimes the coverage beat you, and I you know, you're not going to see that in our social media posts because we're not going to give away our you know, show that Indianapolis colts are coverage structures. But I can tell you from watching every single rep of practice, it's good. It's it's mostly good, and you know, we're gonna post the big plays and it's like, oh, the cornerbacks weren't there for that one play out of the fifty.
00:09:41
Speaker 1: Don't judge those for more than what they are for that play.
00:09:43
Speaker 2: Like it's it's such a small snapshot of what actually happens out here at practice. And like, I get it, there's some content creators that can only come down for a day or two, and that's great that you get a chance to do that, But to have a full camp takeaway based on two days is so disingenuous to the process and fly in the face of every single thing McDaniel talks about about. You know, thinking about a day ahead is short changing the process of the work today and for us to come away with these grandeur, you know, grand takes from two days of practice, Like, I think that's disingenuous, and I think doing the same thing off of a social media post from one rep is like substantially worse than even that. So I don't know, I've got a lot of takes today apparently, but these guys were doing a good job of making these quarterbacks think and have to process and get through multiple reads. And the pockets were good and the coverage was better. And if this defense can hold teams to red zone field goals with the way, I think this offense is going to score this year. And I've made no mistake that I made no you know, if fans and butts about it, I think that you know, thirty points per game with the other team kicking field goals in the red zone, you're gonna win a lot of football games that way. I asked Patrick McMorris about this concept of playing connected in that red zone period and how he feels that is telling of what this coverage can be in terms of playing together. Here is Patrick mc morris after practice on those red zone covers were successful plays.
00:11:01
Speaker 3: You know, on the back end, we got to be communative, especially in the red zone. A lot of moving pieces, especially with our offense, a lot of motions, a lot of crossers. Uh so, yeah, just being able to communicate and just make sure we're on the right page, on the same page.
00:11:15
Speaker 2: Do you feel there's a better sense of connection and second year under coach Weaver than there was last year.
00:11:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, most definitely. Yeah, like you said, second year, so a lot of guys that have been here. We we understand the defense a little more again, Coach Weaves a little more comfortable. Uh, we got all the plays in now and again just being able to communicate and talk over just uh, just some stuff that maybe didn't work last year or we had problems with last year, now fixing that and uh again, just communicated with Weave and the guys.
00:11:49
Speaker 2: Devon Hien just keeps getting better to me as a route runner. He had a couple of plays today where I had to check to make sure it wasn't a wide receiver out there making the making the catch and run. He beat Willie Gay running across the field for one reception and like Willie's one of the fastest linebackers in the league right but chasing a Chan it's the old longest yard line. Like when they get Nellie at running back and that one guy says, you know, he makes fast people look not fast. Let's hear from Devon ah Chan and his ability as a receiver right now and where he thinks his game is in that regard.
00:12:18
Speaker 4: I mean I feel like I'm down back, like I said, I could be in first, second, third, fourth, I could do a light as far as like ridding the ball, also kiss the ball, so I can say I think I was like they had like sending some recissions and you know, like I've never received at this point, but you know what I man, it's it's great to be out throwing every.
00:12:37
Speaker 1: Down, so uh, he just he looks awesome.
00:12:40
Speaker 2: And then Galen Wright had a pair of touchdown runs in that like mid red zone ten to twelve yard range. Really nice vertical acceleration on some of those rips where it's a one cut and wiggle through the secondary like you know, just full speed making moves and it's tough to keep up with that, like a you know, F one car or I guess a rally car.
00:12:57
Speaker 1: More so going around the track.
00:12:58
Speaker 2: A nice bounce back after he appeared to trip at the mesh point on a handoff from Tua earlier in the day. And I've struggled with rights camp because it's been puzzling to me. There's a lot of the stuff that stood out for me last year where yeah, like he's he's got the good rips that we see, but there's also been some mistakes and friend of the show, Eric Smith, who does a great job breaking down video on his YouTube channel with five Reasons and his social account as well. He talked about the negative runs that you know Right had last year, and a chunk of those being blocking breakdowns early on, but then as the year progressed, the negative runs kind of became more of the central blame around Right himself. And I tend to agree with that take, and I think it's a sign of him pressing in those looks, because you know, you get a couple of line drives that don't fall and they you know, they go right to defenders or to the outfield, and you start being like, I gotta press and make something happen here at the plate. You start expanding the zone and chasing bad pitches. I think there was something to that with Right's game last year, and I think he's dealing with a little bit of that right now, even though the blocking has been better. But it's kind of the last thing he saw in games, and I think that when he trusts it right now, it's really pretty. But when he doesn't, it looked like the fellat exchange he had was it last year? Yeah, it had to have been last year because he was a rookie against the Patriots when Tua came out of the game and we had to put Tua back in because we had a fumble six on the bad exchange there, Tanner Connor caught another handful of passes, including a nice rep from Tua up the sideline that went for about fifteen yards. Could have been a twenty five yard touchdown if he could make the safety miss an open space. And everything that Taran does right now is looking smoother and he looks healthy. So you know what a huge win that has been and would be if he kept it up for the entire season. I think that he and Farow Brown's role increase from where it was in the absence of alec Ingold. It was something to look for and something to have, like a contingency plan because Alex is going to be back sooner than later. But I think you've got you know, between the tight ends and alec Ingold, you've got a bunch of guys that can do multiple things across like those two position groups.
00:14:51
Speaker 1: What else here should we take a break?
00:14:53
Speaker 2: Let's go ahead and take a quick break and come back on the other side. Talk some more notes here I've got like half my notes still to go. So that's the next Draft Time podcast, brought to you by AutoNation.
00:15:04
Speaker 1: I think we left off on my Zach Sealer note.
00:15:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, Zach signs a mega extension yesterday, gets the orange jersey today, and just keeps on dominating. I had him for a sack and an assist. On another one, I did see Jonah Savit Naya jump set him and give him a pretty good displacement strike that I think was a little bit of a shock to Zach because like, hey, we don't we haven't had guards that have done that to me maybe since Robert Hunt. That's been a fun battle to watch. The interior three, speaking of those guys are getting pretty regular surge on the inside, and like I just want to be clear about this. When I tweet about like sacks, those are the ones that get the tweets, right, But we also have like a bunch of other plays that I'm not gonna tweet, like three yard run by a chin, right, Like I'm not gonna do a play by play, And on some of those runs, you're getting this surge from Jonah, Aaron Brewer, and James Daniels. On these downhill where it's a pivot to the scheme. It's more inside downhill, in your face, we're coming at you. And I just think there's such a better ability by this football team because of those two guards and why I've been on this freaking drum beat for months now, months to just be able to line up and play football and not have to motion our way to success or confuse the defense. I'm just gonna say, hey, you've got a three technique. I've got my guard. He's gonna push you off the football. We're gonna combo that and climb to the second level and our running back is gonna burrow in behind that. We're gonna get five yards and give ourselves a second and five and this fur minute offensive attack. And I had a Q and A with Frank Smith that I'm going to save until the Thursday podcast to run for you guys that I think verified the vision of the offseason and fixing what has been a shortcoming for like three years now. And I'm sure most you saw the press conference, but we'll talk about that on Thursday with Frank Smith and the upgrade at the guard position of what it means for the offense. Grayson Murphy continues to make plays. He had sacks of all three quarterbacks today. I'm not sure if anybody else in has done that yet. One of those was on Tua excuse me, in a low red zone period with a speed move, just cutting the corner off on Larry Boram, and that's kind of how Grayson has won. And he was also in on Zach Wilson earlier with a couple of pressures and I think I'm gonna give him a sack in one of those plays on red zone work. And he finished the day with a sack on quinn Ewers to end his red zone period and an end of game period. And then Mohammed Kamara had two nice plays. He had a run, stuff and a sack in this practice. I thought it was his best day so far. I thought Jordan Phillips really kind of displayed his power in a couple of sets where one he reset Daniel Brunskill a couple of yards deep in the backfield. Every day we see him do that where the technique is perfect and he uncorks all that power. And I think I was gonna stop right here. We already took the breaks. Let's go ahead and just continue on the notes here some additional notes. A lot of the passing plays reminded me of that deep ball to Reek against the Jags last year, the eighty yard touchdown. And I'm curious for those of you listen to other content out there, let me know if anybody else points this out, because it was much much different of a day in terms of the presentations of the defense, especially early on before the pressure and sim pressures came.
00:18:08
Speaker 1: Back to life.
00:18:09
Speaker 2: But Tua was ability to influence the defense, and that pairs with the fear that you have to play with. You know, when you don't have a roof on top of the house against these receivers, when you are playing single safety, single high safety, it's like not having a roof on your home here in South Florida in the summer. You're gonna have a ton of water in your home and you're gonna have to make a claim to your home insurance company. But he was, you know, catch rock and then reset and drive the ball down the field. There's just a lot you kind of have to keep up with in terms of how they they show you things in the backfield from the quarterback and running back perspective. One thing that I wasn't a fan of. In today's practice was the end of half, end of game situation. Stuff wasn't very sharp. There was a little more sloppiness in general, I thought in today's practice. And you know, I'm not gonna I've been so like upfront about how good and crisp these practices have been. I thought today was a little bit of a revert back to like sloppiness. It was the first day back in shells after a week of pads, after a day off, which I think can sometimes, you know, let some some complacency creep in, like you're gonna have to fight the dog days. You know, we're coming up on the Chicago trip, So I'm curious to see how they bounce back tomorrow. I think it's a teaching moment for the entire staff. You'd be like, hey, let's get back on our stuff here, because this is not good enough right now. And you you heard t Stead talking his podcast if you listen to it, about the emphasis on how every rep matters and the payoff of that, and I'm curious to kind of dig into more of that with questions for guys as we go forward here. I do continue to be a little bit concerned about what I've seen from Zach Wilson against like actual defensive structures against vanilla stuff. It's it's beautiful when it's like against the vanilla stuff, but it's like against game plan looks where there's like rotation and disguise and pressure and sim pressure. I think when you Weres has handled that better, which I suppose tracks because he does come from an offense that is much more akin to what you know we do here, where Zach Wilson never played an offense like this and he's still getting his feet wet. I guess that the Mike Lafleur offense with the Jets was that way, but he wasn't very good at running his brother's system. I know you guys love the Bad Days report, so I thought it was a challenge today for Keon Smith, where he's had a pretty good camp so far.
00:20:14
Speaker 1: I mentioned Kendall Sheffield. You know, I talked about.
00:20:17
Speaker 2: Noah Igbinoghany in that way a lot, like he's close, he's right there, but he keeps giving up these catches, like so I have to kind of balance that, like it's good coverage, but also let's make a play too, right, I thought Ethan Bonner struggled today. He got mossed by Tarik Black on one play. Julian Hill struggled both in the blocking and the catching game today. Thought Ryan Hayes was you could put a lot of those sacks on his stat count today. And I don't think it was Larry Borum's best day either. Some additional practice notes. Nick Westbrook a Kine had a handful of catches, including the one you saw in the back of the end zone on Twitter where he taps the toes and a little Layard touched pass from two about fifteen twenty yards out give or take two. Was talked about the importance of his chemistry and trust with wide receivers right He talked about it with Odell Beckham last year. He's talked about with Darren Waller this year, like, if you're not going to be up and practicing, it's gonna be hard to know where you're gonna be when you're gonna be there. And it makes sense because he plays with, for my money, the best anticipation in the entire league, and to maximize that, you need receivers at least close to his level in terms of how they process. And I'm not going to compare to Tom Brady, right, Okay, so just please don't clip this and put me on freaking callin Cowherd. But like that's what Brady had. So many receivers came through Brady's program and just couldn't get on his level. And again, Two was not on Brady's level, not saying that at all, but he is at a pretty high level when it comes to like seeing the field and being a general of like that leverage means this route and this coverage and this rotation means this type of spot throw. You better be on two level with that because if not, the ball's not coming your way. And Westbrook Aakine didn't catch a lot of balls early on in camp, and I think that's no mystery as to why that happened. But over the last week or so, he's come on and made a bunch of plays in critical areas and taking advantage of the space afford to him by the coverage being lifted by Wreak and Waddell and wide receivers coach Robert Prince called Nick a true professional at his media availabilit on Monday, and I think that's that's how he develops that, and I think we're seeing that chemistry with Tua in the trust develop here in real time.
00:22:08
Speaker 5: D S.
00:22:08
Speaker 2: Gridge had a nice touchdown grab from Zach Wilson on a ball on the end line. He did a good job on selling the route one way and breaking it off the other way. I mentioned the Elik Washington catch. I thought he was sharp all day, both as a blocker and with his routes. I mentioned Tarik Black having that catch over the top of Ethan Bonner. That was a really nice play. Zach also had a touchdown pass. Excuse me, goodness, gracious, those chicken tacos are rumblin. He had a touchdown pass to Eric Azukama with some pretty good zip on and Ee caught it sliding to the ground in the back of the end zone. Storm Duck had a really nice rep and this was one of the many red zone plays I talked about or I'm gonna talk about on Waddle where he pinned him to the perimeter and erased the window for two to a throw two. I'm sure a lot of you guys saw the toront Armstead podcast again. He said that he thinks storm Duck is one of, if not the most competitive players on the field when he straps it on and how much he craves those matchups against Reek Waddle, and you can argue that he won't see a two sum of receivers like those guys until week sixteen Jamar Chas and t Higgins totally different players, but like as good as those guys, and then the next week against the Bucks with with Mike Evans and Chris Godwin, but like the Commanders, maybe I don't think they're at that level. Like the point is, he's playing against one of the top wide receiver duos in practice every single day. I think Jack Jones has had a really good camp, and I thought today was his best day. It's like repetitive at this point. But the way he fires back down the stem out of a backpedal or firing out of his zone is just different. It He just moves different. He had a rep where he took away a corner route playing that cloud coverage that we see a lot around the league and for the Dolphins, and then felt a route coming underneath his coverage area and jumped it for what would have been a big collision on Pharaoh Brown. In a live setting, he also was all over Taje Washington on a deep ball, good mirror technique at the line of scrimmage. Good job staying in Faz got his head back around to the football and wanted it away at the catch point and did that strap thing that cornerbacks always do. I think we've got something here in Jack Jones, between Storm, Jack and Hilton. I have confidence in those three players. I have questions about the rest of the guys, which, if you stay healthy, I suppose you're okay. Would love to have Cater Kohu back in that mix, but I you know, I suspect there's another domino to fall at some point. From now until the thirty three days before opening day, Derek McClendon had two sacks in one period. He's had a nice camp so far. In fact, let's go ahead and hear from Jalen phillips on the depth of that edge group. As we've been shouting out Grayson Murphy, Quentin Bell, Cam Good, Mo Kamara, Derek McLendon on various podcasts. Here is Jalen Phillips on that edge group.
00:24:43
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm glad you asked about that, because you know they've been balling, and you know, I think a lot of them kind of going to the radar. Obviously, you guys talk about you know, us a lot, but I think you know, Q Bell is an absolute dog. It's one of my best friends, and you know, he's, you know, an incredible player, works his ass off, does all the right thing. D Mac is a savage, you know, freaking Grayson probably the best pure password forer on the team in my opinion. And then who else we got? Mo is a beast. You know, he's a powerful guy. You know, leverage is insane. So I think that's everybody. But you know, we are our outside linebacker room is extremely competitive. We're extremely close, and you know, every one of them deserves their flowers because, like I said, they worked their ass off and they're extremely talented, so you know, yeah, they're great people.
00:25:27
Speaker 2: One name he forgot was Cam Good, who's had a very nice camp as well, and t Stead talked about Cam as well on the show that he did where it's like he just got injured the wrong time when there was opportunity with JP and and Bradley down and of course Cam gets his leg taken out in that Buffalo finale back in twenty three. Just bad timing there, Let's go ahead though, and stay with Jalen to connect our very last practice note. Because I talked about Patrick Paul and his ability to recognize the rush where the extra guys come from, in the athletic ability it requires to squeeze and then expand against those outside rushes. There was another one today where he's The best way I can describe this within the report rules is that his range is so vast, like he can get inside against power and then shift his weight and get the width back outside and go cut off that speed rusher off the edge.
00:26:11
Speaker 1: It is. It's fun to watch.
00:26:12
Speaker 2: I I have to watch myself with this stuff sometimes, but I think we're seeing like an elite left tackle develop in front of our eyes.
00:26:22
Speaker 1: That's you know.
00:26:23
Speaker 2: In speaking of Toront's podcast, he talked about something I noticed earlier in camp, and this was like the ultimate affirmation for me. Was he talked about Pat's ability to absorb a loss of a rep and then quickly apply the correction on the next rep. So I asked Jalen Phillips about that. Here's JP on Patrick Paul. We'll play a couple of soundbites here because this was pretty damn good from Jalen Phillips on Patrick Paul.
00:26:43
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean I think that that Patrick has huge upside. He's annoying as hell to go against, I'll tell you that much, because he is a talker, and you know, I I during practice I hate him, But afterwards, you know, when you're I can just the only thing I can do is admire him and admire his physical presence, Admire his skill set, admire his athleticism, admire his work ethic and like you said, his ability to make adjustments and corrections. You know, I think he's going to be a fabulous player, and he already has made a big step in this league. So yeah, Patrick's badass. So he knows how I feel against about him. So just like I tell you, I hate going against him, he knows I hate going against him.
00:27:22
Speaker 2: And confidence is such an important trait for anybody in any sport, right, But for Patrick Paul to be talking his noise against Bradley Chubb and Jalien Phillips and Chop Robinson like probably pretty confident. Right. Here's Jalen Phillips on the confidence of the Dolphins second year left tackle.
00:27:37
Speaker 5: He's confident in himself, which I think is a really admirable trait, because at the end of the day, there's so many things that can kind of knock your confidence. And one thing that I've noticed with him is I've never seen his confidence shake no matter what, even if he's losing reps, and all he does every day is get our pass rushers better, get himself better, and bring other guys along.
00:27:55
Speaker 2: Let's hit one more break and then I have a quick segment to finish up the show with talking about that red zone own connectivity. That's next Draft Time podcast, brought to you by Auto Nation. So I have teased the Thursday show a little bit and we'll cover this more in depth then. But I thought there was a period of practice today on Tuesday, or a few of them rather where we saw something really come to life that I've been covering on the show all training camp long. Lots of red zone work today, some of the end of half, some of that end of game stuff, but also just some middle of the quarter clock is not a concern type of rep. And I lost count of how many reps there were where there was a a good clean pocket for the quarterback, but b they wound up eating a sack. Whether it was the coverage throwing it away or the play just gets blown dead by the coaching staff. And I think back to two comments that we've has made it multiple months apart. Back in OTA's it was the idea of playing connected on the back end, and regardless of who winds up being back there, as long as they play to their rules and play connected, we will play good defense. And the way that they can span the middle of the field from both the safety and linebacker positions, and with safeties who have corner and coverage backgrounds, right, I mean, Mika Fitzpatrick was a college star, which is a souped up slot position in Nick Saban's defense. If Imla fun was a cornerback in college, Ashton Davis played probably more in the nickel and that's why I loved his tape out of col Then he did it safety, and Dante Trader and Patrick mc morris and Elijah Campbell to me major as like you know, sub package big Nichols or dime backer type of players that can come down in the middle of the field and play that intermediate range and play the run from depth and play and coverage in those areas, and then all the linebackers and the stuff they can do with their drops. I mean the athletic ability and proof of concept that we have with Jordan Brooks and coverage last year and his Seahawks tape which was what really sold me on him last March, or Willie gave and why he was linebacker won for Travis and his you know, Chiefs tape and not the Saints tape which was poorly misusage in terms of that defense. But this is a guy that basically has the record for dropped as I've ever seen in practice, and he joked about that when we last talked to him. But some hyperbole they're talking about the record, But the point is he's always in the curl flat and hook zones, jumping in front of passes. I mean, here's how a handful of the reps that were one down there win. I had Jordan Brooks covering Devon a chan On like a little choice and he was all over it like no one can cover that but Jordan Brooks cam. There was two straight throwaways from Zach Wilson where you got reroutes from Jack Jones and Mike Hilton, and those led to brackets with the safety group to clog up those pictures. Like you're gonna have to throw in double coverage to beat this. You know a defense that plays like that when you can win with pressure up front with four down linemen. Mc morris pins e Chan to the perimeter on the sideline throw that goes incomplete. Tua has to move off of his spot, and he'd a solid five seconds on this particular rat before he throws the ball incomplete to d s Gridge with Cornell Armstrong back there. So they're finding ways to span the coverage to create pressure and try to marry those two things together. And I cannot wait to watch them throw this out there against somebody else, to see it in a game setting too, but more so when the games count for real come September. But first they're gonna keep stacking days and working towards Indianapolis, which is now just thirty three days away. All right, back at it tomorrow. We'll have a special Thursday edition podcast for you guys. Then joint practices on Friday in Chicago, off Saturday game recap on Sunday. There's not chicken taco again. It's just about go time. But for now that's gonna be my time. You all please be sure to subscribe to the show, leave us a rating, leave us a review, Follow me on social at winkel NFL. Check out the YouTube channel for media availabilities, drivetime content and the return of Dolphins HQ on August thirtieth, I Think is our debut back on CBS four and August twenty eighth on the YouTube channel, so don't miss that. And last butt not least Miami Dolphins dot com until next time. Foo's Up, Caroline Cameron and Willow Daddy come it on
