00:00:02
Speaker 1: It doesn't feel great right now because I want to win in everything that we do, but I think if you look at the big picture, I think it just kind of shows you where we're heading with some of these guys.
00:00:13
Speaker 2: Hey, yo, what is up, Dolph fans, and welcome to the Draft Time Podcast. On today's show, a spirited effort comes up just short against the Chiefs as they seal it in the fourth quarter by a final of 24-10. We're going to break it all down with the immediate reaction, the critical moments, breakdowns, offensive and defensive standouts, and five takeaways on the Sunday night recap edition of the Draft Time Podcast.
00:00:35
Speaker 1: Let's go!
00:00:36
Speaker 3: Well, that was a fun football game to watch, in my opinion.
00:00:41
Speaker 2: I think, you know, the Dolphins were right in it to the very end and just couldn't quite come up with the one or two plays they needed to find a big upset win over the Kansas City Chiefs here at home as the Chiefs win this one 24-10. The yardage tolls were close. The time of possession was close in this game. Miami ran 20 more plays than the Chiefs did in this game. But the number one takeaway that I'm going to have from this as we get into the immediate reaction of the Dolphins' loss to the Chiefs here in Week 3 is the fight and the effort you saw today against one of the NFL's best teams.
00:01:08
Speaker 3: And I write this at halftime.
00:01:10
Speaker 2: I wrote this at halftime before we even knew the results of the game and in a game that we trailed 14-7. But the resilience, the ability to answer the bell, to make plays in the most critical times There were multiple moments in this game that could have gotten away in the first half, but the Dolphins just kept on coming back and playing for each other and making the plays to put the Chiefs on their heels and to feel the heat in this game. I think about the third quarter when Patrick Mahomes takes a shot in the end zone on a third down that was almost a punt situation from their own end zone, leading by four points in the game. That would have been ball and plus territory down by four had that flag not been thrown in that spot, but it is, and the Dolphins wind up not being able to close it out but they were right there in arm's reach from the chiefs and there are obviously a lot of things to still improve to clean up on to work on but i think you got a very good taste of what this year is about when you hear solely and half talk about setting your foundation that's the energy that if you can sustain it and you keep getting these deep draft classes which we've already seen several guys from this year's class look like the real deal and as you heard off the top there from Jeff Halfley, and you teach them, hey, all these new pieces this year, next year, and beyond. Hey, this is Miami Dolphins football. This is how we're going to do it around here. And if you're not going to do it that way, then you can find the door. And if you're not going to fall into that mindset, you're just not going to be here. And for this team to put forth that showing after a disappointing two-game West Coast swing that they lost by 14 and by 21, to show that fight, that told me a lot. And then it just continued out of the break. And we saw them play a good half in Las Vegas, a good half in San Francisco. And today, I would say three and a half quarters of pretty good football from your Dolphins team here. And I wrote this in the late third quarter. We just kept converting third downs, wearing down the Chiefs defense, getting our deep shots in there, successful runs.
00:03:05
Speaker 3: This could have an impact.
00:03:07
Speaker 2: On the Chiefs conditioning down the stretch if the game was closer, but it didn't go that way. And the defense, they just bowed up and kept on giving the football back to the offense. I mean, after the first two touchdowns, we go interception, turnover on downs, end of half, punt, and the energy just kept rising and rising. I think you saw this team find belief in itself today. And though the results weren't just, or just on the short end of it, I think this could carry over quite a bit. Let's play this soundbite from Halfley. I wrote that before I heard this, but it kind of backs up my point when I'm talking, you.
00:03:38
Speaker 1: Know, I stood there and just looked at the guys and while they're all hurting, I think, you know, for some of those guys that maybe weren't sure if they believed, I think a lot of them now are starting to believe, you know, and I think that's very powerful. I thought we played more physical. I thought we played in my opinion, We weren't playing together as a team the way I envisioned it, the way I envisioned guys celebrating together, the way I envisioned guys cheering each other on, the way I envisioned our team, offense, defense, special teams coming together in the past two games. I didn't feel it. It wasn't good enough for me. I thought today was the best that it's been. I thought we played with more energy. We had each other's back on offense and defense. And even up until the end, guys were up on the sideline. And those things were very important to me. And today we were definitely better than we'd been, and we have to be.
00:04:25
Speaker 2: So I just felt coming away from this game that they checked a lot of the boxes I was looking for. Obviously, I wanted to see them finish that win and shock the world and get a big victory that put the build and the program on notice in terms of, hey, maybe they're going to arrive sooner than we thought. We couldn't finish in the fourth quarter, but it was so much more of a complete game than what we've seen for the first two weeks. And then to hear Halfley say that and the belief and confidence that I saw in the building today, whether guys coming off the field after a big play or the support on the sidelines, What he just said makes so much sense to me because I saw it. I was there with my eyeballs locked, eyes locked on what we saw in that field. And my next prognostication, which I thought we'd get growth this week, is that we'll see this team take another step here going forward and just continue the trajectory hopefully as the year goes on and see this team continue to buy in and get belief from a young squad that is getting better every single week. Now, as far as some of the things that led to the Chiefs' success, two familiar woes showed up in this game. A blown coverage on the opening play on that tight end, like wind back throw from the play-action look, and the penalties for the offense once they got into plus territory. But they did overcome the fouls on that first drive, and they finished that drive, right? A 17-play, 91-yard, 9-minute, 20-second drive where it was execution and bully ball. Now, that did continue on some later drives. But first, I want to talk about the defense and where they kind of had some issues early in the game, struggling with the same things we saw last week with the eye candy and the false keys and the misdirection of these offenses with these longtime OC head coach, play caller, quarterback combinations that they can get to. We were jumping things, overplaying them a little bit too much, and the Chiefs were letting them play right into it. And that did get the Chiefs in the end zone on their first two drives. And then we saw some of the other things that came up within those drives where there was a legal contact call on third down that extends the drives, a drive and negates Jordan Brooks sack that would have forced a field goal. But other than that, it was the motion, the misdirection and creating overplay that I thought got the dolphins defense a little bit over their skis early, but they bounced back from that. And as far as some of the play action stuff that you're going to keep seeing that, right, they're going to, they're going to do this because until Miami proves they can stop it, that they're going to teams are going to keep doing what's worked against them. I think a huge part of that is just the lack of pass rush. Teams are not threatened enough to get out of this slow developing action. And it makes life so brutal on the back seven as they try to process three levels of options that can play out for four to five seconds on a snap. We just got to keep thinking about how to button up some of these self-inflicted wounds. But like these are things that I think you will see get corrected as we go along here with one of the youngest rosters the NFL has ever seen. Let's play some more sound here on Jeff Halfling, the defense bouncing back.
00:07:10
Speaker 3: And the fight they showed in this game.
00:07:11
Speaker 1: I think they took a deep breath. We dialed it in. We did our job more on every single play. And, you know, really for the next three quarters after that, we played good football. We had the fourth down stop. We had the takeaway.
00:07:23
Speaker 4: Held into a field goal when we needed to on defense.
00:07:26
Speaker 1: And I think there was a lot of improvement today versus last week. But certainly it needs to be even better than that.
00:07:35
Speaker 2: And that's the part that has me fired up is this– ideally is the worst version you see of that and the growth is already so tangible and it's been incremental but it's tangible and if it continues that way then i think we're going to be in for a really fun uh for a really fun ride here going forward i had a whole breakdown of bobby slowick's game written down but i i'm going to move it to the takeaways portion i want to go back to coach halfley who talked about just this game in general here this is a first segment soundbite and i don't want to break into the critical moment breakdowns before i get to it so here is jeff halfley just talking about what his team showed today I love.
00:08:06
Speaker 1: The way our team responded just in general today, to be honest with you. And, you know, that's why this one hurts. It's a four-point game in the third quarter. It's a seven-point game with us driving after that backed up. And we got the penalty to get the ball in the 50. I mean, I felt like we were right there, you know. So the way they fought, especially even if you go back all the way to the game, they hit us on a big play to start the game and they scored.
00:08:33
Speaker 4: And then the defense just.
00:08:34
Speaker 1: Really stepped up for the majority of the rest of the game, which was inspiring how hard they played all the way to the end. And, um, the offensive line, I thought picked it up. I thought Malik made some really good plays. And then I thought, Ali, I thought Ali had a nice game, had some big runs and, you know, Malik Washington is a guy we've been counting on to be able to do some of that stuff. So I, I give him credit, but I do give our guys a lot of credit for, um, for just the way they just kept responding throughout the game.
00:09:02
Speaker 4: I think it's, uh, That's really important. As we build our foundation, you've got to be able to do that. I'm proud of him.
00:09:09
Speaker 2: I love that he says that with a somewhat dejected tone in his voice because he wants to win the expectations to win football games. Although some of us on the outside, as far as fans go, because I do this for a job, and my job is the Miami Dolphins, but I'm still a diehard fan of this team. I came away from this game, from my fan perspective, fired up about the future because I think you're starting to see that stuff click into place here. And that's why I can come on here with an optimistic tone and tell you that I see things heading in the right direction, hopefully. But Coach Halfley can say those things while kind of doing it under abated breath as he talks about the disappointment of the result. And he's obviously entitled to that feeling for the next 24 hours or however long that takes, you know, to kind of get over a loss. So I think all that's worth covering. Let's go ahead and pivot here quickly within the same segment. No, actually check that. Let's pause down for a break, come back and break down all the critical moments. Essentially, they're all third down. here. I have a bunch of them to get to. That's next on the Draft Time Podcast brought to you by AutoNation. All right, back here on a Sunday night Chiefs Dolphins recap podcast, 24-10. The Chiefs take this one here at Hard Rock Stadium. And it was nice to have I've got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 critical moment breakdowns here for you guys. The last couple of weeks, it's been maybe half that because the games have gotten away late in the contest. So now we have a chance to talk about some critical plays and what happened on those. So on the opening drive of the game for the Dolphins, third and eight at the plus 25 yard line, 5.54 to go. And Malik converts a ball to Ryan Miller. And this is why one of the things I wanted to see from him get better. And I thought it got a lot better today. And I'm excited to watch it go forward here and consider this like Rob Leonard is looks like a demon on the Raiders defensive staff. We know what the Niners defense can do under Raheem Morris. And then Steve Spagnuolo today, no one in the league has had a, they say soft landing, a harder landing than the first three games than the DCs and the defenses that we've seen Malik Willis face. And he's come out of it on the other side without, without great numbers, but the trajectory and the improvement is what I'm looking at here. And I'm, I'm, I'm encouraged by it because of stuff like this.
00:11:14
Speaker 3: There's a, out route to Ryan Miller.
00:11:16
Speaker 2: And I had a really good vantage point on this third and eight where I could see Malik kind of slide to his left and buy some extra time against some pressure down the middle. And he throws the football to a spot well before Ryan Miller snaps off the route and he goes down to the ground and makes a sliding catch, a big time conversion there. And that was the case all day long. Eight for 16 with the Dolphins on these third down moments. A third nine, same drive, plus 14 yard line. Ollie Gordon inside zone read off of a trap concept. So it was zone read, but a trap. I shouldn't say inside zone. where they push the pile ahead for a first down. On that trap play, that's been a successful look. They kind of spread them out, and they run the inside trap, and you get some big bodies down blocking on linebackers. Invites the defensive tackles to overrun the play. You get big blocks down the field from Paul and Proctor to kind of seal that thing off, and Ollie Gordon gets a first down in the red zone on third and nine. Love to see that makeup of your football team. Ensuing drive after the Dolphins punch it in two plays later. a third one for the Chiefs at the plus eight yard line, 14-14 to go in the second quarter. And Jordan Brooks comes clean down the A gap, as he so frequently does on those blitz reps. And he sacks Patrick Mahomes, but they throw a flag on Michael Taft for illegal contact. The flag was going to be on Casey for an illegal rub. And actually, you'll hear Jeff Halfley in his press conference say that he thought the same thing there because Kelsey did go run essentially a pick.
00:12:33
Speaker 3: He wasn't running a route on that play.
00:12:35
Speaker 2: Post up at the goal line and kind of put his hands over his midsection to set a pick like you do in basketball. And I liked the way Michael Taft plastered, but they throw the flag on him. Chiefs drive continues and finishes in the end zone. So a four-point play on that one. And then the Dolphins, the next drive, fourth and four at the plus 49-yard line, 9.30 to go in the game. I love the decision to go for it and to be aggressive because especially with the Chiefs scoring touchdowns in their first two drives, you had to match points. And Miami goes 0-3 on fourth down in this game. But I think the approach was a smart one because of who you're facing on the other side of the football. but it's an incomplete pass, right? And they pressure it by bringing seven with two men behind it. And the pressure gets a free run in the B gap. And here's why I can evaluate a Malik Willis incomplete pass and say, I like the process because the ball went right behind the blitz, which is where it's supposed to go. But he throws it to Malik Washington. It's tight coverage. You can't get separation and it winds up going incomplete. But you can see on the play, the process for the quarterback is sound. And it's an improvement on what you've seen so far through the first two games. The next critical moment breakdown was a Chiefs drive on the ensuing possession. Fourth and one at the plus 11 with six and a half to go. And we get back-to-back run stuffs on a third and one and then a fourth and one with the Miami front that just dominated on both those plays.
00:13:49
Speaker 3: They won the point of attack.
00:13:51
Speaker 2: I thought Jordan Phillips bounced back in a big way after a slow start in this game. But across the board, Kenneth Walker just had nowhere to go on two runs. I want to check the tape before I really break down who was in on the play and keying it there, but I did see Phillips with a win. I saw Brooks and Rodriguez crashing. Those guys got after it. Kenneth Walker had 70 yards in this game. He had 286 in the first two games of the season. Miami came into this game allowing 3.5 yards per carry on the season, which was sixth in the National Football League. The Chiefs ran the ball for 3.5 yards per carry today, and Ken Walker 3.9, a big drop in production from him as this Dolphins' run defense continues to look like they're figuring some stuff out. Dolphins next drive, fourth and two at the plus 37, four and a half minutes to go. We get a defensive holding call on a deep shot to Kevin Coleman that extends the drive. My only analysis here was that Malik got out of the pocket when pressure got in there. And that was, we saw that all throughout the game. I mean, nine carries for 56 yards. He had plenty of plays where he got wide and attacked the line of scrimmage with his eyes down the field. And I just want to keep on harping on this because I've mentioned it so many times. Let this thing develop here and let this chemistry build because Malik is very, he has a very rare ability to create and get away from pressure. And the more time that he spends with Douglas and Bell and Coleman and Malik Washington and Greg Dulcich and Will Kaczmarek, the more they're going to get on the same page on these scramble plays. And the more you're going to get big explosive splash plays, which goes back to the whole Malik, you know, dialogue to begin with, you keep getting these splash plays from this quarterback.
00:15:17
Speaker 3: That's the most important thing right now.
00:15:18
Speaker 2: He's going to have time and, You're going to hear Jeff Halfley a little bit talk about Malik's growth and how it's still his first year starting as a quarterback compared to where he's making spot starts in Green Bay and in Tennessee. It's a different animal for him. It's still his first year as the full-time starter, and he's already shown you so much growth in the first three games. It's only going to get better. Trust me on that. And on this play, you saw an example of that to create an explosive with a holding call, I should say, but a chance for an explosive. that he couldn't quite connect to on Kevin Coleman, but it did move the chains ahead of a Dolphins field goal. They didn't score on that drive.
00:15:49
Speaker 4: Check that.
00:15:50
Speaker 3: They ended up turning it over on downs.
00:15:51
Speaker 2: But I also want to talk about the Jacob Rodriguez pick. We'll do that in the takeaways portion. I broke down the Ollie Gordon catch, or did I not?
00:15:58
Speaker 3: No, I haven't done that yet. We'll talk about that in the Bobby Slowik takeaways portion as well.
00:16:02
Speaker 2: The next critical moment for the Chiefs in the third quarter, a third and eight ball at the minus 38-yard line. The play before the play was Jacob Rodriguez on second down, fitting up a Kenneth Walker run where the defensive tackles did a great job parting the gap for him. And he just drives into that a gap and fits it downhill and drives Kenneth Walker into the ground. What an impressive tackle that was. But on the third down, we get coverage and pressure where it's plastered on the back end and chop Robinson kind of resets the pocket by winning the corner. And forcing Mahomes up and out. And then Zach Seeler from that position can get width. And because he does, the guard has to grab onto his jersey and hold him.
00:16:40
Speaker 3: Coverage is good. Ball goes incomplete. Decline the flag. Get the ball back.
00:16:44
Speaker 2: Down by four with eight minutes left in the third quarter. Pretty good spot to be against a tough Chiefs team. On that ensuing drive, a third and six. A bit of a wrinkle off all the Chris Bell stacks we're going to talk about here in one second. But they did a good job of lifting coverage with Chris Bell as the point man on so many of those stacks. to create opportunities for other guys around him. But on this particular play, hey, Chris, go beat the sixth pick in the draft, Mansour Delane, on a slant route for 12 yards.
00:17:10
Speaker 3: And he does.
00:17:11
Speaker 2: And it's a perfect ball from Malik Willis. I was so impressed by Malik and Chris Bell's connection. More on that here in just a moment. And then later on that drive, another third and six from the 45-yard line. Malik's one really bad rip of the game to this point, in my opinion, where he tried Malik Washington on a two-beater down the middle. And look, Malik does so much well, but some of this vertical stuff is not really his bread and butter. We saw a deep shot into the end zone to him that went incomplete. This one, when you have split field safeties, you want to try to run a target down the middle of that. And there was a Tampa linebacker, which means Tampa 2 with a linebacker carries that vertical seam so the safeties can get width and cover the deep part of the outside portion of the field. Well, Malik Washington is 5'8, and so his ability to run that route is difficult because it kind of reduces the window for the quarterback. And Malik tried to fit it in there, but he tries to put it up high because the Tampa linebacker is really well covered underneath.
00:18:01
Speaker 3: And it goes way too high and should have been picked off, but it was dropped.
00:18:04
Speaker 2: So fortunately, that was a Dolphins loss on the third down, but ultimately a win because it wasn't a turnover. The Chiefs ensuing drive, third and five at their own five-yard line, roughing the passer and defensive holding call on Zach Seeler, which I know the chop Robinson call kind of got the headlines there, but it was going to be a first down anyway because Zach on the pick stunt, which is what he does so well, grabbed a hold of a jersey and got flagged for a tough break there. Would have had them punting out of their own end zone late in the third quarter in a four-point game. Probably get the football back around midfield, if not better at somewhere. It's a tough one to swallow there. And then the sequence at the start of the fourth quarter that made the Chiefs go up 17-10 was another big Dolphins win. After a first and goal, we get a great edge from Willie Gay after he got beat by Noah Gray on that pass on the sidelines. But he wins the edge and creates a six-yard tackle for loss and a little swing route. Then Chop Robinson has an outright pass rush win that forces a throwaway, nearly gets a sack. And then Zach Seeler beats a block and wins against the screen. And that makes it three Chiefs points in the last four drives to keep us in the game. And then in the fourth quarter, down by seven, third and sixth at our own 32-yard line, eight minutes to go. Malik Willis, another scramble first down for 11 yards. Did a great job on the offensive line, setting the pocket on that play. And then just Malik doing Malik things down the middle to move the chains. He got two first downs on that critical fourth quarter drive with his legs. That's an added element you're going to see this year and into the future when it comes to those two-minute drives. And the more we kind of build around this guy, the more you're going to see him flourish in that regard. And then a fourth and five, six minutes to go. This is kind of the whole game. They spring a leak on a pressure. We turn the ball over. Couldn't pick it up. The hot was plastered. Malik tried to find Kevin Coleman on that kind of fadeaway throw. It just wasn't really good sequence in terms of what the call you had against that pressure was because we just weren't ready to beat it it goes incomplete and that was kind of it from there so a tough way to end a spirited effort we kind of heard the downtrodden tone of coach Halfley but you know he'll have these guys back up by Monday ready to go into Minnesota let's pause for one more break right there come back and talk about the standouts and the five takeaways that's all next drive time podcast brought to you by AutoNation.
00:20:12
Speaker 1: Malik's a tough guy. He made some huge throws in the game. He had some big runs in the game, even up until the very end. He was fighting. He didn't slide. He took another big shot. Malik's getting better, and he's going to improve. I think sometimes we forget that this is his first year really being a starting quarterback, which is way different than coming in at spot duty and playing a few games. And I thought he improved today, and I'm excited to see the film.
00:20:37
Speaker 2: And, again, he can get better next week. I, too, am very excited to watch the film because I think that he played really well in terms of the stuff I wanted to see. I know about the creation and the playmaking, but I thought there was a lot more on structure, beating the team before the snap in this game from Malik Willis than we saw in the first two games, and that should be encouraging to Dolphins fans everywhere. So our individual stance today on offense, Malik leads the way. I got pushback on this from Twitter. I saw a bunch of folks talking about the opposite of how he played. I don't see it that way. I don't care about box score. I don't care about that kind of stuff. The film and the process and the decision-making, the accuracy– what you have to deal with around you, all that stuff is more important to me. I thought he was on time and in rhythm for a large part of this game. He was executing some nifty screen and play fake games. He was getting out on the move and creating, throwing with anticipation and accuracy to the middle part of the field. He had a no-look ball to Will Kaczmarek that really influenced the defense that got called back on a penalty. That ball to Ryan Miller I talked about just barely missed that deep shot touchdown to Chris Bell, probably hit the fingertips off him on there. He was in command of the game early. That ball to Chris Bell for 44 yards, That was a thing of beauty, man, right on him out of the break. He just kept executing a variety of plays, had the one bad miss that caught a break on the drop pick, made some bad decisions late in the game, but that's kind of been the MO where it's like once the scoreboard kind of gets away, we see maybe the production slow down, and I think that should be instructive to how you view his progress. As we stay tight in these games, he's been kind of the reason for that in terms of keeping the offense on schedule and getting some momentum and putting together these long drives. Malik Willis, I am Today, what I thought was a big step in the right direction from Lake Willis, and I will push back on that against anybody who argues otherwise, and I'll watch the film to verify that on the show tomorrow and talk about the ups and downs for him.
00:22:17
Speaker 3: I'll definitely do that.
00:22:18
Speaker 2: I thought Caden Proctor was awesome. The film will help me more because it's hard to watch the entire offensive line for a whole game. That first drive was a master class, man. The Ollie Gordon third down conversion, then the key block on that one. the key block on the touchdown. Then he kicks out the end man on the line of scrimmage and then throws him out to Hialeah, then tackles Ollie over the goal line. That's the kind of bully ball, the kind of makeup and mentality you can build a program around with Caden Proctor, your first round pick, the first pick in the John Eric Sullivan era. Speaking of Ollie Gordon, the stats weren't great, but again, we don't care about box score on this show. I thought he got the opportunity and he ran hard. I love the way he finished and drove the pile throughout the game. The catch that he made. Hey, Ollie, if that's in your bag, among things you can do in this league, then you can be a dude in this league. And I'm excited about what he has to offer here. And what looks like it could be an extended opportunity for him and Jalen, right? Because we did hear from Jeff Halfley after the game that he was not super optimistic on the outlook of Devon HN, but we'll let more information come out as we get into the week and find out what happened to Devon HN on the injury. Patrick Paul had so many impressive blocks of all variety outside the numbers getting wide width in those, in those blocking schemes in the running game. solid one-on-one pass protection, downhill block on a trap. I thought Patrick Paul played well. I thought Chris Bell, man. We'll talk about kind of the usage of him here in a second, but the catch and run, the 44-yard gain is a great example of what he can do, man. That speed at 6'3, 220 pounds to run away from the defense, and then just the way the plan kind of revolved around his physicality, that's a big deal. We'll talk about that more in a second, but he made some tough catches. I'm such a big fan of Chris Bell, man. He and Caleb Douglas have me pretty excited about the future. Greg Dulcich had some up and down moments, but I thought the play on the contested football kind of put him over the top into this category. There was also some big denting blocks off the edge in the running game. I want to get a better look at the offensive line before I kind of go in depth on what they did in this game, but I thought it was pretty good watching it live. Defensively, I thought Seeler had a slow start but came on strong. Early on, they kind of took it to him at the point of attack and got him off the spot, but he bounced back. I mean, his pass rush on the Mahomes pick was critical where he forced an errant throw. Then his pass rush on the opening drive of the third quarter draws a holding call that gets us off the field again. Seeler kind of came to life after those first two drives in this game. Jordan Brooks, the sack was such a nice rush and finish. But then just in general, he kept on flying in, making sticks, playing wide all over the field. Jacob Rodriguez, I thought, started slow too. The entire defense did. But then after he struggled to kind of get over the top of some of those blocks, there were some walker runs where he couldn't get over a down block, but then he got it going and was awesome.
00:24:47
Speaker 3: The pick to locate that football.
00:24:49
Speaker 2: You watch him drop step and pivot and run to the football all in one motion. That is effort that you're never going to teach or train. He just does it because it's who he is. And it leads to a big takeaway here, his first as a pro. Then that tackle for loss on the first drive of the second half, thing of beauty. Jacob Rodriguez, man, he is the real deal. And if you haven't heard his press comments after the game, go check it out. This guy's going to be a captain here for a long, long time in Miami. Josh Uche, his rush lane integrity, his play against the run was awesome. Again, from the second drive on, thought he played a good game. Correction-wise, offense, I think Malik Washington, just there were some key spots where he struggled to separate against one-on-one coverage. The effort on the touchdown that was so awesome, they got called back. was negated because he didn't get set on the shift and that winds up costing us. I also tip of the cap for doing some of the stuff for the running back position that he did today. That's kind of a nice tip of the cap to what he can do in terms of his versatility. But in terms of creating separation and being a key guy in the offense, I just think we need more there. Ryan Miller missed a key block on an Ollie Gordon run where if he seals it, Ollie had all kinds of space.
00:25:51
Speaker 3: So I wanted to make that mention there.
00:25:52
Speaker 2: And then defensively, As far as the corrections go, the biggest thing to me is just the lack of pass rush and the ripple effect that has. I talked about it earlier, but the comfort of a play caller and quarterback when there's not a consistent threat of pressure or negative plays just expands the call sheet for the offense. And when that's Reed Mahomes, it's going to make life tough. Now, as far as the corrections, I thought Zeke Biggers was out of his gap a lot in this game, was not planting the flag on double teams. Trey Smith and Creed Humphrey are tough. but they drove him off the ball seven yards and put him on the ground on that Ken Walker touchdown run. Michael Taft, he bit so hard in that opening play to Travis Kelsey where he kind of got lost in space. Also had the critical foul down there and missed some other plays in coverage. I thought kind of jumped off the tape. Julius Wood got lost in space on a third and one on a Chiefs second drive completion. He reroutes the man, but didn't kind of make sure that he had the pass off necessary to the split field safety who was never going to be leveraged enough to get over there. That one made the notes here. And then Chop Robinson, they went after him at the point of attack and did a good job moving him off the football, giving Ken Walker two-way goes. Those are not a good place to be against that running back. But I thought his pass rush did heat up as the game went on. Hopefully something to build on there for Chop Robinson. My five takeaways, the fight no matter what. Look, this statement might not be for some of y'all, but I'm proud of this team, man. The fight, they don't quit, and it paid off a few times today. To bounce back from the illegal contact call that negates the Brooks sack to make a stand on the ensuing drive The offense sustaining long drives and strained to get so many third-down conversions and fighting on fourth down to get those wins. And then the Rodriguez pick. They're on their heels time after time, the Chiefs are. Zach Seeler unfurls his best pass rush of the day, and Rodriguez runs to the football and makes a diving pick. And then watch the entire unit go find blocks. I had fun watching these guys fight today, man. I loved, loved, loved what we saw after the fourth down stop. Guys losing their minds in elation. They're pumping the crowd up there. pounding their chest. Jeff Halfway's encouraging them on saying, hell yeah, boys.
00:27:52
Speaker 3: Probably an F yeah, but we'll take it. It gave me goosebumps, dude.
00:27:55
Speaker 2: I think you saw the vision in terms of culture building and the physical toughness of this football team in the first half. And when we came off the field at the break, we had guys that were like skipping into the locker room, feeling themselves, guys pumping up the crowd. And of course, a course of cheers from the fans there at Hard Rock Stadium. That can fuel this football team, man. These 21-year-old, 22-year-old kids can find belief in themselves. And if you get that this year, then watch out, man. Like the future is so bright. I've been super sentimental lately. I think it's a midlife crisis thing, to be honest with you. Seeing my kids grow up so fast and me and my wife's time passing us by as life just kind of gets busier and busier here. And I keep on thinking about all the stuff that I'm worried about missing out on. Well, it's kind of got me thinking about this football team and just how proud I am to watch them play for each other and keep bouncing back after moments of adversity throughout the season and within this game.
00:28:46
Speaker 3: Let's go back to Jeff Halfley one more time to talk more about that.
00:28:48
Speaker 1: You know, and that's the part that hurts the most because it's, you know, against, I think one of the best teams in the NFL and it's 14 to seven and we have the ball watching those young guys make those plays and just continue to fight back. It's just, you know, it, It doesn't feel great right now because I want to win in everything that we do. But I think if you look at the big picture, I think it just kind of shows you where we're heading with some of these guys.
00:29:14
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know how you can't get fired up over that soundbite there. Number two, Malik showing us what he can do. And again, I don't care about box score. I don't care about evaluations besides my own. I was texting with Juice on Saturday about the game. The thing I told him I wanted to see most was for Malik to show everybody the stuff that he's capable of. And I thought we got that today. The playmaking is there every single week. But throwing the ball in behind the blitzes, the accurate footballs with no looks, putting the ball on the upfield shoulder. And think about this, all of this without a Chan or Caleb Douglas, or, you know, your top back and your leading receiver. He did that with a skeleton crew of skill players today and a receiver playing running back. Number three, the mistakes of a young team were evident once again. Some key penalties in key spots, not getting set on a shift that leads to a penalty that takes a touchdown off the board, a game-tying touchdown for that matter. We bear hug Travis Kelsey on a third down that leads to a sack, and they score four more points than they should have off that play.
00:30:06
Speaker 3: That's what?
00:30:07
Speaker 2: That's an eight-point swing right there on two plays and penalties. There were special teams, you know, gaffes where he couldn't, two fouls on special teams. There were some penalties once we got into plus territory, just like Bobby Slowik talked about in his press conference this week. or in the red zone to open the third quarter. We got into the red zone. It was a tackle for loss, a penalty, then another tackle for loss. Those things are hard to overcome. And when we start cleaning those up, I think this team is just going to get more and more competitive here as we go forward. My fourth takeaway is the offensive sequencing, the mixture on offense, and finding a bit of an identity offensively today. I felt Bobby Sloak did a hell of a job to create some advantageous situations for the offense. We saw some fun design, especially to help the early down success rate. For example, to start the second drive of the game, we dial up 21 personnel. It's two backs, one tight end. We flex the fullback and the running back and the tight end out to the boundary, and you put Malik Washington in the backfield. And from that, they motion the running back, Ollie Gordon, over to the strong side. It takes a man out of the count, and then you get two-on-two with Herman and Kaz, and you throw a swing to that side of the field, and they both make the blocks, and it goes for nine yards. It's a really good way to start a drive and put yourself in second and one right away. And then I love the adjustments in the second half. Open up in heavy personnel. Six offensive linemen, 21. Again, two backs, one tight end.
00:31:24
Speaker 3: Eye formation.
00:31:24
Speaker 2: You get a two-yard run on that formation because that's a running formation. But then you keep it out there and you run a play-action throw back to the opposite side of the field. And Malik Willis throws this 55-yard bomb that goes for 42 yards to Greg Dulcich. Then the conversion to Gordon. Another cool design where they stack Ollie behind Chris Bell and run double slants to get Gordon open. He just makes a play. the third and five midway in the third quarter, we get Willis to Miller, a completion to move the chains, where once again, Miller stacked behind Bell. When you talk about a stack, it's a receiver on the line of scrimmage and the receiver right behind him to give him a free release. And Bell was doing this all game long where he was clearing out space with his physicality because you can't press that guy. He's too fast and too big and too strong. And it creates a chance for Ryan Miller to run his route and draft off of that with nothing but green grass available. So sequencing, mixing up personnel looks, I thought was in his bag from Bobby Slowick And I mentioned this in the critical breakdowns. I just love the way they use Bell to beat that press. That was a key for me, was to beat this Chiefs press coverage. And Bell did a good job helping create space on top of going four for 64 in this game in terms of his receiving ability. But then you can also throw to him as they try to combat the switch release. It doesn't take much for him to get inside access. So for this guy to be a focal point, it kind of showed you what you can do to design your offense around a player like Chris Bell. Let's go back to Jeff Halfley one more time. Talk about what Bobby Sloak did in this game.
00:32:46
Speaker 4: I know the score doesn't show this.
00:32:48
Speaker 1: I thought Bobby called a really good game. He had, in my opinion, one of the better defenses with one of the better defensive coordinators.
00:32:55
Speaker 4: He had them on the ropes a bunch today.
00:32:57
Speaker 1: With all the pressures that we were going to see from them and all the zero looks, we had to get the ball out of his hand.
00:33:03
Speaker 4: So I thought it was good play calling and good execution. But that was the reason for it.
00:33:07
Speaker 2: And then number five, just the defense rising to the occasion time and time again. They kept on fighting defensively. and making plays right to the end. The offense only scored three points after that long opening touchdown drive, and these guys just kept on giving the ball back to the offense, which is such a nice turnaround after the first two weeks and then the first two drives of this game. They found something, and I'll be tracking that to see how they build off that next week.
00:33:27
Speaker 3: So there you go. That's the postgame recap pod. Film review tomorrow.
00:33:31
Speaker 2: In the meantime, you all please be sure to subscribe, rate, review the show, follow me on social at Wingful NFL, the team at Miami Dolphins. Check out the YouTube channel for Dolphins HQ, media availabilities, and so much more. And last but not least, MiamiDolphins.com. Until next time, fins up! Caroline Cameron and Willow Daddy's coming home.
Speaker 1: It doesn't feel great right now because I want to win in everything that we do, but I think if you look at the big picture, I think it just kind of shows you where we're heading with some of these guys.
00:00:13
Speaker 2: Hey, yo, what is up, Dolph fans, and welcome to the Draft Time Podcast. On today's show, a spirited effort comes up just short against the Chiefs as they seal it in the fourth quarter by a final of 24-10. We're going to break it all down with the immediate reaction, the critical moments, breakdowns, offensive and defensive standouts, and five takeaways on the Sunday night recap edition of the Draft Time Podcast.
00:00:35
Speaker 1: Let's go!
00:00:36
Speaker 3: Well, that was a fun football game to watch, in my opinion.
00:00:41
Speaker 2: I think, you know, the Dolphins were right in it to the very end and just couldn't quite come up with the one or two plays they needed to find a big upset win over the Kansas City Chiefs here at home as the Chiefs win this one 24-10. The yardage tolls were close. The time of possession was close in this game. Miami ran 20 more plays than the Chiefs did in this game. But the number one takeaway that I'm going to have from this as we get into the immediate reaction of the Dolphins' loss to the Chiefs here in Week 3 is the fight and the effort you saw today against one of the NFL's best teams.
00:01:08
Speaker 3: And I write this at halftime.
00:01:10
Speaker 2: I wrote this at halftime before we even knew the results of the game and in a game that we trailed 14-7. But the resilience, the ability to answer the bell, to make plays in the most critical times There were multiple moments in this game that could have gotten away in the first half, but the Dolphins just kept on coming back and playing for each other and making the plays to put the Chiefs on their heels and to feel the heat in this game. I think about the third quarter when Patrick Mahomes takes a shot in the end zone on a third down that was almost a punt situation from their own end zone, leading by four points in the game. That would have been ball and plus territory down by four had that flag not been thrown in that spot, but it is, and the Dolphins wind up not being able to close it out but they were right there in arm's reach from the chiefs and there are obviously a lot of things to still improve to clean up on to work on but i think you got a very good taste of what this year is about when you hear solely and half talk about setting your foundation that's the energy that if you can sustain it and you keep getting these deep draft classes which we've already seen several guys from this year's class look like the real deal and as you heard off the top there from Jeff Halfley, and you teach them, hey, all these new pieces this year, next year, and beyond. Hey, this is Miami Dolphins football. This is how we're going to do it around here. And if you're not going to do it that way, then you can find the door. And if you're not going to fall into that mindset, you're just not going to be here. And for this team to put forth that showing after a disappointing two-game West Coast swing that they lost by 14 and by 21, to show that fight, that told me a lot. And then it just continued out of the break. And we saw them play a good half in Las Vegas, a good half in San Francisco. And today, I would say three and a half quarters of pretty good football from your Dolphins team here. And I wrote this in the late third quarter. We just kept converting third downs, wearing down the Chiefs defense, getting our deep shots in there, successful runs.
00:03:05
Speaker 3: This could have an impact.
00:03:07
Speaker 2: On the Chiefs conditioning down the stretch if the game was closer, but it didn't go that way. And the defense, they just bowed up and kept on giving the football back to the offense. I mean, after the first two touchdowns, we go interception, turnover on downs, end of half, punt, and the energy just kept rising and rising. I think you saw this team find belief in itself today. And though the results weren't just, or just on the short end of it, I think this could carry over quite a bit. Let's play this soundbite from Halfley. I wrote that before I heard this, but it kind of backs up my point when I'm talking, you.
00:03:38
Speaker 1: Know, I stood there and just looked at the guys and while they're all hurting, I think, you know, for some of those guys that maybe weren't sure if they believed, I think a lot of them now are starting to believe, you know, and I think that's very powerful. I thought we played more physical. I thought we played in my opinion, We weren't playing together as a team the way I envisioned it, the way I envisioned guys celebrating together, the way I envisioned guys cheering each other on, the way I envisioned our team, offense, defense, special teams coming together in the past two games. I didn't feel it. It wasn't good enough for me. I thought today was the best that it's been. I thought we played with more energy. We had each other's back on offense and defense. And even up until the end, guys were up on the sideline. And those things were very important to me. And today we were definitely better than we'd been, and we have to be.
00:04:25
Speaker 2: So I just felt coming away from this game that they checked a lot of the boxes I was looking for. Obviously, I wanted to see them finish that win and shock the world and get a big victory that put the build and the program on notice in terms of, hey, maybe they're going to arrive sooner than we thought. We couldn't finish in the fourth quarter, but it was so much more of a complete game than what we've seen for the first two weeks. And then to hear Halfley say that and the belief and confidence that I saw in the building today, whether guys coming off the field after a big play or the support on the sidelines, What he just said makes so much sense to me because I saw it. I was there with my eyeballs locked, eyes locked on what we saw in that field. And my next prognostication, which I thought we'd get growth this week, is that we'll see this team take another step here going forward and just continue the trajectory hopefully as the year goes on and see this team continue to buy in and get belief from a young squad that is getting better every single week. Now, as far as some of the things that led to the Chiefs' success, two familiar woes showed up in this game. A blown coverage on the opening play on that tight end, like wind back throw from the play-action look, and the penalties for the offense once they got into plus territory. But they did overcome the fouls on that first drive, and they finished that drive, right? A 17-play, 91-yard, 9-minute, 20-second drive where it was execution and bully ball. Now, that did continue on some later drives. But first, I want to talk about the defense and where they kind of had some issues early in the game, struggling with the same things we saw last week with the eye candy and the false keys and the misdirection of these offenses with these longtime OC head coach, play caller, quarterback combinations that they can get to. We were jumping things, overplaying them a little bit too much, and the Chiefs were letting them play right into it. And that did get the Chiefs in the end zone on their first two drives. And then we saw some of the other things that came up within those drives where there was a legal contact call on third down that extends the drives, a drive and negates Jordan Brooks sack that would have forced a field goal. But other than that, it was the motion, the misdirection and creating overplay that I thought got the dolphins defense a little bit over their skis early, but they bounced back from that. And as far as some of the play action stuff that you're going to keep seeing that, right, they're going to, they're going to do this because until Miami proves they can stop it, that they're going to teams are going to keep doing what's worked against them. I think a huge part of that is just the lack of pass rush. Teams are not threatened enough to get out of this slow developing action. And it makes life so brutal on the back seven as they try to process three levels of options that can play out for four to five seconds on a snap. We just got to keep thinking about how to button up some of these self-inflicted wounds. But like these are things that I think you will see get corrected as we go along here with one of the youngest rosters the NFL has ever seen. Let's play some more sound here on Jeff Halfling, the defense bouncing back.
00:07:10
Speaker 3: And the fight they showed in this game.
00:07:11
Speaker 1: I think they took a deep breath. We dialed it in. We did our job more on every single play. And, you know, really for the next three quarters after that, we played good football. We had the fourth down stop. We had the takeaway.
00:07:23
Speaker 4: Held into a field goal when we needed to on defense.
00:07:26
Speaker 1: And I think there was a lot of improvement today versus last week. But certainly it needs to be even better than that.
00:07:35
Speaker 2: And that's the part that has me fired up is this– ideally is the worst version you see of that and the growth is already so tangible and it's been incremental but it's tangible and if it continues that way then i think we're going to be in for a really fun uh for a really fun ride here going forward i had a whole breakdown of bobby slowick's game written down but i i'm going to move it to the takeaways portion i want to go back to coach halfley who talked about just this game in general here this is a first segment soundbite and i don't want to break into the critical moment breakdowns before i get to it so here is jeff halfley just talking about what his team showed today I love.
00:08:06
Speaker 1: The way our team responded just in general today, to be honest with you. And, you know, that's why this one hurts. It's a four-point game in the third quarter. It's a seven-point game with us driving after that backed up. And we got the penalty to get the ball in the 50. I mean, I felt like we were right there, you know. So the way they fought, especially even if you go back all the way to the game, they hit us on a big play to start the game and they scored.
00:08:33
Speaker 4: And then the defense just.
00:08:34
Speaker 1: Really stepped up for the majority of the rest of the game, which was inspiring how hard they played all the way to the end. And, um, the offensive line, I thought picked it up. I thought Malik made some really good plays. And then I thought, Ali, I thought Ali had a nice game, had some big runs and, you know, Malik Washington is a guy we've been counting on to be able to do some of that stuff. So I, I give him credit, but I do give our guys a lot of credit for, um, for just the way they just kept responding throughout the game.
00:09:02
Speaker 4: I think it's, uh, That's really important. As we build our foundation, you've got to be able to do that. I'm proud of him.
00:09:09
Speaker 2: I love that he says that with a somewhat dejected tone in his voice because he wants to win the expectations to win football games. Although some of us on the outside, as far as fans go, because I do this for a job, and my job is the Miami Dolphins, but I'm still a diehard fan of this team. I came away from this game, from my fan perspective, fired up about the future because I think you're starting to see that stuff click into place here. And that's why I can come on here with an optimistic tone and tell you that I see things heading in the right direction, hopefully. But Coach Halfley can say those things while kind of doing it under abated breath as he talks about the disappointment of the result. And he's obviously entitled to that feeling for the next 24 hours or however long that takes, you know, to kind of get over a loss. So I think all that's worth covering. Let's go ahead and pivot here quickly within the same segment. No, actually check that. Let's pause down for a break, come back and break down all the critical moments. Essentially, they're all third down. here. I have a bunch of them to get to. That's next on the Draft Time Podcast brought to you by AutoNation. All right, back here on a Sunday night Chiefs Dolphins recap podcast, 24-10. The Chiefs take this one here at Hard Rock Stadium. And it was nice to have I've got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 critical moment breakdowns here for you guys. The last couple of weeks, it's been maybe half that because the games have gotten away late in the contest. So now we have a chance to talk about some critical plays and what happened on those. So on the opening drive of the game for the Dolphins, third and eight at the plus 25 yard line, 5.54 to go. And Malik converts a ball to Ryan Miller. And this is why one of the things I wanted to see from him get better. And I thought it got a lot better today. And I'm excited to watch it go forward here and consider this like Rob Leonard is looks like a demon on the Raiders defensive staff. We know what the Niners defense can do under Raheem Morris. And then Steve Spagnuolo today, no one in the league has had a, they say soft landing, a harder landing than the first three games than the DCs and the defenses that we've seen Malik Willis face. And he's come out of it on the other side without, without great numbers, but the trajectory and the improvement is what I'm looking at here. And I'm, I'm, I'm encouraged by it because of stuff like this.
00:11:14
Speaker 3: There's a, out route to Ryan Miller.
00:11:16
Speaker 2: And I had a really good vantage point on this third and eight where I could see Malik kind of slide to his left and buy some extra time against some pressure down the middle. And he throws the football to a spot well before Ryan Miller snaps off the route and he goes down to the ground and makes a sliding catch, a big time conversion there. And that was the case all day long. Eight for 16 with the Dolphins on these third down moments. A third nine, same drive, plus 14 yard line. Ollie Gordon inside zone read off of a trap concept. So it was zone read, but a trap. I shouldn't say inside zone. where they push the pile ahead for a first down. On that trap play, that's been a successful look. They kind of spread them out, and they run the inside trap, and you get some big bodies down blocking on linebackers. Invites the defensive tackles to overrun the play. You get big blocks down the field from Paul and Proctor to kind of seal that thing off, and Ollie Gordon gets a first down in the red zone on third and nine. Love to see that makeup of your football team. Ensuing drive after the Dolphins punch it in two plays later. a third one for the Chiefs at the plus eight yard line, 14-14 to go in the second quarter. And Jordan Brooks comes clean down the A gap, as he so frequently does on those blitz reps. And he sacks Patrick Mahomes, but they throw a flag on Michael Taft for illegal contact. The flag was going to be on Casey for an illegal rub. And actually, you'll hear Jeff Halfley in his press conference say that he thought the same thing there because Kelsey did go run essentially a pick.
00:12:33
Speaker 3: He wasn't running a route on that play.
00:12:35
Speaker 2: Post up at the goal line and kind of put his hands over his midsection to set a pick like you do in basketball. And I liked the way Michael Taft plastered, but they throw the flag on him. Chiefs drive continues and finishes in the end zone. So a four-point play on that one. And then the Dolphins, the next drive, fourth and four at the plus 49-yard line, 9.30 to go in the game. I love the decision to go for it and to be aggressive because especially with the Chiefs scoring touchdowns in their first two drives, you had to match points. And Miami goes 0-3 on fourth down in this game. But I think the approach was a smart one because of who you're facing on the other side of the football. but it's an incomplete pass, right? And they pressure it by bringing seven with two men behind it. And the pressure gets a free run in the B gap. And here's why I can evaluate a Malik Willis incomplete pass and say, I like the process because the ball went right behind the blitz, which is where it's supposed to go. But he throws it to Malik Washington. It's tight coverage. You can't get separation and it winds up going incomplete. But you can see on the play, the process for the quarterback is sound. And it's an improvement on what you've seen so far through the first two games. The next critical moment breakdown was a Chiefs drive on the ensuing possession. Fourth and one at the plus 11 with six and a half to go. And we get back-to-back run stuffs on a third and one and then a fourth and one with the Miami front that just dominated on both those plays.
00:13:49
Speaker 3: They won the point of attack.
00:13:51
Speaker 2: I thought Jordan Phillips bounced back in a big way after a slow start in this game. But across the board, Kenneth Walker just had nowhere to go on two runs. I want to check the tape before I really break down who was in on the play and keying it there, but I did see Phillips with a win. I saw Brooks and Rodriguez crashing. Those guys got after it. Kenneth Walker had 70 yards in this game. He had 286 in the first two games of the season. Miami came into this game allowing 3.5 yards per carry on the season, which was sixth in the National Football League. The Chiefs ran the ball for 3.5 yards per carry today, and Ken Walker 3.9, a big drop in production from him as this Dolphins' run defense continues to look like they're figuring some stuff out. Dolphins next drive, fourth and two at the plus 37, four and a half minutes to go. We get a defensive holding call on a deep shot to Kevin Coleman that extends the drive. My only analysis here was that Malik got out of the pocket when pressure got in there. And that was, we saw that all throughout the game. I mean, nine carries for 56 yards. He had plenty of plays where he got wide and attacked the line of scrimmage with his eyes down the field. And I just want to keep on harping on this because I've mentioned it so many times. Let this thing develop here and let this chemistry build because Malik is very, he has a very rare ability to create and get away from pressure. And the more time that he spends with Douglas and Bell and Coleman and Malik Washington and Greg Dulcich and Will Kaczmarek, the more they're going to get on the same page on these scramble plays. And the more you're going to get big explosive splash plays, which goes back to the whole Malik, you know, dialogue to begin with, you keep getting these splash plays from this quarterback.
00:15:17
Speaker 3: That's the most important thing right now.
00:15:18
Speaker 2: He's going to have time and, You're going to hear Jeff Halfley a little bit talk about Malik's growth and how it's still his first year starting as a quarterback compared to where he's making spot starts in Green Bay and in Tennessee. It's a different animal for him. It's still his first year as the full-time starter, and he's already shown you so much growth in the first three games. It's only going to get better. Trust me on that. And on this play, you saw an example of that to create an explosive with a holding call, I should say, but a chance for an explosive. that he couldn't quite connect to on Kevin Coleman, but it did move the chains ahead of a Dolphins field goal. They didn't score on that drive.
00:15:49
Speaker 4: Check that.
00:15:50
Speaker 3: They ended up turning it over on downs.
00:15:51
Speaker 2: But I also want to talk about the Jacob Rodriguez pick. We'll do that in the takeaways portion. I broke down the Ollie Gordon catch, or did I not?
00:15:58
Speaker 3: No, I haven't done that yet. We'll talk about that in the Bobby Slowik takeaways portion as well.
00:16:02
Speaker 2: The next critical moment for the Chiefs in the third quarter, a third and eight ball at the minus 38-yard line. The play before the play was Jacob Rodriguez on second down, fitting up a Kenneth Walker run where the defensive tackles did a great job parting the gap for him. And he just drives into that a gap and fits it downhill and drives Kenneth Walker into the ground. What an impressive tackle that was. But on the third down, we get coverage and pressure where it's plastered on the back end and chop Robinson kind of resets the pocket by winning the corner. And forcing Mahomes up and out. And then Zach Seeler from that position can get width. And because he does, the guard has to grab onto his jersey and hold him.
00:16:40
Speaker 3: Coverage is good. Ball goes incomplete. Decline the flag. Get the ball back.
00:16:44
Speaker 2: Down by four with eight minutes left in the third quarter. Pretty good spot to be against a tough Chiefs team. On that ensuing drive, a third and six. A bit of a wrinkle off all the Chris Bell stacks we're going to talk about here in one second. But they did a good job of lifting coverage with Chris Bell as the point man on so many of those stacks. to create opportunities for other guys around him. But on this particular play, hey, Chris, go beat the sixth pick in the draft, Mansour Delane, on a slant route for 12 yards.
00:17:10
Speaker 3: And he does.
00:17:11
Speaker 2: And it's a perfect ball from Malik Willis. I was so impressed by Malik and Chris Bell's connection. More on that here in just a moment. And then later on that drive, another third and six from the 45-yard line. Malik's one really bad rip of the game to this point, in my opinion, where he tried Malik Washington on a two-beater down the middle. And look, Malik does so much well, but some of this vertical stuff is not really his bread and butter. We saw a deep shot into the end zone to him that went incomplete. This one, when you have split field safeties, you want to try to run a target down the middle of that. And there was a Tampa linebacker, which means Tampa 2 with a linebacker carries that vertical seam so the safeties can get width and cover the deep part of the outside portion of the field. Well, Malik Washington is 5'8, and so his ability to run that route is difficult because it kind of reduces the window for the quarterback. And Malik tried to fit it in there, but he tries to put it up high because the Tampa linebacker is really well covered underneath.
00:18:01
Speaker 3: And it goes way too high and should have been picked off, but it was dropped.
00:18:04
Speaker 2: So fortunately, that was a Dolphins loss on the third down, but ultimately a win because it wasn't a turnover. The Chiefs ensuing drive, third and five at their own five-yard line, roughing the passer and defensive holding call on Zach Seeler, which I know the chop Robinson call kind of got the headlines there, but it was going to be a first down anyway because Zach on the pick stunt, which is what he does so well, grabbed a hold of a jersey and got flagged for a tough break there. Would have had them punting out of their own end zone late in the third quarter in a four-point game. Probably get the football back around midfield, if not better at somewhere. It's a tough one to swallow there. And then the sequence at the start of the fourth quarter that made the Chiefs go up 17-10 was another big Dolphins win. After a first and goal, we get a great edge from Willie Gay after he got beat by Noah Gray on that pass on the sidelines. But he wins the edge and creates a six-yard tackle for loss and a little swing route. Then Chop Robinson has an outright pass rush win that forces a throwaway, nearly gets a sack. And then Zach Seeler beats a block and wins against the screen. And that makes it three Chiefs points in the last four drives to keep us in the game. And then in the fourth quarter, down by seven, third and sixth at our own 32-yard line, eight minutes to go. Malik Willis, another scramble first down for 11 yards. Did a great job on the offensive line, setting the pocket on that play. And then just Malik doing Malik things down the middle to move the chains. He got two first downs on that critical fourth quarter drive with his legs. That's an added element you're going to see this year and into the future when it comes to those two-minute drives. And the more we kind of build around this guy, the more you're going to see him flourish in that regard. And then a fourth and five, six minutes to go. This is kind of the whole game. They spring a leak on a pressure. We turn the ball over. Couldn't pick it up. The hot was plastered. Malik tried to find Kevin Coleman on that kind of fadeaway throw. It just wasn't really good sequence in terms of what the call you had against that pressure was because we just weren't ready to beat it it goes incomplete and that was kind of it from there so a tough way to end a spirited effort we kind of heard the downtrodden tone of coach Halfley but you know he'll have these guys back up by Monday ready to go into Minnesota let's pause for one more break right there come back and talk about the standouts and the five takeaways that's all next drive time podcast brought to you by AutoNation.
00:20:12
Speaker 1: Malik's a tough guy. He made some huge throws in the game. He had some big runs in the game, even up until the very end. He was fighting. He didn't slide. He took another big shot. Malik's getting better, and he's going to improve. I think sometimes we forget that this is his first year really being a starting quarterback, which is way different than coming in at spot duty and playing a few games. And I thought he improved today, and I'm excited to see the film.
00:20:37
Speaker 2: And, again, he can get better next week. I, too, am very excited to watch the film because I think that he played really well in terms of the stuff I wanted to see. I know about the creation and the playmaking, but I thought there was a lot more on structure, beating the team before the snap in this game from Malik Willis than we saw in the first two games, and that should be encouraging to Dolphins fans everywhere. So our individual stance today on offense, Malik leads the way. I got pushback on this from Twitter. I saw a bunch of folks talking about the opposite of how he played. I don't see it that way. I don't care about box score. I don't care about that kind of stuff. The film and the process and the decision-making, the accuracy– what you have to deal with around you, all that stuff is more important to me. I thought he was on time and in rhythm for a large part of this game. He was executing some nifty screen and play fake games. He was getting out on the move and creating, throwing with anticipation and accuracy to the middle part of the field. He had a no-look ball to Will Kaczmarek that really influenced the defense that got called back on a penalty. That ball to Ryan Miller I talked about just barely missed that deep shot touchdown to Chris Bell, probably hit the fingertips off him on there. He was in command of the game early. That ball to Chris Bell for 44 yards, That was a thing of beauty, man, right on him out of the break. He just kept executing a variety of plays, had the one bad miss that caught a break on the drop pick, made some bad decisions late in the game, but that's kind of been the MO where it's like once the scoreboard kind of gets away, we see maybe the production slow down, and I think that should be instructive to how you view his progress. As we stay tight in these games, he's been kind of the reason for that in terms of keeping the offense on schedule and getting some momentum and putting together these long drives. Malik Willis, I am Today, what I thought was a big step in the right direction from Lake Willis, and I will push back on that against anybody who argues otherwise, and I'll watch the film to verify that on the show tomorrow and talk about the ups and downs for him.
00:22:17
Speaker 3: I'll definitely do that.
00:22:18
Speaker 2: I thought Caden Proctor was awesome. The film will help me more because it's hard to watch the entire offensive line for a whole game. That first drive was a master class, man. The Ollie Gordon third down conversion, then the key block on that one. the key block on the touchdown. Then he kicks out the end man on the line of scrimmage and then throws him out to Hialeah, then tackles Ollie over the goal line. That's the kind of bully ball, the kind of makeup and mentality you can build a program around with Caden Proctor, your first round pick, the first pick in the John Eric Sullivan era. Speaking of Ollie Gordon, the stats weren't great, but again, we don't care about box score on this show. I thought he got the opportunity and he ran hard. I love the way he finished and drove the pile throughout the game. The catch that he made. Hey, Ollie, if that's in your bag, among things you can do in this league, then you can be a dude in this league. And I'm excited about what he has to offer here. And what looks like it could be an extended opportunity for him and Jalen, right? Because we did hear from Jeff Halfley after the game that he was not super optimistic on the outlook of Devon HN, but we'll let more information come out as we get into the week and find out what happened to Devon HN on the injury. Patrick Paul had so many impressive blocks of all variety outside the numbers getting wide width in those, in those blocking schemes in the running game. solid one-on-one pass protection, downhill block on a trap. I thought Patrick Paul played well. I thought Chris Bell, man. We'll talk about kind of the usage of him here in a second, but the catch and run, the 44-yard gain is a great example of what he can do, man. That speed at 6'3, 220 pounds to run away from the defense, and then just the way the plan kind of revolved around his physicality, that's a big deal. We'll talk about that more in a second, but he made some tough catches. I'm such a big fan of Chris Bell, man. He and Caleb Douglas have me pretty excited about the future. Greg Dulcich had some up and down moments, but I thought the play on the contested football kind of put him over the top into this category. There was also some big denting blocks off the edge in the running game. I want to get a better look at the offensive line before I kind of go in depth on what they did in this game, but I thought it was pretty good watching it live. Defensively, I thought Seeler had a slow start but came on strong. Early on, they kind of took it to him at the point of attack and got him off the spot, but he bounced back. I mean, his pass rush on the Mahomes pick was critical where he forced an errant throw. Then his pass rush on the opening drive of the third quarter draws a holding call that gets us off the field again. Seeler kind of came to life after those first two drives in this game. Jordan Brooks, the sack was such a nice rush and finish. But then just in general, he kept on flying in, making sticks, playing wide all over the field. Jacob Rodriguez, I thought, started slow too. The entire defense did. But then after he struggled to kind of get over the top of some of those blocks, there were some walker runs where he couldn't get over a down block, but then he got it going and was awesome.
00:24:47
Speaker 3: The pick to locate that football.
00:24:49
Speaker 2: You watch him drop step and pivot and run to the football all in one motion. That is effort that you're never going to teach or train. He just does it because it's who he is. And it leads to a big takeaway here, his first as a pro. Then that tackle for loss on the first drive of the second half, thing of beauty. Jacob Rodriguez, man, he is the real deal. And if you haven't heard his press comments after the game, go check it out. This guy's going to be a captain here for a long, long time in Miami. Josh Uche, his rush lane integrity, his play against the run was awesome. Again, from the second drive on, thought he played a good game. Correction-wise, offense, I think Malik Washington, just there were some key spots where he struggled to separate against one-on-one coverage. The effort on the touchdown that was so awesome, they got called back. was negated because he didn't get set on the shift and that winds up costing us. I also tip of the cap for doing some of the stuff for the running back position that he did today. That's kind of a nice tip of the cap to what he can do in terms of his versatility. But in terms of creating separation and being a key guy in the offense, I just think we need more there. Ryan Miller missed a key block on an Ollie Gordon run where if he seals it, Ollie had all kinds of space.
00:25:51
Speaker 3: So I wanted to make that mention there.
00:25:52
Speaker 2: And then defensively, As far as the corrections go, the biggest thing to me is just the lack of pass rush and the ripple effect that has. I talked about it earlier, but the comfort of a play caller and quarterback when there's not a consistent threat of pressure or negative plays just expands the call sheet for the offense. And when that's Reed Mahomes, it's going to make life tough. Now, as far as the corrections, I thought Zeke Biggers was out of his gap a lot in this game, was not planting the flag on double teams. Trey Smith and Creed Humphrey are tough. but they drove him off the ball seven yards and put him on the ground on that Ken Walker touchdown run. Michael Taft, he bit so hard in that opening play to Travis Kelsey where he kind of got lost in space. Also had the critical foul down there and missed some other plays in coverage. I thought kind of jumped off the tape. Julius Wood got lost in space on a third and one on a Chiefs second drive completion. He reroutes the man, but didn't kind of make sure that he had the pass off necessary to the split field safety who was never going to be leveraged enough to get over there. That one made the notes here. And then Chop Robinson, they went after him at the point of attack and did a good job moving him off the football, giving Ken Walker two-way goes. Those are not a good place to be against that running back. But I thought his pass rush did heat up as the game went on. Hopefully something to build on there for Chop Robinson. My five takeaways, the fight no matter what. Look, this statement might not be for some of y'all, but I'm proud of this team, man. The fight, they don't quit, and it paid off a few times today. To bounce back from the illegal contact call that negates the Brooks sack to make a stand on the ensuing drive The offense sustaining long drives and strained to get so many third-down conversions and fighting on fourth down to get those wins. And then the Rodriguez pick. They're on their heels time after time, the Chiefs are. Zach Seeler unfurls his best pass rush of the day, and Rodriguez runs to the football and makes a diving pick. And then watch the entire unit go find blocks. I had fun watching these guys fight today, man. I loved, loved, loved what we saw after the fourth down stop. Guys losing their minds in elation. They're pumping the crowd up there. pounding their chest. Jeff Halfway's encouraging them on saying, hell yeah, boys.
00:27:52
Speaker 3: Probably an F yeah, but we'll take it. It gave me goosebumps, dude.
00:27:55
Speaker 2: I think you saw the vision in terms of culture building and the physical toughness of this football team in the first half. And when we came off the field at the break, we had guys that were like skipping into the locker room, feeling themselves, guys pumping up the crowd. And of course, a course of cheers from the fans there at Hard Rock Stadium. That can fuel this football team, man. These 21-year-old, 22-year-old kids can find belief in themselves. And if you get that this year, then watch out, man. Like the future is so bright. I've been super sentimental lately. I think it's a midlife crisis thing, to be honest with you. Seeing my kids grow up so fast and me and my wife's time passing us by as life just kind of gets busier and busier here. And I keep on thinking about all the stuff that I'm worried about missing out on. Well, it's kind of got me thinking about this football team and just how proud I am to watch them play for each other and keep bouncing back after moments of adversity throughout the season and within this game.
00:28:46
Speaker 3: Let's go back to Jeff Halfley one more time to talk more about that.
00:28:48
Speaker 1: You know, and that's the part that hurts the most because it's, you know, against, I think one of the best teams in the NFL and it's 14 to seven and we have the ball watching those young guys make those plays and just continue to fight back. It's just, you know, it, It doesn't feel great right now because I want to win in everything that we do. But I think if you look at the big picture, I think it just kind of shows you where we're heading with some of these guys.
00:29:14
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know how you can't get fired up over that soundbite there. Number two, Malik showing us what he can do. And again, I don't care about box score. I don't care about evaluations besides my own. I was texting with Juice on Saturday about the game. The thing I told him I wanted to see most was for Malik to show everybody the stuff that he's capable of. And I thought we got that today. The playmaking is there every single week. But throwing the ball in behind the blitzes, the accurate footballs with no looks, putting the ball on the upfield shoulder. And think about this, all of this without a Chan or Caleb Douglas, or, you know, your top back and your leading receiver. He did that with a skeleton crew of skill players today and a receiver playing running back. Number three, the mistakes of a young team were evident once again. Some key penalties in key spots, not getting set on a shift that leads to a penalty that takes a touchdown off the board, a game-tying touchdown for that matter. We bear hug Travis Kelsey on a third down that leads to a sack, and they score four more points than they should have off that play.
00:30:06
Speaker 3: That's what?
00:30:07
Speaker 2: That's an eight-point swing right there on two plays and penalties. There were special teams, you know, gaffes where he couldn't, two fouls on special teams. There were some penalties once we got into plus territory, just like Bobby Slowik talked about in his press conference this week. or in the red zone to open the third quarter. We got into the red zone. It was a tackle for loss, a penalty, then another tackle for loss. Those things are hard to overcome. And when we start cleaning those up, I think this team is just going to get more and more competitive here as we go forward. My fourth takeaway is the offensive sequencing, the mixture on offense, and finding a bit of an identity offensively today. I felt Bobby Sloak did a hell of a job to create some advantageous situations for the offense. We saw some fun design, especially to help the early down success rate. For example, to start the second drive of the game, we dial up 21 personnel. It's two backs, one tight end. We flex the fullback and the running back and the tight end out to the boundary, and you put Malik Washington in the backfield. And from that, they motion the running back, Ollie Gordon, over to the strong side. It takes a man out of the count, and then you get two-on-two with Herman and Kaz, and you throw a swing to that side of the field, and they both make the blocks, and it goes for nine yards. It's a really good way to start a drive and put yourself in second and one right away. And then I love the adjustments in the second half. Open up in heavy personnel. Six offensive linemen, 21. Again, two backs, one tight end.
00:31:24
Speaker 3: Eye formation.
00:31:24
Speaker 2: You get a two-yard run on that formation because that's a running formation. But then you keep it out there and you run a play-action throw back to the opposite side of the field. And Malik Willis throws this 55-yard bomb that goes for 42 yards to Greg Dulcich. Then the conversion to Gordon. Another cool design where they stack Ollie behind Chris Bell and run double slants to get Gordon open. He just makes a play. the third and five midway in the third quarter, we get Willis to Miller, a completion to move the chains, where once again, Miller stacked behind Bell. When you talk about a stack, it's a receiver on the line of scrimmage and the receiver right behind him to give him a free release. And Bell was doing this all game long where he was clearing out space with his physicality because you can't press that guy. He's too fast and too big and too strong. And it creates a chance for Ryan Miller to run his route and draft off of that with nothing but green grass available. So sequencing, mixing up personnel looks, I thought was in his bag from Bobby Slowick And I mentioned this in the critical breakdowns. I just love the way they use Bell to beat that press. That was a key for me, was to beat this Chiefs press coverage. And Bell did a good job helping create space on top of going four for 64 in this game in terms of his receiving ability. But then you can also throw to him as they try to combat the switch release. It doesn't take much for him to get inside access. So for this guy to be a focal point, it kind of showed you what you can do to design your offense around a player like Chris Bell. Let's go back to Jeff Halfley one more time. Talk about what Bobby Sloak did in this game.
00:32:46
Speaker 4: I know the score doesn't show this.
00:32:48
Speaker 1: I thought Bobby called a really good game. He had, in my opinion, one of the better defenses with one of the better defensive coordinators.
00:32:55
Speaker 4: He had them on the ropes a bunch today.
00:32:57
Speaker 1: With all the pressures that we were going to see from them and all the zero looks, we had to get the ball out of his hand.
00:33:03
Speaker 4: So I thought it was good play calling and good execution. But that was the reason for it.
00:33:07
Speaker 2: And then number five, just the defense rising to the occasion time and time again. They kept on fighting defensively. and making plays right to the end. The offense only scored three points after that long opening touchdown drive, and these guys just kept on giving the ball back to the offense, which is such a nice turnaround after the first two weeks and then the first two drives of this game. They found something, and I'll be tracking that to see how they build off that next week.
00:33:27
Speaker 3: So there you go. That's the postgame recap pod. Film review tomorrow.
00:33:31
Speaker 2: In the meantime, you all please be sure to subscribe, rate, review the show, follow me on social at Wingful NFL, the team at Miami Dolphins. Check out the YouTube channel for Dolphins HQ, media availabilities, and so much more. And last but not least, MiamiDolphins.com. Until next time, fins up! Caroline Cameron and Willow Daddy's coming home.
