Speaker 1: To on remove Golan Deep Speedways Peas Doll Pad from
Speaker 1: the Baptist Health Studios inside the Baptist Health Training Complex.
Speaker 2: This is Drivetime with Travis Wingfield.
Speaker 1: He's got my hands in the playoffs.
Speaker 3: What is up?
Speaker 4: Dolphins? And welcome to the Draft Time Podcast. I am
Speaker 4: your host, Travis Wingfield. And on today's show, a break
Speaker 4: in our regularly scheduled action here on the podcast, a
Speaker 4: pause on the twenty twenty three season review, as we
Speaker 4: can tell you about a big hire in the organization.
Speaker 4: Anthony Weaver has been named the newest defensive coordinator of
Speaker 4: your Miami Dolphins. We're going to do a comprehensive look
Speaker 4: at his career, where he's been, what he's done, the
Speaker 4: impact of his hire, his aligned vision with Coach McDaniel.
Speaker 4: We'll get testimonials and a whole heck of a lot
Speaker 4: more from the Baptist Health Studios inside the Baptist Health
Speaker 4: Training Complex.
Speaker 5: This is.
Speaker 4: The Drive Time Podcast. I think we start here with
Speaker 4: the statement from head coach Mike McDaniel, who issued this
Speaker 4: to say about Anthony Weaver on Saturday. I am excited
Speaker 4: to add Anthony to our staff, not only for what
Speaker 4: he will bring to the Dolphins as a teacher and coach,
Speaker 4: but even more so who he is as a leader
Speaker 4: of men. He has a proven resume of success built
Speaker 4: on his personal investment in his players. Most importantly, he
Speaker 4: shares our belief that player development is the cornerstone to
Speaker 4: both team building and sustained excellence. Through conversations with him
Speaker 4: and those who have worked with him, it became clear
Speaker 4: that we have aligned values in football philosophies and coaching
Speaker 4: end quote. So I want to make sure that I'm
Speaker 4: not just spewing blind positivity and just telling you this
Speaker 4: is a great hire for reasons X, Y, and Z,
Speaker 4: and that this will make everything right in the world
Speaker 4: and the Dolphins once again here in February, we can
Speaker 4: champion them as real title contenders because of the moves
Speaker 4: they make. Right, That's what we kind of buy into
Speaker 4: whenever you make a move of any sort. And my
Speaker 4: coverage has always been that way, even before the team,
Speaker 4: that I try to identify what I think could work,
Speaker 4: what I think will work with people, coaches or players,
Speaker 4: and attack it accordingly and bring up and address the
Speaker 4: potential negatives without harping on them too much, because I
Speaker 4: think that's the best way to do this, because you're
Speaker 4: all fans of a team that you have no control over,
Speaker 4: and why would you volunteer your emotions to something in
Speaker 4: a way that you're going to constantly dredge up negativity.
Speaker 2: I just never have understood that. So let me go
Speaker 2: go ahead.
Speaker 4: And be perfectly clear here that this entire concept of
Speaker 4: this episode is to give you here's what it could
Speaker 4: look like in the ideal scenario. We'll also talk about
Speaker 4: some of the negatives that come along with the resume
Speaker 4: of a coach that gets hired here. So I just
Speaker 4: want to go ahead and put that out there and
Speaker 4: lead in with this because this line or rate here
Speaker 4: he shares our belief that player development is the cornerstone
Speaker 4: to both team building and sustained excellence. And it's time
Speaker 4: for me to die a tribe off of that a
Speaker 4: little bit because I was referred back to Stephen Ross's
Speaker 4: end of twenty eighteen press conference when the whole organizational structure,
Speaker 4: the whole approach and mission statement in philosophy of the
Speaker 4: Miami Dolphins kind of got flipped on its head, right.
Speaker 2: It used to be patch it up.
Speaker 4: TJ McDonald, Robert Quinn, Andre Branch Kiko Alonso, sign him
Speaker 4: Uplet's go ahead and extend this thing and get a
Speaker 4: little bit better at the cost of our entire future.
Speaker 4: And they went from Chris career as you know, a
Speaker 4: kind of co GM. So I know he was named
Speaker 4: the GM in twenty sixteen, but he didn't have the
Speaker 4: president of Football Operations who signed all those bad contracts, right,
Speaker 4: Mike Tannebaum from sixteen through eighteen. In nineteen he became
Speaker 4: the man like the Grand Pooba. And at that press conference,
Speaker 4: Ross referred to the idea of sustained success mission statement
Speaker 4: of the undertaking of a rebuild heading into a miserable
Speaker 4: Bowl twenty nineteen season where we had all kinds of
Speaker 4: big money contracts tied up into bad players who were
Speaker 4: on the wrong side of thirty and we're no longer
Speaker 4: performing anywhere near the level of the compensation they were paid,
Speaker 4: were they ever? Like Keiko's contract, like TJ's contract, like
Speaker 4: Andrea Branch's contract.
Speaker 2: Got rid of that type of thinking, and the mission statement.
Speaker 4: Here carried over the last five years, but in earnest
Speaker 4: you call it four years, since the first year of
Speaker 4: that was really taking your medicine right again. Trading Robert
Speaker 4: Quinn for was it a fifth round pick just to
Speaker 4: get his money off the books? Or Ryan Tannehill for
Speaker 4: fifth and sixth round picks to get their moneys off
Speaker 4: the books. You take your medicine that one year, you
Speaker 4: don't bring in new assets, you move your assets to
Speaker 4: the future. You get your high draftick by losing a
Speaker 4: bunch of games, and then you go after in your
Speaker 4: number two. And since then, only four teams have more
Speaker 4: wins over the last four seasons than your Miami Dolphins.
Speaker 4: And now we have not enjoyed the playoff success we
Speaker 4: would all love to have had over that time, not
Speaker 4: even close, not even one. But I think that there
Speaker 4: should be some appreciation for the fact that this team
Speaker 4: has played made one game in the last four seasons
Speaker 4: that was meaningless, right in terms of playoff viability Week
Speaker 4: eighteen versus the Patriots in twenty twenty one is the
Speaker 4: only team this game, only game this team whoops has
Speaker 4: played since the pandemic season that didn't count.
Speaker 2: I mean it counted, but it didn't matter, right, That's it.
Speaker 4: Every other one of the sixty eight games that includes
Speaker 4: two postseason games, have had meeting within the standings in
Speaker 4: the NFL. How many other teams can say that. Buffalo
Speaker 4: Can the Ravens have the exact same number as US.
Speaker 4: Their twenty twenty one finale also did not matter in
Speaker 4: playoff contention that year. Funny how that mirrors us. Pittsburgh,
Speaker 4: Kansas City, Green Bay, and Tampa Bay are the teams
Speaker 4: that have had that. Seven teams can can say they've
Speaker 4: played zero or one meaningless games over the last four years.
Speaker 4: So there has been sustained success, even if the tip
Speaker 4: of that success has not been reached yet yet. But
Speaker 4: I think that's where you start. That's the mission statement,
Speaker 4: and then from there you have variables good and bad bounces,
Speaker 4: and then of course the ability to overcome the next obstacles.
Speaker 4: For us, the bad bounces outweighed the good. Neither of
Speaker 4: our top two quarterbacks available for the playoff game last year,
Speaker 4: and a defense full of brand new players and an
Speaker 4: offense that were struggle together by duck tape and bubble
Speaker 4: gum in the playoffs this year, on top of bad
Speaker 4: performances from a couple of your key players. But by
Speaker 4: consistently putting yourself in contention, that's the only way you're
Speaker 4: going to ever potentially break through, right Because We've seen
Speaker 4: a lot of most of the greats struggle to break
Speaker 4: through more than once or twice. I think about the
Speaker 4: Farv led Packers all the time, the Manning led Colts,
Speaker 4: the Breeze led Saints teams that combined for thirty two
Speaker 4: playoff appearances. With those teams and just three rings combined,
Speaker 4: the Saints had Breeze for fifteen years, and they made
Speaker 4: the playoffs nine times, won a single championship, the only
Speaker 4: one they went to a nine and nine mark in
Speaker 4: the postseason. The Colts had Peyton Manning for thirteen years,
Speaker 4: made the playoffs eleven times and one one championship, went
Speaker 4: to another one lost that one to Drew Brees's Saints.
Speaker 4: They were nine to ten in the playoffs.
Speaker 2: Isn't it weird? How?
Speaker 4: Not just the fact that his second ring, he won
Speaker 4: with a was with a negative touchdown interception ratio and
Speaker 4: the lowest cumulative production for a Super Bowlinning quarterback ever
Speaker 4: in the history of the Super Bowl, but also how
Speaker 4: the Broncos lost twice in the divisional round at home,
Speaker 4: both as number one seeds. Food for thought there about
Speaker 4: Manning's playoff success and his perception as an all time
Speaker 4: great for the Packers, they had far for sixteen years,
Speaker 4: made the playoffs twelve times, won a single championship, the
Speaker 4: only one they went to a twelve to ten mark
Speaker 4: in the postseason. For him and the Packers, this is
Speaker 4: a roundabout way to describe how difficult it is to
Speaker 4: not just win championships, but how hard it is to
Speaker 4: win once you get into the postseason, and it shows
Speaker 4: you how alien like Mahomes is and Brady was right.
Speaker 2: But the point of.
Speaker 4: All this is that I think the results based expectations
Speaker 4: you should operate under is the presence in contention, How
Speaker 4: often do you have an opportunity to go into the
Speaker 4: postseason and make some noise. And like, I'm not talking
Speaker 4: about Steelers contention, Like they were never a threat to
Speaker 4: win the championship over the last two or three years, right,
Speaker 4: but they were there because they would get their wins
Speaker 4: over in battle teams late in the year and make
Speaker 4: a push into the postseason. But like for us, we
Speaker 4: thought we had a championship caliber team this year until
Speaker 4: things got kind of wonky.
Speaker 2: I want that.
Speaker 4: I want that every single year going into Christmas thinking
Speaker 4: there's a chance that we're playing in the Super Bowl
Speaker 4: in a month and a half from now and extrap
Speaker 4: ledding results beyond that, I think can get into insufficient
Speaker 4: practice because you're holding those expectations against an unsatisfiable standard.
Speaker 4: One championship in an average of eleven years for those
Speaker 4: previous three quarterbacks. If the Dolphins do that, if they
Speaker 4: win one championship in the next twelve years under Tua
Speaker 4: and McDaniel, you're gonna look back in this era as
Speaker 4: the most successful as franchises has had besides a blip
Speaker 4: on the Raidar on the seventies. Right, And to tie
Speaker 4: it back to this idea of player development and consistent contention. Well,
Speaker 4: that's what coach Weaver had to say about his time
Speaker 4: in Baltimore and why I put together this entire nearly
Speaker 4: ten minute die trib right here about his time in
Speaker 4: an organization that shares the exact same philosophical approach that
Speaker 4: we hold.
Speaker 2: Here's coach Weaver on.
Speaker 4: Why he wanted to get back to Baltimore after being
Speaker 4: a player for the Ravens, but then as to continue
Speaker 4: his or begin, i should say, his coaching career with
Speaker 4: that same team, and just real quick a heads up,
Speaker 4: this audio is incredibly low. I could not find any
Speaker 4: other version of it that was better quality. I bumped
Speaker 4: it all the way upon my ends. So go ahead
Speaker 4: and turn your speakers up for the next two minutes
Speaker 4: or so here because Anthony we We talks about his
Speaker 4: philosophy about sustained success and how you create that. Here's
Speaker 4: the new Dolphins DC on just that again. Turn the
Speaker 4: speakers up and they'll go back down after his audio ends.
Speaker 5: So Ever since I left Baltimore as a player, I've
Speaker 5: always I've always wanted to find my way back there,
Speaker 5: just to as we talked about, you you want to
Speaker 5: see you want to see how the dinner's name right,
Speaker 5: You want to see why they've been able to have
Speaker 5: such sustainable success for a number of years. It became
Speaker 5: incredibly clear once I got back within those walls. There's
Speaker 5: always been some alignment issues in some of these other organizations,
Speaker 5: and that's why they have the ups and downs and
Speaker 5: fluctuations through time, because in a lot of ways, you
Speaker 5: have too many like chefs in the kitchen that all
Speaker 5: have different ideas. When you get to Baltimore, because essentially
Speaker 5: the hierarchy and has been there for a very long time,
Speaker 5: they have a very shared vision and shared belief system. Right,
Speaker 5: they know exactly what they're looking for in players, they
Speaker 5: know exactly the type of coach that they want to
Speaker 5: identify and bring him to help develop those guys, and
Speaker 5: then they know exactly how to acquire them without essentially
Speaker 5: putting you in cap purgatory. And once you see that alignment,
Speaker 5: that is what I realized is like, oh, okay, Like
Speaker 5: this is how you do it. You find a bunch
Speaker 5: of people that ultimately care about service and want to
Speaker 5: want the best for the team and their guys, and
Speaker 5: then have a shared approach on how to get there
Speaker 5: and then stick to it. Yeah, are you gonna adapt
Speaker 5: and adjust and evolve a long way?
Speaker 4: Sure?
Speaker 6: And they have right.
Speaker 5: They've changed GMS from Ozzie Newsom to Eric DaCosta, they've
Speaker 5: had different head coaches, but along the way, the fabric
Speaker 5: of who that team is hasn't changed. They know what
Speaker 5: they want on defense, they know what they want on offense,
Speaker 5: they stay true to it, and they're always in contention
Speaker 5: year after year after year. And I think ultimately, whether
Speaker 5: you're a coach or in any organization, that is what
Speaker 5: you're chasing, right, the opportunity year in year out to
Speaker 5: not only be relevant but to give yourself a.
Speaker 1: Chance to win it all.
Speaker 4: I mean that could have been written by coach McDaniel himself, right,
Speaker 4: shared vision. You know, Fangio worked out the players that
Speaker 4: he wanted and they didn't sign him, and that was
Speaker 4: not necessarily a culture fits is well I kind of
Speaker 4: assume it to be because McDaniel talks all the time
Speaker 4: about the carefully curated locker room and the personality and
Speaker 4: how pieces fit in that locker room. We had the
Speaker 4: whole agenda about non negotiables for Cam Smith and Channing Tyndall. Like,
Speaker 4: that's not a collaborative, you know, open door type of
Speaker 4: philosophy that the head coach has. So if your DC
Speaker 4: doesn't have that, it's conflicting messages. That's why I like
Speaker 4: the idea of getting a guy that sees the game
Speaker 4: the way you do, and it sees the modern approach
Speaker 4: for athletes the way that you do, because we're going
Speaker 4: to hear some testimonials here on the third segment, and
Speaker 4: I just don't think that old school way of doing
Speaker 4: it works anymore, and we have guys that can tell
Speaker 4: you proof of that. Let's go back to twenty twenty
Speaker 4: when with the Houston Texans coach Weaver again more talk
Speaker 4: here about his philosophy as a football coach.
Speaker 3: Everybody that's here, we are compelled to try not to
Speaker 3: waste this season. And for me, it's all about these players.
Speaker 3: And I've been in their shoes, and they have such
Speaker 3: a short window in their careers and you never know
Speaker 3: how long it's going to last. So I understand that
Speaker 3: for a lot of people this is it's a game.
Speaker 3: I get it, and we're held to a high standard.
Speaker 3: It's entertainment. I understand that. But for these players in
Speaker 3: this locker room, their careers are finite. So I understand
Speaker 3: what we're at. Run four. We got to do better,
Speaker 3: but there's twelve games left to play, and these players
Speaker 3: in our staff, we're gonna do everything in our power
Speaker 3: to try.
Speaker 2: To win that.
Speaker 4: Of course, after a four game losing street to open
Speaker 4: the twenty twenty season, the finite window and maximizing their
Speaker 4: earning and playing potential, it's like word for word what
Speaker 4: McDaniel has talked about here since he got here. How
Speaker 4: about an added element of toughness. It's a mindset right.
Speaker 4: Here's coach we run how he defines toughness on a
Speaker 4: football team.
Speaker 6: In this game of football, you hear coaches talk a
Speaker 6: lot about toughness, and to me, the toughness of a
Speaker 6: football team is measured by when your ability to run
Speaker 6: the ball on offense and then your ability to stop
Speaker 6: the run on defense. So we are we are determined
Speaker 6: and impassion to go out there and make teams one
Speaker 6: dimensional and be tough and physical of the line of scrimmage,
Speaker 6: get those guys on a second level, swarming and knocking
Speaker 6: people down because you want to. You want to make
Speaker 6: the team one dimensional and know that you're not going
Speaker 6: to come here and push us around and try to
Speaker 6: bully us. Where the bullies you better put the ball
Speaker 6: in the year.
Speaker 4: So it's a little bit of the thinking, the philosophy,
Speaker 4: the presence that coach Weaver brings to the table. I've
Speaker 4: gotten text from people around the league or the content
Speaker 4: transpeer who say, dude, you're gonna love coach Weaver. So
Speaker 4: I can't wait to meet him personally that first press
Speaker 4: conference and just hear him talk some football. I'm betting
Speaker 4: I'll get more words from him when I see him
Speaker 4: in the hallway than the four wards I got from
Speaker 4: coach Fangio over the eleven months that he was here,
Speaker 4: over the twenty five passings in the hallway, the courtesy
Speaker 4: of the sub coach and just a grumble back to me.
Speaker 4: I look forward to getting actual human responses from that.
Speaker 4: Let's go ahead and take our first break right there.
Speaker 4: Come back on the other side, explore coaches history, the
Speaker 4: schemes I think he might institute here in Miami, personnel usages,
Speaker 4: all of that, and a heck of a lot more.
Speaker 4: Draft Time podcast your host Travis Wingfield, brought to you
Speaker 4: by Auto Nation. Dolphins hire a defensive coordinator, Anthony Weaver,
Speaker 4: formerly of the Ravens, Houston Texans and a few other
Speaker 4: clubs as well. I want to go ahead and break
Speaker 4: this portion here as we take a look at these
Speaker 4: schemes and systems and I ideas of what it might
Speaker 4: look like here under Anthony Weaver in Miami. Let's go
Speaker 4: ahead and start with a broad introduction into coach's career.
Speaker 4: Who developed six Pro Bowl players serving as their particular
Speaker 4: position coaches with said teams. So in Buffalo in twenty thirteen,
Speaker 4: Mario Williams, Kyle Williams, and Marcel Darius all those guys
Speaker 4: had it happen under the tutelage of Anthony Weaver and
Speaker 4: Darius might recall was a bit of a miss early
Speaker 4: on in his career and developed beyond that into the
Speaker 4: stud that he was supposed to be. Kyle Williams was
Speaker 4: always awesome, and then Mario Williams kind of had a
Speaker 4: little bit of an up and down time, but he
Speaker 4: played some of his best ball there in Buffalo as well.
Speaker 4: And then he goes to Houston, where Mario came from,
Speaker 4: and has Jadevian Clowney go to three consecutive Pro Bowl sixteen, seventeen,
Speaker 4: and eighteen, and JJ Watt in twenty eighteen as well,
Speaker 4: and most recently justin Matdoweke in Baltimore this past season
Speaker 4: at Mattawik was a third round draft pick who started
Speaker 4: off kind of slow, but really developed him to the
Speaker 4: player that he has become with Anthony Weaver as his
Speaker 4: position coach. And so I look at him, I look
Speaker 4: at Javian Clowney's evolution as a player, and it is
Speaker 4: certainly an interesting study because the ultimate feather in the
Speaker 4: cap of Weaver, I think is Clowney, who came into
Speaker 4: the league with more expectations than almost anybody at that position.
Speaker 4: Ever had, and it didn't start off that way for him,
Speaker 4: But then he gets under coach Weaver and gets back
Speaker 4: to back Pro Bowl years, and then Weaver leaves and
Speaker 4: then Clowney joins him years after that after a couple
Speaker 4: of down seasons and ties his career high this past
Speaker 4: year in Baltimore under Anthony Weaver with nine and a
Speaker 4: half sacks. In fact, the three years with Weaver nine
Speaker 4: and a half, nine and nine and a half. He
Speaker 4: did have nine sacks with the Browns in twenty twenty one,
Speaker 4: but the next highest total was six, and besides that
Speaker 4: four and a half. So Weaver always means more sacks
Speaker 4: for Clowney. Why, what's what's the reason that happened? Right? Like?
Speaker 4: And I swear I just accidentally stumbled upon this. Maybe
Speaker 4: I should even admit this and just say it was
Speaker 4: all playing for the theme of the show, and that
Speaker 4: theme being that Weaver is a natural piece that slots
Speaker 4: in perfectly.
Speaker 2: Remember all year.
Speaker 4: On the show, how I would talk about these teams
Speaker 4: that are tops and sacks, and how all the other
Speaker 4: teams that were up there had either a Miles Garrett,
Speaker 4: A Micah Parsons, TJ. Watt Well Miami and Baltimore were
Speaker 4: the teams that didn't have that. They had it spread
Speaker 4: across guys that had eight, nine, ten sacks, right and
Speaker 4: check this out from Baltimore beatdown dot com. The difference
Speaker 4: in Jadevian Clowney in other places is that he's developed
Speaker 4: his skill move but also add inim he has the
Speaker 4: complimentary pieces around him that he's not Jadevian Kline, the
Speaker 4: first round pick, the number one guy.
Speaker 2: He just became Jadavion.
Speaker 4: The Ravens have fifteen different defenders who also recorded at
Speaker 4: least a half of the sack and six players who
Speaker 4: had three or more Clowney ranks. Second on the team
Speaker 4: was seven and a half sacks. That was before the
Speaker 4: year ended, obviously, and was on pace to he eclipse
Speaker 4: his career high of nine and a half and record
Speaker 4: double figures for the first time. Now he ended with
Speaker 4: nine and a half, so it didn't quite happen.
Speaker 2: But you get the idea. He's just Jay.
Speaker 4: So he's not treated any different than Mike p Michael Pierce.
Speaker 4: He's not treated any different than Tavius Robinson when it
Speaker 4: comes to the overall how we look at the structure
Speaker 4: of the defense. He comes in with a learning attitude
Speaker 4: and he's using his moves. It's from Rokwan Smith there
Speaker 4: who talked about the versatility of the Ravens defense and
Speaker 4: the widespread production. So Weaver did a good job. It
Speaker 4: sounds like of cultivating the team mindset that we have here,
Speaker 4: is what I'm trying to say, especially in that defensive
Speaker 4: line room with coach Austin Clark, who just loves his
Speaker 4: guys to death, and they reciprocate that by working their
Speaker 4: butts off for him. Now, we've spent the past three
Speaker 4: seasons or twenty one through twenty three with the Ravens
Speaker 4: where he served one year as the run game coordinator
Speaker 4: defensive line coach and two years as an assistant head
Speaker 4: coach slash defensive line, but was still doing run game coordinations.
Speaker 4: So in twenty twenty three, the Ravens led the NFL
Speaker 4: in scoring defense. They went thirteen to four, they were
Speaker 4: in the top seed in the AFC playoffs, and Weavers
Speaker 4: three years they allowed ninety five point three rushing yards
Speaker 4: per game. That ranks third in the NFL over that span,
Speaker 4: and their four point h six yards per carry was
Speaker 4: fourth during that span. So run defense, he kind of
Speaker 4: brings that with him most of the places that he goes.
Speaker 4: I love the idea that we now have one of
Speaker 4: the game's most innovative run game designers on offense. Like
Speaker 4: just watch other teams, only us in the Niners have
Speaker 4: more creative, exotic wrinkles off the original original type of
Speaker 4: run you might act, run action you might see, and
Speaker 4: it changes every damn week. Like it's fun to watch
Speaker 4: practice because they're drills on air. Just the quarterback exchange
Speaker 4: with the running back. It changes like every single week.
Speaker 4: Non defense, Weaver is pretty well known for a tough
Speaker 4: nose defense that does not give an inch against the run,
Speaker 4: so prior to his time in Baltimore. Weaver served as
Speaker 4: defensive coordator for the Houston Texans in twenty twenty, after
Speaker 4: spending four years as the team's d line coach. During
Speaker 4: his five seasons, They're the team won the AFC South
Speaker 4: title three times, and his defensive line produced four Pro Bowls,
Speaker 4: a three from Clowney and the one from Watt. In
Speaker 4: twenty sixteen, the Texans produced the NFL's top ranked defense
Speaker 4: for the first time in franchise history. Weaver also spent
Speaker 4: time as the defensive line coach in Cleveland and Buffalo.
Speaker 4: That was thirteen for Buffalo, fourteen and fifteen for Cleveland,
Speaker 4: and was the assistant d line coach for the Jets
Speaker 4: in twenty twelve. He had the three pro bars in
Speaker 4: twenty thirteen. He also began his coaching career as a
Speaker 4: graduate assistant at f Florida in twenty ten, before linebackers
Speaker 4: at North Texas in twenty eleven. As a player, he
Speaker 4: appeared in one hundred and three games with ninety eight
Speaker 4: starts for Baltimore two to five, his entire rookie contract
Speaker 4: there and then Houston six to eight. He told two
Speaker 4: hundred and sixty tackles fifteen and a half sacks in
Speaker 4: a seven year career, and he picked off three passes,
Speaker 4: forced five fumbles, and had five recoveries. He was a
Speaker 4: second round draft pick by the Ravens after an All
Speaker 4: American career at Notre Dame. That's who he is, where
Speaker 4: he came from. So another day in Baltimore. Man like toughness,
Speaker 4: that's what I think of those two teams. Let's go
Speaker 4: ahead and narrow our focus here about his scheme to
Speaker 4: really two ideas here. Number one, the DC work in Houston,
Speaker 4: and then two the last few years in Baltimore. So
Speaker 4: back in twenty twenty, the Texans defense they were terrible.
Speaker 4: I mean, even looking at the end of year roster
Speaker 4: compared to the opening day roster, all the guys I'm
Speaker 4: about to mention have eventually wound up on ir and
Speaker 4: quite frankly, that's the only way you ever get these
Speaker 4: bottom out seasons when you have like good players, like
Speaker 4: a good quarterback or a good offense like the Texans
Speaker 4: had Deshaun Watson all of twenty twenty before he became
Speaker 4: what we now know of Deshaun Watson, right.
Speaker 2: Well, I guess he was doing that stuff. We didn't
Speaker 2: know about it.
Speaker 4: But to go four and twelve on a team like that,
Speaker 4: you have to have significant injuries and things that just
Speaker 4: happened at the course of the season, and it was
Speaker 4: coach Weavers defense that fell on the sword. So that
Speaker 4: year they had Zach Cunningham, justin Reid JJ Watt was
Speaker 4: in his age thirty one season, But beyond that, it's
Speaker 4: a bunch of guys who really weren't around in the
Speaker 4: league much longer. So I think it's difficult to really
Speaker 4: extrapolate results from that team. And it wasn't good right.
Speaker 4: They were fresh off the tunnel trade and all in
Speaker 4: type of approach that we saw them have to pay
Speaker 4: up that tab on and endure three seasons of ten
Speaker 4: wins combined over the following three years and as a
Speaker 4: result of a half baked all in surge that really
Speaker 4: went belly up just a few weeks into the second
Speaker 4: year of it. A team that had Watson, DeAndre Hopkins,
Speaker 4: Brandon Cooks, Will Fuller, Randall Cobb, Kenny Stills, the aforementioned Tunzel,
Speaker 4: they traded assets for a declining David Johnson. What I'm
Speaker 4: telling you is they put all their eggs in the
Speaker 4: offensive basket. In fact, here are the top snap takers
Speaker 4: on that Texans defense. The first round pick in JJ
Speaker 4: Watt was the snap leader, but he was thirty one
Speaker 4: years old. A former first round pick who got cut
Speaker 4: by his first team, Vernon Hargraves, got signed and started
Speaker 4: for the Houston Texans, a second round pick in Zach Cunningham,
Speaker 4: who I've always thought was pretty limited as a linebacker,
Speaker 4: a fourth round pick in Eric Murray, a third round
Speaker 4: pick in Justin Reid, who was the best player on
Speaker 4: that defense and is kind of the one that sticks
Speaker 4: out of this entire group, a UDFA and twenty sixteen
Speaker 4: turned journeyman linebacker Tyrell Williams, a second round pick in
Speaker 4: twenty nineteen who had been on three teams in three years,
Speaker 4: and Lonnie Johnson. Thirty year old Whitney Merciless was also
Speaker 4: the next snap taker on that team. So eight players
Speaker 4: I just listened to you that basically were either at
Speaker 4: the end of their career or just never played good
Speaker 4: ball in their career. And it showed twenty seventh in points,
Speaker 4: thirtieth and total defense, last in takeaways, and last in
Speaker 4: yards per carry allowed.
Speaker 2: It was not good.
Speaker 4: You get the point, though, right we can extrapolate at
Speaker 4: least a semblance of how he wants to design things,
Speaker 4: and maybe it's Fugesi Fugazi, maybe he Taylor's it completely
Speaker 4: different for his personnel, but I think you can still
Speaker 4: get a sense of what he likes from where he's been,
Speaker 4: who his influences are and were, and what he called.
Speaker 4: The big name coaches he spent time with speaking of
Speaker 4: influences were Rex Ryan, Mike Petten, Romeo Crenell, Mike Rabel,
Speaker 4: and Dean Pas and Wink Martindale. He played on Ryan's
Speaker 4: line for three years and then his last year in
Speaker 4: Baltimore was Rex's first year as DC, so Rex said, hey,
Speaker 4: get over here, I need you after your great playing career.
Speaker 4: Mike Petton was on the staff for the entirety of
Speaker 4: his playing career and would move on to the Jets
Speaker 4: where coach Weaver arrived there under Rex. And that was
Speaker 4: in twenty twelve, after two years in college at Florida
Speaker 4: and North Texas. So first year in the NFL with
Speaker 4: two coaches he played under and Ryan and Pettin. Then
Speaker 4: a one year stop in Buffalo with Mike Petton again
Speaker 4: before following him to Cleveland, and Doug Marome was the
Speaker 4: head coach of Buffalo, someone he had not worked with yet.
Speaker 4: It makes me think that Peton probably had some good
Speaker 4: words say about coach Weaver and Maron said, okay, you
Speaker 4: can bring him in, because again he followed Petton to Cleveland,
Speaker 4: where he took the head coaching job in twenty fourteen,
Speaker 4: and then Pettin was fired after the twenty fifteen season
Speaker 4: and Weaver headed to Houston under Romeo Crenell in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 4: Then Cronell gets promoted to assistant head coach and they
Speaker 4: bring in Mike Rabel to coach the defense. Rabel had
Speaker 4: been coaching linebackers before getting the promotion there to DC,
Speaker 4: and that lasted just one year before he took the
Speaker 4: head coaching job over in Tennessee. Then Romeo goes back
Speaker 4: to DC for two years defensive coordinator before reverting back
Speaker 4: to associate head coach and ultimately becomes their interim head coach.
Speaker 4: And that's where Weaver earns the DC job. I mean
Speaker 4: it was when Bill O'Brien got fired in like the
Speaker 4: first was the week five of that year, So it
Speaker 4: was toxic in Houston at that point, right, And that
Speaker 4: was when they had the chaplain who was like running
Speaker 4: things and doing this weird like Christian retreat routine that
Speaker 4: was like for twelve year olds. But just think about
Speaker 4: all those guys. The common themes across the defense that
Speaker 4: you can conjure out just from memory. A lot of
Speaker 4: odd fronts odd means odd number of players. Typically it's
Speaker 4: a three to four, but you can get different looks
Speaker 4: from that as well. Lots of stunts and games, twists
Speaker 4: the things that we've run very successfully here for a
Speaker 4: long time now, and a heavy heavy blitz count that's
Speaker 4: kind of the jumping off point. But again, coaches don't
Speaker 4: just copy and paste their systems from what they know
Speaker 4: and they adapt them. They put their own twist on it.
Speaker 4: They adjusted for personnel, right. But what I really noticed
Speaker 4: about these connections is that there's also connections to guys
Speaker 4: on our current staff. A lot of the stuff is
Speaker 4: rooted in early Patriots lingo, you know, pre twenty tens,
Speaker 4: which is shades of the systems the guys that we
Speaker 4: have here, at least for now.
Speaker 2: We'll see.
Speaker 4: I don't know what's gonna happen to the coaching staff
Speaker 4: going forward, but right now, the guys that cut their
Speaker 4: teeth that are here, they did that under Patriots type
Speaker 4: of tutelage. Right Like in football, you have a lot
Speaker 4: of different terms ultimately mean the same thing.
Speaker 2: Like oftentimes, learning a system is just the verbiage. This
Speaker 2: route is called this in one.
Speaker 4: System, it's called this in another system, but it's the
Speaker 4: same route, and who knows what it will be. But
Speaker 4: for coach Austin Clark, for coach Anthony Campanelli, they cut
Speaker 4: their teeth under Flores and Boyer, which is the most
Speaker 4: direct line to some of those Patriots Tree concepts, right,
Speaker 4: So you feel like they should be up to speed
Speaker 4: quickly on a lot of that if they are the
Speaker 4: ones that are in these positions and two of the
Speaker 4: star coaches in the organization to boot in those in
Speaker 4: those guys Clark and Campanelli, that have been through multiple
Speaker 4: coaching staffs, and I think that speaks to their performance
Speaker 4: and their competence. Let's go ahead and look at those
Speaker 4: systems though, starting with what was most important what coach
Speaker 4: himself and Houston that one year they had thirty six
Speaker 4: percent rate blitzing, which ranked seventh.
Speaker 2: In the National Football League.
Speaker 4: So you're gonna go from almost never blitzing to blitzing
Speaker 4: a lot more, I think is what I gather from
Speaker 4: this That leads to an air yards against that ranked sixth.
Speaker 4: The ball comes out hot, it places in importance on tackling,
Speaker 4: and just a quick aside to that's where I think
Speaker 4: about Kyle Hamilton. We talk about analogs in that defense
Speaker 4: versus this defense, and if we have that analog on
Speaker 4: the roster, Oh yeah, we have a guy named Javon Holland,
Speaker 4: who I don't think he's really that close to what
Speaker 4: Kyle Hamilton was this year, but He's in that echelon
Speaker 4: of top safety is in the National Football League. His
Speaker 4: best traits is versatility, and if you know those Ravens
Speaker 4: playoff games, Hamilton's the straw that stirs that drink man.
Speaker 4: They funnel things to him in coverage, in space as
Speaker 4: a tackler. They utilize his knowledge, his anticipation, and overall
Speaker 4: skills to put him in position to come downhill and
Speaker 4: make plays. I tend to think that's where it starts.
Speaker 4: So Javon Hall I think benefits big time from that.
Speaker 4: I think Zach Steeler has a lot of the Mattabueke
Speaker 4: and side type of physicality that he won with peer
Speaker 4: brute force. I think the next analog you look for
Speaker 4: are the edge rushers, and Clowney matches up with Phillips's
Speaker 4: play style quite a lot power, some speed, a good
Speaker 4: rush Arsenal Bradley Chubb kind of has some of the
Speaker 4: odafe O way off the other perimeter edge or off
Speaker 4: the other edge, I should say, with his skill set.
Speaker 4: But I think the position you kind of look at
Speaker 4: in terms of what do we have what do they
Speaker 4: have is the middle linebacker spot. I like David Long's
Speaker 4: gam a whole lot but I don't think he's as
Speaker 4: big or as physical as either Smith or Queen. But
Speaker 4: that's an risking analog to find there. But I think
Speaker 4: in general you do have lots of those. I think
Speaker 4: where you need to find a new one is probably
Speaker 4: the slot position, whether it's Caters reverting back to his
Speaker 4: rookie year performance or a new player. In general, I
Speaker 4: think Ramsey is better than anything the Ravens had at
Speaker 4: the quarterback position. But it kind of fits that physical
Speaker 4: mentality to get up, press, up, play in their face,
Speaker 4: disrupt timing, disrupt routes. I think you'll see that with
Speaker 4: lots of blitzing to really make quarterbacks have to be quick,
Speaker 4: make them have to elude and escape, and then hopefully
Speaker 4: the rush plan is as good as the Ravens have
Speaker 4: had it for so long, because.
Speaker 2: You have to heat these quarterbacks up.
Speaker 4: You have to have good rushing integrity to stop these
Speaker 4: mobile quarterbacks, something we did not do all year long.
Speaker 4: In fact, if believe the Dolphins defensive performances last year,
Speaker 4: they kind of feasted on bad.
Speaker 2: Offenses and the good offense has got the best of us.
Speaker 2: And it goes back to the preseason.
Speaker 4: Remember that last game against Jacksonville when Trevor Lawrence went
Speaker 4: up and down the field all game long on us
Speaker 4: and the backup quarterback did as well. Or the Chargers
Speaker 4: Week one with Austin Ekler going for two hundred yards,
Speaker 4: or the Bills in Week four pretty much a perfect
Speaker 4: offensive performance. Or the Eagles when they got whatever they
Speaker 4: want in that fourth quarter, just up and down the field,
Speaker 4: or the Chiefs kind of shut them down. Or the
Speaker 4: Ravens fifty six points, or the Bills. You know, if
Speaker 4: it wasn't for four red zone turnovers or pointless drives
Speaker 4: in the red zone, probably scored forty points in that game.
Speaker 4: So Dolphins defense, I thought was kind of propped up
Speaker 4: a little bit this year on some you know, feasting
Speaker 4: on bad quarterbacks, on the Daniel Joneses of the world,
Speaker 4: on these Tim Boyles of the world, and Zach Wilson's
Speaker 4: in the Sam Howels of the world.
Speaker 2: Just a quick aside right there. So that's something to
Speaker 2: think about.
Speaker 4: And I think that when you play these better quarterbacks,
Speaker 4: you have to have better plans to go meet them
Speaker 4: where they are and get stops. That way back to
Speaker 4: the notes here I had he had Justin Reid in
Speaker 4: twenty twenty as well. But here's the problem, and this
Speaker 4: is what we talked about with personnel. There was one
Speaker 4: hundred and twenty five miss tackles that year on that
Speaker 4: Houston defense. That was the sixth most in the National
Speaker 4: Football League. If you don't tackle in this system, or
Speaker 4: what I think will be the system, you're going to
Speaker 4: be really bad. And that's kind of the case for
Speaker 4: most systems, right, that's a recipe for like execution, A
Speaker 4: coach can can rep it throughout the week or the year,
Speaker 4: but if you don't execute tackling in the game, like
Speaker 4: nothing else really matters. So that twenty twenty Houston team
Speaker 4: had a bunch of hybrid fronts in base twenty three
Speaker 4: percent four to three and twelve percent three four. So
Speaker 4: right there you see a bit of a departure for
Speaker 4: some of the previous influences that ran that primary three
Speaker 4: to four front in their base packages, right, And that's
Speaker 4: a very substantial chunk between two. Like most teams with
Speaker 4: a decent amount of both, you never get your secondary
Speaker 4: front over like ten percent. But this team ran at
Speaker 4: twelve percent of the time thirty four and twenty three
Speaker 4: percent of the time forty three double amount of that,
Speaker 4: so I think he'll adjust what we have, and right
Speaker 4: now I would say it probably don't have a true
Speaker 4: nose tackle, So I think probably right now it's even front.
Speaker 4: But there's lots to be done, lots of signs to
Speaker 4: happen over the next couple of months here and draft
Speaker 4: picks obviously that will run out this roster and ultimately
Speaker 4: give you what becomes the Dolphins defense in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 4: Speaking of twenty four, what's also cool about this is
Speaker 4: you get access to these coaches quite easily. I mean,
Speaker 4: I don't know where I would have found this stuff
Speaker 4: ten years ago. But to the point of versatility, here's
Speaker 4: what Weaver said in his press con conference once upon
Speaker 4: time when he was asked about adapting your scheme to
Speaker 4: the players on defense.
Speaker 5: Here's coach Weaver, Well, the creativity part of defensive scheming
Speaker 5: is maybe is one of my favorite parts about the job.
Speaker 5: You know, you gotta love the chest match and trying
Speaker 5: to trying to put the pieces in the right place
Speaker 5: and get free runners and hit the quarterback and do
Speaker 5: all those things. I mean, that's part of the beauty
Speaker 5: in Skimatis.
Speaker 4: Again, I pulled that audio from the Depth somewhere and
Speaker 4: it sounds like crap I understand that, but I wanted
Speaker 4: to play for you guys anyways. But there's more than
Speaker 4: just that. So forty one percent nickel, twenty percent dime.
Speaker 4: That's a ton of versatility, right, And again, I just
Speaker 4: don't think the Texans roster was good enough to get
Speaker 4: all those layers. From an execution standpoint. It's also a
Speaker 4: very small amount of too high, just thirteen percent, which
Speaker 4: is kind of what you've seen from this defense in
Speaker 4: the past couple of years, where they just let Josh
Speaker 4: Allen go down the field slowly, played by play by
Speaker 4: play right, And that number is actually lower than their
Speaker 4: use of zero coverage, which is seventeen percent. So we
Speaker 4: should see more cover zero back in Miami. And when
Speaker 4: you've got Ramsey and Holland and Cater and cam Smith,
Speaker 4: something I think he can do very well.
Speaker 2: To me, makes sense.
Speaker 4: You trust those guys with your rush package. Up front,
Speaker 4: they ran single high seventy percent of the time. Now,
Speaker 4: the league has changed a lot since then, so that
Speaker 4: probably changes too. But it's a good eye into what
Speaker 4: he might want to do. So we'll see how he
Speaker 4: wants to drop up. In the past pressure, pressure, pressure, versatility,
Speaker 4: matchup based on your opponent converse of light boxes. Never
Speaker 4: been a defense that invites playing a man down and
Speaker 4: the fit in the running game because it's too important
Speaker 4: to them player empowered. It sounds like some of the
Speaker 4: stuff that I've read and I'll get into this, but
Speaker 4: also the shared vision of coach McDaniel collaboration, taking input
Speaker 4: from his guys. I'm excited about what he can do
Speaker 4: from a developmental standpoint. I like what this could mean
Speaker 4: for Cam Smith, realizing the potential that I think he has,
Speaker 4: and it's vast. I think he's one of the best
Speaker 4: cornerbacks in the class last year. I think it really
Speaker 4: opens up Holland. I think it really benefits a player
Speaker 4: like David Long, who will now have even more freedom
Speaker 4: in terms of not being responsible for so much free
Speaker 4: space upfront. And the proof is in the pudding everywhere
Speaker 4: he's been. They found a way to get matchups for
Speaker 4: their past rushers. The Ravens, the league in sacks this year,
Speaker 4: extracted nine and a half sacks from Justin Houston his
Speaker 4: age thirty three season. Last year, that defense also had
Speaker 4: five plus sacks from madap Week, Kalayis Campbell and Patrick Queen.
Speaker 4: All three of those guys played different positions, and they
Speaker 4: also had the leading rookie pressure rusher in odafe O
Speaker 4: way back in twenty twenty one and got seven sacks
Speaker 4: Tias Bowser.
Speaker 2: So interesting stuff all around.
Speaker 4: A good chance that this coach is a guy that
Speaker 4: I'm very excited about covering. Will go ahead and get
Speaker 4: some testimonials here on the third and final segment of
Speaker 4: the Anthony we Were edition of the Draft Time podcast,
Speaker 4: your host Travis Wingfield, brought to you by AutoNation. Let's
Speaker 4: close this podcast with what the people out there are saying.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna go ahead and read some testimonials here, which
Speaker 4: I don't have the audio on these. They just put
Speaker 4: them on Twitter, so I'll go ahead and just read
Speaker 4: them off this way. So Lewis Riddick, who covered the
Speaker 4: Ravens Week eighteen game on the Call for ESPN, said
Speaker 4: that John Harbaugh could not say enough things about Anthony
Speaker 4: Weaver when we met him late in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 4: He thought Weaver was ready to be a head coach.
Speaker 4: This is a great get and a great opportunity. So
Speaker 4: by back and found what John Harbaugh had to say
Speaker 4: and he said this after he got and this was
Speaker 4: after the season, so kind of a follow up there
Speaker 4: to what Riddick said. Maybe I'm speaking out a turn here,
Speaker 4: but he'll be a great head coach. He didn't get
Speaker 4: hired this cycle, and great coaches did get hired. But
Speaker 4: someday some people are going to look back and say, man,
Speaker 4: we had a chance to hire Anthony Weaver. I guarantee
Speaker 4: you that they're gonna see that they miss their chance,
Speaker 4: and the next time around, somebody's not going to miss
Speaker 4: their chance. That's how I feel about Anthony and for us,
Speaker 4: God is about that is if that happens, the Dolphins
Speaker 4: will get two third round draft picks compensatory picks. If
Speaker 4: that is the case, let's go ahead and finish here
Speaker 4: with Jerry Sandusky.
Speaker 2: Not that Jerry Sandusky.
Speaker 4: Jerry with a G is a Ravens play by play
Speaker 4: man and former player in the league.
Speaker 2: He said this on The Joe Rose Show. He is
Speaker 2: a quality guy.
Speaker 4: I mean, you're gonna love this guy for your DC
Speaker 4: and because he has lots of experience, he has seen
Speaker 4: the benefit of multiple and unpredictable the Wink Martindale's of
Speaker 4: the world out there. You know, just blitz all day,
Speaker 4: blitz all day, and then you got your super conservative
Speaker 4: guys that just sit back and cover two shell. Anthony's
Speaker 4: gonna be a guy who's going to adapt personnel games
Speaker 4: down and distance in the philosophy of Look, you've got
Speaker 4: a very athletic group on your defensive side, he's gonna
Speaker 4: cut them loose because like all great coaches, Anthony knows
Speaker 4: how to adapt scheme to personnel. And I've seen this
Speaker 4: question pose on the podcast or on Twitter about why
Speaker 4: would Baltimore pass over Weaver for Zach Orr. Sandusky had
Speaker 4: some great insight into that as well. He says, quote,
Speaker 4: John knew Anthony was ready to be defensive coordinator, but
Speaker 4: he also knew zach Or was ready to be a DC.
Speaker 4: And knowing how John thinks, I'm sure John felt like
Speaker 4: if he makes Anthony his DC, now Zach doesn't get fulfilled.
Speaker 4: But if he makes Zach the DC, he knew Anthony
Speaker 4: was getting another job because he was so ready. So
Speaker 4: the Ravens were lucky they had two guys ready for
Speaker 4: the job, and the Dolphins are lucky because they just
Speaker 4: got a great defensive coordinator. More on this, Anthony has
Speaker 4: presence you'll see him every week at the DC Press conference.
Speaker 4: He's got a smile that lights up a room. He's
Speaker 4: got a physical presence that commands attention. But he's also
Speaker 4: you're fresh off this is like he kind of was
Speaker 4: parsing his words. You're fresh off the memories of Vic Fangio,
Speaker 4: not one of the charming, lovable guys. And Fangio is
Speaker 4: your classic grind grind grind doesn't work anymore, guys. Today's
Speaker 4: player is not going to be ground into a dust.
Speaker 4: You have to bring the excellence out of players. You've
Speaker 4: got to go inside and get them to volunteer it.
Speaker 4: And I've watched Anthony do that as a defensive line
Speaker 4: coach here in Baltimore. He has the ability to get
Speaker 4: guys to work ten times harder than they wanted to work,
Speaker 4: and they're doing it on their own.
Speaker 2: And that's today's coach.
Speaker 4: You've got some great athletes on that defense, and Anthony's
Speaker 4: going to use them in a non traditional way. Look
Speaker 4: that fits your Mike McDaniel scheme. You've got a non
Speaker 4: traditional head coach who's taking cutting edge, new approach to
Speaker 4: developing his team and his players, and Anthony is going
Speaker 4: to fit that a whole lot better than Vic Fangio
Speaker 4: did Fiend Podcast right, pretty good. I'm excited about this.
Speaker 4: We'll have more coverage for you on Coach. We're going
Speaker 4: to have Kyle Krabs on the show to give us
Speaker 4: an update on the draft content post Senior Bowl week.
Speaker 4: I'm also going to have I believe Sean Sayed on
Speaker 4: to break down the Weaver scheme a little bit further,
Speaker 4: and we'll cover his opening.
Speaker 2: Press conference when that happens.
Speaker 4: Plenty more to come here with DC Anthony, but on
Speaker 4: today's show, that's gonna be my time.
Speaker 2: You all.
Speaker 4: Please be sure to subscribe to the podcast on Apple podcast,
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Speaker 4: at Wingfield NFL and the team at Miami Dolphins. Check
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