Speaker 1: Practors were Alps Patrick drawing the textile. What a win
Speaker 1: for this Miami Dolphin team. Wow. What is up? Dolphins?
Speaker 1: And welcome to the Drivetime Podcast, part of the Miami
Speaker 1: Dolphins official podcast network covering your Miami Dolphins. I am
Speaker 1: your host, Travis Wingfield, and I'm here to bring you
Speaker 1: your daily dose of Miami Dolphins football and on today
Speaker 1: show the podcast, I'm sure many of you have been
Speaker 1: waiting for the quarterback preview edition of our draft shows,
Speaker 1: and who better than Benjamin Solac of the Draft Network.
Speaker 1: He's gonna stop by to give us detailed analysis on
Speaker 1: the top four as well as the rest of this
Speaker 1: quarterback class and this interview it got very, very in
Speaker 1: depth all of that and more on this Monday, April
Speaker 1: edition of the Drift Time Podcasts. And we're gonna get
Speaker 1: to that interview with Ben here in just one second.
Speaker 1: But first, a couple of notes off the top here.
Speaker 1: I want to remind you Dolphins fans to check out
Speaker 1: our virtual Draft on the Miami Dolphins official Facebook page.
Speaker 1: We're gonna have player interviews, draft breakdowns, a live panel
Speaker 1: covering the draft from every angle for your Miami Dolphins
Speaker 1: and the team of course, that leads the draft this
Speaker 1: year with four teen picks, fourteen selections for your Dolphins
Speaker 1: in the NFL Draft, that, of course is Thursday April
Speaker 1: at eight o'clock Eastern, and then once the draft concludes,
Speaker 1: we're not gonna be done yet with that, because we're
Speaker 1: gonna have articles and podcasts and interviews and plenty of
Speaker 1: comprehensive coverage and all the new rookies heading to Miami
Speaker 1: in twenty at the conclusion of this year's draft, So
Speaker 1: don't miss it the Miami Dolphins Virtual Draft April on Facebook. Now,
Speaker 1: let's go ahead and get to the reason you're all
Speaker 1: here to hear Benjamin Slack breakdown this quarterback class. And
Speaker 1: this guy, if you haven't seen him on Twitter breaking
Speaker 1: down videos, breaking down players and prospects, he's one of
Speaker 1: the very best in the game. And he has charted
Speaker 1: all these quarter backs all season long and twenty nineteen
Speaker 1: and has a good grasp on who can do what
Speaker 1: and what system. So we're gonna get to him in
Speaker 1: just one second. But first, there is obviously a lot
Speaker 1: of speculations surrounding Alabama quarterback to a tongue of Voloa
Speaker 1: and Ian Rappaport on Thursday, took to Twitter to talk
Speaker 1: about some of the workouts and the availability of those
Speaker 1: workout videos. The quarterback put out into the atmosphere for
Speaker 1: NFL scouts and GM's tape. Look at this from Rappaport's timeline.
Speaker 1: He and Mike Garafolo sharing the story on this one.
Speaker 1: This is reading verbatim to a Tongue of Voloa participated
Speaker 1: in a one hour long workout with fifty five scripted
Speaker 1: throws and another twenty throws in a dynamic drill setting
Speaker 1: at a local private gym in place of a traditional
Speaker 1: pro day workout. There were less than ten people present
Speaker 1: for the workout. The health and safety guidelines set forth
Speaker 1: during the COVID nineteen pandemic or practice with everyone's health
Speaker 1: and social conscious in mind. The video will be distributed
Speaker 1: to all thirty two teams per Tongue of Voloha's reps.
Speaker 1: It is that time of the year again with the draft.
Speaker 1: News is gonna come in hot and heavy from every
Speaker 1: single angle, speculation rumors, who's trading up, who's trading down.
Speaker 1: One thing, we know for sure, we're gonna get the
Speaker 1: ins and outs on the things these quarterbacks can do
Speaker 1: to be successful at the next level with my guest
Speaker 1: Benjamin Solak of the Draft Network. So let's go ahead
Speaker 1: and roll this interview. You guys are gonna love this one.
Speaker 1: And joining the podcast now is the Senior. That's right,
Speaker 1: you heard it right, the senior draft analyst at the
Speaker 1: Draft Network and the author of Contextualized Quarterbacking Joe Burrows
Speaker 1: releases on Saturday. The entire thing drops on Tuesday. I
Speaker 1: can't wait to read that on the Draft Network. He
Speaker 1: is Benjamin Solak, Ben, what's going on? Man? Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: doing well, Travis. Thank you. I appreciate you driving. The
Speaker 1: Senior can't tell you how many times I get dropped
Speaker 1: on a radio hit somewhere, and clearly the host is
Speaker 1: like just seeing, like, you know, my profile picture in
Speaker 1: my bio and he goes to introduce me and he
Speaker 1: sees that senior and he like doesn't know what to do,
Speaker 1: and he goes, he's a senior draft analyt's to the
Speaker 1: Draft Network and that's the title. Brother. Me and Ben.
Speaker 1: We're joking off air before the podcast. His Skype profile
Speaker 1: photos from like four years ago, so he looks even
Speaker 1: younger than that one, but you wouldn't know it from
Speaker 1: his football knowledge. This guy as a wealth of knowledge,
Speaker 1: especially when it comes to the quarterback position. Before we
Speaker 1: get into that, Ben, we had a chance to meet
Speaker 1: in person back in Indianapolis before the world got crazy,
Speaker 1: and that was pretty much the last thing that I
Speaker 1: did before quarantine. How are you holding up in these
Speaker 1: crazy times? Man? Yeah, it's wild. I mean, like, it's
Speaker 1: it's very odd to be so thankful for the NFL Draft.
Speaker 1: Usually by this time in the in the process, I
Speaker 1: don't care about these players. I don't care about these pigs.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to happen so I can go to
Speaker 1: bed and I can start thinking about something else. You know,
Speaker 1: eventually you just get inundated with it. But man, the
Speaker 1: the league, I think has really done a good job
Speaker 1: here in finding the safest way to do this while
Speaker 1: still doing this because we really do need it. I
Speaker 1: really like we really do. It seems foolish to say
Speaker 1: we need something that's not even really live sports. It's
Speaker 1: live teams picking players to eventually play a sport. But
Speaker 1: it's something new in the sports world. And you didn't
Speaker 1: realize how much you relied on that to just kind
Speaker 1: of get through the monotony of your day until you
Speaker 1: lost it and that's kind of how that goes. And
Speaker 1: so I'm really excited and happy that the league found
Speaker 1: a safe way to get the draft done. Hopefully it's
Speaker 1: also virtually safe and nobody gets hacked and started picking
Speaker 1: kickers in round one, of course, but we I think
Speaker 1: we have a really good opportunity to to put something
Speaker 1: together that will help out a lot of people who
Speaker 1: are struggling through this. So I'm safe, My family saved,
Speaker 1: and that's tremendous. But it's really cool to be a
Speaker 1: very small part of what I think is an important
Speaker 1: event right now, which is the NFL Draft in the
Speaker 1: middle of quarantine, giving us all something to talk about
Speaker 1: that isn't how crazy we're going stuck at home. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the back end of March and the first part of
Speaker 1: April flew by where the tournament and stably a basketball
Speaker 1: tournament would have been, and not having that, like, that's
Speaker 1: when it really hit me that we just you're sucking Cide.
Speaker 1: The best things to do watch sports, in my opinion,
Speaker 1: is not available to you. So I completely free agency
Speaker 1: was a great break as well, even though it's only
Speaker 1: a couple of days long. But we're gonna get into
Speaker 1: the weeds here on this draft class. But first I
Speaker 1: want to ask you some general scouting questions, Ben, because
Speaker 1: I always appreciate the way you break the game down.
Speaker 1: You know, there's plenty of accounts out there that will
Speaker 1: tweet a video of a play and they'll tell you
Speaker 1: quarterback X throws the ball accurately here, but that doesn't
Speaker 1: really give you a whole lot of what actually happened.
Speaker 1: But you do so well to get into the design
Speaker 1: of the offense, the structure of the defense, and the
Speaker 1: process that brought us the result of the play. So
Speaker 1: my question to you, Ben is with those really in
Speaker 1: depth videos you do, and you guys can find those
Speaker 1: on his timeline at Benjamin Solak, when you're watching the
Speaker 1: tape or those clips typically, are those clips typically like
Speaker 1: a culmination of what you think the player is and
Speaker 1: how did you arrive at this place where you're able
Speaker 1: to see things that so many others really don't. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's tricky, so les las to it, right. I think
Speaker 1: the first thing is which which play you choose? And
Speaker 1: sometimes it's this is a really cool play, I want
Speaker 1: to talk about it, But most of the time it's
Speaker 1: I the play that's representative of something I see frequently
Speaker 1: on film because I think the coolest thing that happens
Speaker 1: with those videos is when somebody who isn't a pro
Speaker 1: isn't an expert, wasn't a writer, who's just watching prospects
Speaker 1: because it's fun, goes back and and and you know,
Speaker 1: responds to that twee or quote, tweets that two months
Speaker 1: later or three months later, however long, and says, I
Speaker 1: feel like, this is what's happening here, and they can
Speaker 1: correctly identify it on that player's film later a similar
Speaker 1: trait is similar issue with similar strength whatever. So so
Speaker 1: I want to grab something that's representative of something that's
Speaker 1: common on the player and also something that's important to
Speaker 1: the evaluation of the player. You know. I think if
Speaker 1: you look at like all the Justin Herbert videos in
Speaker 1: the world from a draft perspective on Twitter would be
Speaker 1: about his arm strength. And it's just not very interesting
Speaker 1: for me to talk about arm strength in a vacuum
Speaker 1: because I don't think it's hard to to see. I
Speaker 1: don't think it's hard of it. That ball was fast,
Speaker 1: that ball was far, you know, means like pretty standard stuff.
Speaker 1: Obviously it's something you have to watch for, but I
Speaker 1: don't think it's something that's particularly educational. So the primary
Speaker 1: thing I want to highlight these videos is an interesting
Speaker 1: event for the player that I think is representative of
Speaker 1: their film, and you can replicate finding it in different games. Now,
Speaker 1: when it comes to having the information necessary to really
Speaker 1: break down a play, I wish it was an easy answer,
Speaker 1: and it's not. You you have to expose yourself to everything,
Speaker 1: like you gotta. The best thing I ever did was
Speaker 1: get on Twitter, which Twitter is bad for a lot
Speaker 1: of reasons, but I I you know, if I could
Speaker 1: get off Twitter, I would like it. It puts gray
Speaker 1: hairs on my head. But the best thing I ever did,
Speaker 1: and I oh, Chuck Booth, my editor at section two
Speaker 1: on five back for us, and I always will, you know,
Speaker 1: everything I get out of this job will always go
Speaker 1: back to him saying, you've got to get on Twitter
Speaker 1: because you have to get associated with the community, and
Speaker 1: you have to expose yourself to the community, because that's
Speaker 1: where you see seven year NFL that's happening to talk
Speaker 1: for fifteen seconds about an offensive tackles pass set. That's
Speaker 1: where you see old coaches, not where you see clips
Speaker 1: from college coaches. And this is where the information gets dispersed.
Speaker 1: You have to consume everything because the most important thing
Speaker 1: you can do in scouting, and this is the massive
Speaker 1: difficult hurdle to overcome. So you have to be able
Speaker 1: to talk about what isn't there. You have to be
Speaker 1: able to say, this is what should have occurred, this
Speaker 1: is what could have possibly occurred, this is what we
Speaker 1: expect to occur before the ball is even snapped. But
Speaker 1: while the play is going on, before you see the outcome,
Speaker 1: you have to be able to talk about the range
Speaker 1: of outcomes, the possibilities, what could be done. How do
Speaker 1: you know the quarterback should have thrown the check down
Speaker 1: relative to the deep past. If you haven't watched a
Speaker 1: ton of NFL quarterbacks in similar context make that same decision,
Speaker 1: you don't know what you're measuring them up against. So
Speaker 1: whenever I make the videos, and hopefully you know, in
Speaker 1: in things that I write and in scouting reports, you
Speaker 1: can find that I'm constantly trying to have a voice
Speaker 1: of he he could have done this, He was able
Speaker 1: to do that, This was available to him, but he
Speaker 1: chose that. And that's not necessarily a weakness. Oftentimes it's
Speaker 1: just stylistic things I like what I've been using Justin
Speaker 1: Herbert as an example. I constantly talked about Justin Herbert
Speaker 1: having more throws than other quarterbacks because with his arm talent,
Speaker 1: he just got more at his disposal. He's got more
Speaker 1: things available to him. He can attempt things that Jake
Speaker 1: from cannot attempt because of his physical tools. Now he
Speaker 1: chooses sometimes too and sometimes not to. But it's important
Speaker 1: to discuss those possibilities because it helps us calibrate to
Speaker 1: what could have happened and what actually did happen. So
Speaker 1: the main thing in order to to scout successfully is
Speaker 1: not to be able to say Justin Herbert is a
Speaker 1: better arm than Jordan's. Love was a better arm than
Speaker 1: two and Tug is a better arm than Joe Burrow like,
Speaker 1: which is all true and good, but it is to
Speaker 1: say Justin Herbert could have done all of these things.
Speaker 1: He could have managed the pocket like Joe Burrow, and
Speaker 1: he could have thrown in rhythm like to a toungo
Speaker 1: by Lola, But he elected to hold the pocket strong,
Speaker 1: be strong, steady, his feet throw out of rhythm deep
Speaker 1: down the field. This is why he was able to
Speaker 1: do it. This is how the outcome of the play
Speaker 1: was this is the sort of offense that will work
Speaker 1: in is the sort of offense it won't work in.
Speaker 1: You need to have all of this information, all of
Speaker 1: these outcomes at your disposal in order to accurately talk
Speaker 1: about how valuable play is, what it was in context,
Speaker 1: and what it brings to a team. So the most
Speaker 1: important thing is exposing yourself. Anything that you can watch,
Speaker 1: anything that you can read, the talks about why a
Speaker 1: play happened, Do it, and continue to gain the knowledge
Speaker 1: game and knowledge game the knowledge. Then make your own assumptions,
Speaker 1: make your own scouts and scouting decisions, your own judgments,
Speaker 1: publicize them, and when they're wrong, swallow the pill and
Speaker 1: keep rolling because you just got better and you're gonna
Speaker 1: get it right next time. I absolutely love that answer
Speaker 1: for two reasons. One, you talk about exposing yourself. I've
Speaker 1: always called myself a football sponge. And you talk about
Speaker 1: being on Twitter, Like you said, there are so many
Speaker 1: great accounts that can tweet videos of prospects and tell
Speaker 1: you here's the technicalities of what they're doing wrong or
Speaker 1: what they're doing right. But also just like watching different
Speaker 1: things on television or being a sponge on YouTube, like,
Speaker 1: for instance, I learned a good tight end blocking technique
Speaker 1: based on Luke Wilson trying to learn how to block
Speaker 1: at tight end on hard knocks one time, you just
Speaker 1: like always open yourself up to what's out there for
Speaker 1: un available. People have vast knowledge of this game and
Speaker 1: they'll teach you that stuff. And also just putting yourself
Speaker 1: in front of the screen. Because when I first started out, Ben,
Speaker 1: you made a mention back to team. I started a
Speaker 1: website called third and ten dot com where I charted
Speaker 1: every single quarterbacks throws in the NFL that year, And
Speaker 1: at first I didn't really know what I was doing,
Speaker 1: but by the end of the project, I had a
Speaker 1: better idea better field because I had seen thousands and
Speaker 1: thousands of throws. So at the time the effort, I
Speaker 1: love it, I appreciate it, and it shows in your workman.
Speaker 1: And with that, let's go ahead and get into the
Speaker 1: weeds here on these quarterbacks, not the draft quarterbacks yet.
Speaker 1: I want to talk first about Ryan Fitzpatrick because you
Speaker 1: talk about the options that the quarterback has at his disposal,
Speaker 1: and he was playing so well down the stretch. The
Speaker 1: offense was humming. You saw it against your Philadelphia Eagles.
Speaker 1: Ben not to bring up a sore subject there, but
Speaker 1: you know I say this all the time, and it
Speaker 1: gets greeded with backlash that quarterbacks with cerebral aptitude for
Speaker 1: the game, the more they see, they're only going to
Speaker 1: get better as their career goes along. And so last
Speaker 1: training camp, when Ryan Fitzpatrick tells US Dolphins reporters that
Speaker 1: he thinks his best ball is ahead of him, I
Speaker 1: think he was right. Do you see that on his tape? Right?
Speaker 1: So Fitzpatrick is so freaking fun, right, and and and
Speaker 1: what I think your reality is with Fitzpatrick is he
Speaker 1: doesn't look it because he's a bearded Harvard middle aged
Speaker 1: wild man. But the league has developed towards his skill set. Right.
Speaker 1: Fitzpatrick in twenty nineteen had a top ten intended air
Speaker 1: yards per Next Gen Stats. I think he was like seventh,
Speaker 1: And then he had a bottom five time to throw.
Speaker 1: He was third last in the league. I remember this
Speaker 1: because in twenty nineteen he beat up on the Eagles,
Speaker 1: uh for the Dolphins and d and he did it
Speaker 1: in Tampa and it was the exact same thing. It
Speaker 1: was extremely low time to throw and extremely deep intended
Speaker 1: air yards. Ryan Fitzpatrick is an ideal deep rhythm thrower.
Speaker 1: Ryan Fitzpatrick will take a shotgun snap, sit back on
Speaker 1: a three step drop, and if he sees he has
Speaker 1: one on one coverage to the outside, whether it was
Speaker 1: to Mike Evans DeVante Barker in twenty nineteen, he's taking
Speaker 1: the shot because Fitzpatrick understands. Listen, if I've got a
Speaker 1: fifty fifty ball twenty five yards down the field, that's
Speaker 1: got plus e V relative to an eight ball, it's
Speaker 1: five yards down the field for example New England's in
Speaker 1: Week seventeen. I mean, let's got the best cover corners
Speaker 1: in the league. How's Miami putting points on them? Well,
Speaker 1: it's because even if they're low percentage throws, explosive plays
Speaker 1: will even the odds. It will even the seesaw for
Speaker 1: offenses that are potentially struggling against top defenses. So Fitzpatrick
Speaker 1: gets rid of the ball quickly but down the field.
Speaker 1: And I said that the league has grown towards his
Speaker 1: play style. It certainly has. You know, this is the
Speaker 1: rhythm game. In the twenty thousands, two thousand five, thou
Speaker 1: eight was the quick game and the deep passing game
Speaker 1: was the under center, seventh step drop all the way
Speaker 1: down the field, reading against two high safety game now
Speaker 1: out of a shotgun thrown against leverage one on one
Speaker 1: coverage outside the numbers. This is something that has become
Speaker 1: the standard deep passing play in the NFL's It's been
Speaker 1: adopted from college spread systems. That's a great throw for
Speaker 1: Fitzpatrick's skill set, so the league has grown towards his
Speaker 1: play style. He's an incredibly aggressive quarterback who still remains
Speaker 1: risk averse because of how quickly gets rid of the ball,
Speaker 1: so he doesn't take sax. He doesn't fumble the ball
Speaker 1: in the pocket nearly as much as other quarterbacks who
Speaker 1: throw the ball deep down the field. We had Neil
Speaker 1: Reynolds of Sky Sports on the podcast last week and
Speaker 1: he was breaking down uh an interview that he had
Speaker 1: with Ryan Fitzpatrick one on one, and he put it perfectly.
Speaker 1: In my opinion, Fitzpatrick looks like a guy that want
Speaker 1: a quarterback competition from the fans to come out and
Speaker 1: play for a game, and he Fitzpatrick loved it. He agreed,
Speaker 1: he laughed about it. But he's out there getting the
Speaker 1: job done. Lead the team in rushing, had the big
Speaker 1: plays explosive downfield aerial assault like you mentioned Ben. And
Speaker 1: with that, now let's go ahead and transition back towards
Speaker 1: the young pups coming into the league this year. There
Speaker 1: are a top four list in this draft. I think
Speaker 1: everybody is unanimous on the draft network is unanimous on
Speaker 1: these guys, all within the top thirty seven players on
Speaker 1: your guys big board. Joe Burrow to a tongue of voloa,
Speaker 1: justin Herbert Jordan Love. He touched on the arm strength
Speaker 1: a little bit there. But can you kind of separate
Speaker 1: these guys in terms of who does what the best?
Speaker 1: And where might these guys come off the board? Uh?
Speaker 1: Just two weeks now? Yeah, Joe Burrows, he's kind of
Speaker 1: good travel. I don't know to watch him, you intern,
Speaker 1: I can play a little ball. Uh. Burrow will be
Speaker 1: right up there with Baker Mayfields as the most accurate
Speaker 1: quarterback I've charted in three years so. I've been doing
Speaker 1: textual as quarterbacking since the eighteen class. I started it
Speaker 1: as a result of the ten class and kind of
Speaker 1: the incredible amount of of debate and and and scheme
Speaker 1: specific questions that were on that class. Baker was the
Speaker 1: most accurate quarterback by far, He's one of the few
Speaker 1: quarterbacks that's been accurate on more than nine out of
Speaker 1: ten passes. Uh, Burrow is going to be another one
Speaker 1: of those guys. And actually Jordan's Love is accurate on
Speaker 1: exactly point nine zero one pent of his passes, which
Speaker 1: is funny, but that Loves a different conversation. Burrow is
Speaker 1: going to go down as one of the most accurate
Speaker 1: quarterbacks that I've ever evaluated. Now, what Burrow brings that
Speaker 1: Mayfield didn't have was pocket management like you wouldn't believe
Speaker 1: and and Burrows elite trade his pocket management and ploys.
Speaker 1: Bur is never out of a play. When we talk
Speaker 1: about players who can extend plays, we typically think of
Speaker 1: Russell Wilson's. We think of Kyler Murray's and Patrick Mahomes
Speaker 1: and these quarterbacks have elite physical tools to break tackles,
Speaker 1: to escape sacks, and to run on the hoof making
Speaker 1: throws on the run while still abating defenders. Burrow does
Speaker 1: have plus athleticism. You know, people, oh Burrows sneaky athletic
Speaker 1: and Burrows like got all high school state point guard
Speaker 1: like Burrow has been athletics since the beginning. What Burrow
Speaker 1: has his pocket management. Burrow does not need to break
Speaker 1: the pocket to extend plays his his vestibular sense. So
Speaker 1: the understanding of where space is developing in the pocket,
Speaker 1: where offensive linemen are going to end up pushing rushers,
Speaker 1: how twists and stunts are going to develop to create
Speaker 1: space up when you're hitching up in the pocket, it's sublime.
Speaker 1: And for a player who hasn't started for more than
Speaker 1: two seasons, it's ridiculous that he's this experience that he's poised.
Speaker 1: We typically associate poise developing with maturity, developing with experience.
Speaker 1: The more time you spend in the pocket, the better
Speaker 1: you'll get it managing it. Burrows stepped in. Even his
Speaker 1: best trade was pocket management in nineteen he only got better.
Speaker 1: This is extremely natural for him to manage the space
Speaker 1: of the pocket. So in a in a timing based offense,
Speaker 1: Burrow is gonna be just fine. He's gonna be quality,
Speaker 1: just like two would be because he can deliver the
Speaker 1: ball on time, deliver it with the accuracy you understand spacing.
Speaker 1: But even in a in a if you think of
Speaker 1: like a Tennessee style offense, a Los Angeles Rams style offense,
Speaker 1: Green Bay Cincinnati, I'm talking about the Sean McVeigh tree
Speaker 1: here where they're gonna ask you to take five step
Speaker 1: drops from under center after play action and there's gonna
Speaker 1: be two to three routes all developing deep down the field.
Speaker 1: You've gotta be able to hang in that pocket for
Speaker 1: two point five two point seven five three seconds. Burrows
Speaker 1: the ideal quarterback. He's the ideal candidate because he makes
Speaker 1: blocking for him so easy because he moves his spots
Speaker 1: so nicely. So that's where Burrow is going to be
Speaker 1: at his strongest, and that trade translates everywhere. No matter
Speaker 1: what offense he ends up in, Burrow is gonna be
Speaker 1: able to make big plays because he's gonna be able
Speaker 1: to last in the pocket for a long time and
Speaker 1: evade the first and invade the second sack. He's more
Speaker 1: so a pocket passer, and when he gets the comps
Speaker 1: to Drew Brees, they're accurate because his ability to distribute
Speaker 1: short intermediate in the quick game accurately and in rhythm
Speaker 1: is delightful. I mean he's pure, right, I mean, he's
Speaker 1: he's he's steady. You can set a metronome to this dude,
Speaker 1: like he's just so consistent, justin Herbert his quarterback three
Speaker 1: for me, and I think Tuah is closer to Herbert
Speaker 1: than Tuah is to Burrow. I think that that that
Speaker 1: Herbert and Tuah is more so of a tier than
Speaker 1: Tah and and Burrow is a tear. Herbert has never
Speaker 1: been better than he is right now. And that's important
Speaker 1: to talk about because Herbert first jumped onto NFL radars
Speaker 1: in the back half of it started for over a
Speaker 1: full season. It was his sophomore year. Oregon football was
Speaker 1: finally turning around, first year with Marcus Arroyo as his
Speaker 1: offensive coordinator, and he really started to show that that
Speaker 1: arm strength and that mobility was going to become NFL
Speaker 1: draft worthy. That junior season was up and down. He
Speaker 1: was going to be a first round pick, but it
Speaker 1: was up and down. There were question marks his ability
Speaker 1: to handle pressure. He faded away from contact, his mechanics
Speaker 1: fell apart whenever the pockets started to get nasty. It
Speaker 1: was up and down. He elects to go back to
Speaker 1: school and he got better. That's a really big deal
Speaker 1: that at no point in his entire career would his
Speaker 1: stock be higher than it is right now. He has
Speaker 1: an absolute rocket. Oh my God, like you watch this
Speaker 1: dude makes him throws and you're just piste off. He
Speaker 1: gets me up out of my seat. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: just silly bow Billy I. He's so much fun to
Speaker 1: watch because of the physical tools. This is a very
Speaker 1: similar player to Josh Allen coming out of Wyoming two
Speaker 1: years ago. Jordan left the final one here. Quarterback four
Speaker 1: for me and contextualized quarterbacking distinguishes between the two, and
Speaker 1: it's critical that it does. Accurate balls are catchable. He
Speaker 1: puts the ball into places receiver can make a play
Speaker 1: on the football, but balls with good placement are adjusted
Speaker 1: relative to defenders, relative to leverage, relative to yak. You
Speaker 1: want to throw with good placement. You don't always want
Speaker 1: to hit a receiver right between the numbers every time,
Speaker 1: right Travis. Sometimes you want to lead him down the field,
Speaker 1: bring him post a line of scrimmage, bring him into
Speaker 1: the ground, forced him to elevate. These throws require context.
Speaker 1: So right now, he is such delightful arm talent. He
Speaker 1: throws with touch like college quarterbacks typically can't throw out.
Speaker 1: And that's so important was grabbing him and developing him.
Speaker 1: When the dude gets outside of the pocket, he still
Speaker 1: has all sixty yards of the field to throw it too,
Speaker 1: because he has such a natural release, such a smooth
Speaker 1: and explosive release of the football off of his hand,
Speaker 1: and he's got delightful deep accuracy. So I am so
Speaker 1: in on Jordan's love, and I want to take a
Speaker 1: quick detour right there, Ben, because one of the things
Speaker 1: you'll often see in scouting circles are on Twitter or
Speaker 1: whatever it might be, is that some quarterbacks, as you
Speaker 1: move throughout the course of the draft might have to
Speaker 1: develop their game a little bit further as we get
Speaker 1: into day two and day three. I sometimes think those
Speaker 1: arguments lacked context. So when you talk about having a
Speaker 1: year to kind of grow and develop, I think that
Speaker 1: can be kind of a trope or maybe like a
Speaker 1: cliche thing for a fan to say, or maybe even
Speaker 1: you know, someone in the in the industry to say,
Speaker 1: this guy just needs some time to sit and learn
Speaker 1: behind quarterback X, Like, can you tell us what that means?
Speaker 1: Because we hear it so many times, Like what when
Speaker 1: the quarterback gets drafted, Like for instance, let's use Patrick
Speaker 1: Mahomes in Kansas City, they already had Alex Smith who
Speaker 1: was playing good ball limited quarterback, but he he was
Speaker 1: a good quarterback. They bring Patrick Mahomes and behind him,
Speaker 1: who was basically the key to the ferrari of the offense,
Speaker 1: but they develop him four years. So when you draft
Speaker 1: that quarterback like Mahomes, you draft him, is there like
Speaker 1: a set plan in place where you say, we're gonna
Speaker 1: have him learned this aspect of the offense and O
Speaker 1: T s. We're gonna open him up to this in
Speaker 1: training camp and then throughout the course of the season
Speaker 1: he'll do this, And like, how does that work? I
Speaker 1: love the question. I'm so glad you asked it because
Speaker 1: I was going along there. Usually if I was ever
Speaker 1: going to say something like he needs a year to develop,
Speaker 1: I would immediately parse that because we absolutely use it
Speaker 1: as a throwaway line and it needs to be discussed.
Speaker 1: Development is not the same player as a player. Dwayne
Speaker 1: Haskins came out in twenty nineteen. I low grade on him.
Speaker 1: I was worried about Askins. You're one starter, big ten
Speaker 1: Urban Meyer, horizontal spread, throw the ball to the fast guy.
Speaker 1: Let the fast guy do a lot of work right
Speaker 1: and Haskins had issues dealing with pressure and adjusting his
Speaker 1: reads pre snap the post snap. That to me could
Speaker 1: have been prohibitive for year one play. This was a
Speaker 1: player that I believed strongly needed to go out and
Speaker 1: be bad in his first season. He needed to play
Speaker 1: because even though it was going to be ugly, experience
Speaker 1: was going to be the best teacher for a player
Speaker 1: like Haskins who had so little experience at the college level.
Speaker 1: You had really a multiple ball of clay here. He
Speaker 1: hadn't been taught that much for that long, and with
Speaker 1: the Urban Meyer offense, as we know, the stuff he'd
Speaker 1: been taught was pretty fundamental, was pretty simple. So you
Speaker 1: got to get him out on the field and you
Speaker 1: can help build up his habits, build up his reflexes,
Speaker 1: what he sees and how he reacts to it, fundamentally
Speaker 1: with your own offense that's in place. And that's a
Speaker 1: big thing right now for Haskins, having already changed head
Speaker 1: coaches in Washington, is that they've really got to start
Speaker 1: getting him on the right developmental path that they're gonna
Speaker 1: lose that window to create his habits Accordingly, I want
Speaker 1: a player to sit when I believe he has bad habits,
Speaker 1: I need to wean him off of I need to
Speaker 1: take him off the playing fields that he does not
Speaker 1: resort to the bad habits when things break down. I
Speaker 1: need to teach him new reactions to things like pressure,
Speaker 1: to things like post nap rotation. Two things that always
Speaker 1: change the NFL level the faster speed of corners and linebackers,
Speaker 1: the closing windows. I need to teach the new reactions
Speaker 1: to these things, because if I don't, he help fall
Speaker 1: back on old habits and will never get away from them.
Speaker 1: If you guys want to find Ben's contextualized quarterback up
Speaker 1: on the Draft Network, Joe Burrow drops on Saturday, the
Speaker 1: rest drops on Tuesday, I believe is the plan for
Speaker 1: the Draft Network, and go check out their entire website.
Speaker 1: They have every player across this draft ranked. There are
Speaker 1: player profiles, mock drafts, everything you could want. At the
Speaker 1: Draft Network. We have Ben Slack here on the Drivetime podcast.
Speaker 1: Here your official Miami Dolphins podcast network, and those are
Speaker 1: your top four quarterbacks. I think most folks expect those
Speaker 1: four to come off the board at some point in
Speaker 1: the first round night number one Thursday. Then we get
Speaker 1: to Friday and maybe one of these guys could sneak
Speaker 1: into Thursday night. But you guys have a big gap
Speaker 1: between Jordan's Love at thirty seven, down to Jalen Hurts
Speaker 1: at seventy seven, Jake from An eighty two, and Jacob
Speaker 1: Easton at nine two, and then of course there's another massive,
Speaker 1: massive gap. But those three players, I mean, you could
Speaker 1: not cut these players with more vast differences than Hurts
Speaker 1: from and Easton. Let's go ahead and get into their games.
Speaker 1: Hurts from Easton, where do you see them coming off
Speaker 1: the board on draft night? I think in that order,
Speaker 1: and hopefully it's the word we've got him in so
Speaker 1: we'd like to see that sum But I think that
Speaker 1: order is going to be reflected in the league. We
Speaker 1: walked into the season with from as a pro ready item,
Speaker 1: Easton as the developmental prospect a Jore and then Hurts
Speaker 1: isn't unknown and as seems to be the case with
Speaker 1: Lincoln Roddey quarterbacks, Hurts proved something to us across the
Speaker 1: course of the season. These Cats just keep getting better
Speaker 1: under Riley. Hurts has improved as a passer every season
Speaker 1: at Alabama's. Like I said with Justin Herman's Justin Herbert,
Speaker 1: excuse me, improvement across the course multiple seasons is a
Speaker 1: tremendous thing to see hurts accuracy at Alabama was prohibitive
Speaker 1: to NFL play. It wasn't NFL caliber. Now NFL caliber.
Speaker 1: One of the things I charted in contextualized quarterbacking is
Speaker 1: not just passing attempts, but also all dropped back and
Speaker 1: what the response to a drop back was. Hurt scrambles
Speaker 1: more than any Oklahoma quarterback before and then includes Kyler Murray,
Speaker 1: includes Baker Mayfield more than any quarterback in this classy
Speaker 1: scrambles and critically when it comes to pressure, one of
Speaker 1: the things that I charge is who's responsible for the pressure?
Speaker 1: Was it a blown blocked by the offensive line, and
Speaker 1: or was it the quarterback who had a blitzer? He
Speaker 1: should be aware of. You still have incredible elusiveness, tremendous escapability,
Speaker 1: and so Hurts makes a lot of plays outside of
Speaker 1: the pocket the quarterbacks don't make, in part because he
Speaker 1: authors them from himself. He puts himself in those sticky situations,
Speaker 1: but in large part because he's so athletic and he's
Speaker 1: got a good throw on the move. Hurts represents a
Speaker 1: dual threat at quarterback. I think he's the best running
Speaker 1: quarterback we've had come out in the last five years.
Speaker 1: Not named Lamar, right, and that's like Kyler and Trabisky
Speaker 1: and Josh Allen is a great running quarterback, right, Hurts
Speaker 1: is the best dual threat that we've had come out
Speaker 1: besides Lamar. Now, the passing threat isn't necessarily as great,
Speaker 1: but as we know and I've seen at the college
Speaker 1: and pro level, when you're quarterback has mobility and adds
Speaker 1: a dimension the defenses have to deal with. So Jalen
Speaker 1: Hurts could be a late round one guy for a
Speaker 1: team that views him as a developmental starter. The player
Speaker 1: more likely to be drafted with potential starting ability is Easton.
Speaker 1: Easton was extremely first read heavy at Washington as a
Speaker 1: timing based RPO style offense. A lot of inbreaking routes
Speaker 1: and shallow stuff developing to the outside allowed Easton to
Speaker 1: get rid of the ball quickly, and much like Herbert,
Speaker 1: when you have such a strong arm, it allows you
Speaker 1: to hide some of the deficiencies that you might have
Speaker 1: later in the down later into the play. Easton and
Speaker 1: Gregg Cassell just dropped his scouting report Easton, and one
Speaker 1: of the main negatives that hero On Eastern was the
Speaker 1: tendency to bail out of the back of the pocket.
Speaker 1: Eason actually really good tackle breaking ability. He's got that
Speaker 1: Ben Roethlisberger framed in were just like, you know, a
Speaker 1: defensive ends like, oh, I've got him. And then he
Speaker 1: sees the size of east and he's like, oh wait,
Speaker 1: Like I don't need any big dude. But when you
Speaker 1: when you are able to break that many tackles, obviously
Speaker 1: you have good throw in the moveability with Easton as well.
Speaker 1: And now there's so much good stuff developmentally with Easton
Speaker 1: that he's going to be drafted and he's gonna get
Speaker 1: an obtune need to start at some point. His arm
Speaker 1: is gonna look great in camp, like he can make
Speaker 1: every throw and then some. And the ability to drive
Speaker 1: the football on a line thirty plus thirty five plus
Speaker 1: yards down the field makes him an ideal vertical offense thrower,
Speaker 1: Like this guy can hit seam balls in time before
Speaker 1: safeties arrived. It's not a skill that most starting quarterbacks
Speaker 1: in the league have. So he'll be developed, he'll get
Speaker 1: an opportunity to start a fight for a starting job
Speaker 1: in and for Jake From he must remain the same
Speaker 1: From as a championship caliber quarterback at the college level.
Speaker 1: He is consistent, he delivers on time, he has a
Speaker 1: risk of verse, and he is highly intelligent. At the
Speaker 1: NFL level, he will be all of those things. And
Speaker 1: he's got good lower body mechanics, real quality upper body mechanics.
Speaker 1: That's fine. You can make a long NFL career about
Speaker 1: with having average arms strength. You asked Chase Daniel how
Speaker 1: having an average arms strength has gone for him across
Speaker 1: the last ten years. Daniel is an extremely valuable backup
Speaker 1: quarterback because of his intelligence, because of his mobility, and
Speaker 1: because of his consistency from brings all of those things
Speaker 1: to the table. And we saw Chad Pennington lead the
Speaker 1: Miami Dolphins to an an f C East title. Like
Speaker 1: his arm was basically put together by band aids and
Speaker 1: Scotch tape, but it just didn't matter. The guy could
Speaker 1: flat out spend the football and lead a football team
Speaker 1: and that's why they won so many games that year
Speaker 1: because of the leadership, because of the presence of Chad Pennington.
Speaker 1: Now you close that group of players out with Jacob
Speaker 1: Easton at number ninety two, and the next guy with
Speaker 1: a huge gap in between is another player at a
Speaker 1: Washington school, Anthony Gordon out of Washington state. Gokog's at one.
Speaker 1: Is he your favorite Day three prospect? I don't want
Speaker 1: to break your heart, but he's not man. He's fun though.
Speaker 1: We talked about him in India a little bit. Dude.
Speaker 1: I mean, he's just hilarious. And he takes he takes
Speaker 1: the shotgun snap. He doesn't even move right on the floor,
Speaker 1: just straight up right, just seeing what's happening. Gordon is
Speaker 1: uh a similar to a lot of the quarterbacks that
Speaker 1: have succeeded under the air raid model. He's slight of frame,
Speaker 1: he's diminutive, he doesn't have great arm strength. He has
Speaker 1: better mobility than a lot of people. I think what
Speaker 1: would adit him to because he spends so much time
Speaker 1: in the pocket and he's very willing to take open space.
Speaker 1: The number one trade and air raid quarterback. We hear
Speaker 1: air raid and always very impressed. The number one trade
Speaker 1: you can have is just a willingness to throw the
Speaker 1: open mesh. Just throw the open shallow across. That's a
Speaker 1: running play in the air raid, right, It's a percentage,
Speaker 1: is gonna get four yards. It's a running play. And
Speaker 1: Gordon does that and keeps the offense on schedule. What's
Speaker 1: really exciting about Gordon is the mechanics, right, He's got
Speaker 1: what you call longevity mechanics. We talked about throwing mechanics
Speaker 1: a lot in terms of accuracy, but the other thing
Speaker 1: it matters with is is is strain, is wear and tear.
Speaker 1: When you have bad mechanics, you're more likely to get
Speaker 1: injuries to your throwing shoulder, to your throwing elbow, to
Speaker 1: your throwing wrist than you are for other quarterbacks because
Speaker 1: you're putting undue stress on muscles that you shouldn't been
Speaker 1: putting stress on. Gordon's got such clean mechanics that you
Speaker 1: don't only expect him to be accurate, you expect him
Speaker 1: to be accurate and probably not experience a steep drop
Speaker 1: off an arm strength because he's already just a modest
Speaker 1: arms strength player. It's not like he's gonna lose that
Speaker 1: velocity with age. Is probably gonna stay much the same,
Speaker 1: and he's going to stay extremely consistent with his releasing,
Speaker 1: with his accuracy. So there's a really nice longevity projection
Speaker 1: with Anthony Gordon. He's an air rate quarterback who's gonna
Speaker 1: have to transition to the league. I prefer James Morgan
Speaker 1: out of Florida International as a developmental quarterback. Morgan also
Speaker 1: done a great lower body mechanics. He doesn't have a
Speaker 1: great sense of timing, but boy, kids gotta rock it.
Speaker 1: And we were able to see him at the Shrine
Speaker 1: Bowl just you know, seventy yards with a hitch, sixty
Speaker 1: yards standing still. You got Charles Davis down at the field. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he knows. Charles Davis talks the NFL teams. He tells
Speaker 1: one of his wide receivers, you'll go stand at the
Speaker 1: end line. He goes over to the forty and just
Speaker 1: starts whacking him like like batting practice off a team. Man.
Speaker 1: This guy's got real exciting and special armtaln He was
Speaker 1: two years of bowling. Green transferred to Florida International, played
Speaker 1: for Butch Davis. Bush Davis calling the best quarterback you
Speaker 1: ever had, and you can see how the velocity allows
Speaker 1: him to throw guys open, especially in the intermediate areas.
Speaker 1: He's got a good knack for intermediate throws. In breaking
Speaker 1: routes with a linebacker underneath and his safety over the top,
Speaker 1: you gotta hammer that thing there in time, and he's
Speaker 1: able to do that. That's a really incur urging throw
Speaker 1: to see. I think that he has a lot of
Speaker 1: the limitations that you expect for a group of five
Speaker 1: quarterback with such a strong arm. But if you're asking
Speaker 1: me for the guy that I would take and trying
Speaker 1: to make into a starter after pick one, Morgan's my cat.
Speaker 1: He is Benjamin Solac of the Draft Network. You guys
Speaker 1: can get his quarterback or contextualized quarterback up on the
Speaker 1: Draft Network coming out your way in its entirety next week.
Speaker 1: You can tell this guy knows his stuff. He knows
Speaker 1: this quarterback position, he knows his game of football. Ben.
Speaker 1: We're gonna have to get you back on after the
Speaker 1: draft if the Dolphins do get one of these quarterbacks
Speaker 1: we talked about, because I want to hear the entire
Speaker 1: scope of the player in the fit in the system.
Speaker 1: Once we do get to that point, that's for another podcast, though.
Speaker 1: You guys can find him on Twitter at Benjamin Slac. Ben,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for your time today, man. Of course,
Speaker 1: Dravis appreciate you having me on. Man, Go fins boy.
Speaker 1: How about that fire hose of information? Benjamin Solac, one
Speaker 1: of the best in the game. Love hearing his podcast,
Speaker 1: reading his work up on the Draft Network. He does
Speaker 1: a fantastic job breaking down these quarterbacks and really every
Speaker 1: position on the football field. And we are now just
Speaker 1: ten days away from the draft, and we're going to
Speaker 1: have a virtual draft for you guys coming to you
Speaker 1: live on the Miami Dolphins Facebook page. Tons of good
Speaker 1: content for you all there. Don't forget to check that out.
Speaker 1: We have plenty more draft preview podcast coming your way,
Speaker 1: taking a look at the defensive side of the ball
Speaker 1: the rest of this week, have some more good guests
Speaker 1: line up for that. We have a mailbag podcast here
Speaker 1: in the near future. We have another edition of the
Speaker 1: Throwback the Fins Flashback podcast taking a look at previous
Speaker 1: Miami Dolphins games. We have a pull up on Twitter
Speaker 1: right now, should be closing any time, taking a look
Speaker 1: at either the Wildcat game season opener, the two thousand
Speaker 1: three Thanksgiving Day game in Dallas, and also what's the
Speaker 1: other one on there, the wild card winner Lamar Smith
Speaker 1: overtime touchdown run go ahead and make your vote. We'll
Speaker 1: cover that next Thursday on the podcast. But that's gonna
Speaker 1: be my time for today's edition of the Drivetime podcast.
Speaker 1: You all please be sure to subscribe to the podcast
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Speaker 1: at Wingfield, NFL fall the Dolphins. At Miami Dolphins, check
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Speaker 1: course Miami Dolphins dot com. Until next time finds up