Speaker 1: What is up, Dolphans And welcome to the Draft Time Podcast.
Speaker 1: I am your host Travis Wingfield. On today's show, what
Speaker 1: started as a run game comparison research project turned into
Speaker 1: an entire monologue on how the offense can revert back
Speaker 1: to the production we saw in twenty twenty three in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five, plus, I've got a bunch of your
Speaker 1: mail bag questions to answer from the Baptist Health Studios
Speaker 1: inside the Baptist Health Training Complex. This is the Draft
Speaker 1: Time Podcast. Ye gaffe, that's a lie off the top.
Speaker 1: We are not in the Baptist Health Studios. We are
Speaker 1: at COSA day Wingfield, and it's a holiday weekend, which
Speaker 1: means recording the podcast from home, which means you're probably
Speaker 1: gonna hear some interruptions, some stomping around upstairs. The boy
Speaker 1: I believe has some legos out, and I believe Caroline
Speaker 1: is trying on more princess dresses as she does every
Speaker 1: weekend to see So if you get an interruption, that's why,
Speaker 1: that's that's why.
Speaker 2: So let's go ahead and jump into this.
Speaker 1: I wanted to start the show with something that I've
Speaker 1: kind of been kicking around as a content idea. For
Speaker 1: a few weeks and full transparency. The Dolphins have really
Speaker 1: been great about kind of letting me carve my own
Speaker 1: path a little bit as I transition from my new
Speaker 1: weekend obsession with the Outdoor Boys YouTube channel.
Speaker 2: You guys watch him.
Speaker 1: He's phenomenal, a phenomenal outdoor channel. Half hour episodes, keeps
Speaker 1: things moving, teaches me things that I didn't know about,
Speaker 1: didn't think I ever cared to know about, but apparently
Speaker 1: I'm really into outdoors content. But what I mean by
Speaker 1: kind of carving your own path or your own trail
Speaker 1: is doing episodes like this right and just kind of
Speaker 1: allowing me to pontificate certain ideas and do some research
Speaker 1: behind them and then provide you guys with the episode.
Speaker 1: Because the truth is, like anybody can do this. I mean,
Speaker 1: you have to put the time and research in, but
Speaker 1: anybody could do this. And I think that what makes
Speaker 1: for fun content is is knowing that team and what
Speaker 1: the fan based desires and how to deliver that information
Speaker 1: to them in a timely and entertaining way. So that's
Speaker 1: what we're going for here. And as I continue to,
Speaker 1: you know, gather data points on all of this, I
Speaker 1: think we just roll with it and let the chips
Speaker 1: fall where they may. And essentially it's it comes down
Speaker 1: to this. To me, the biggest reason we saw an
Speaker 1: offensive drop off in twenty twenty four aside from too
Speaker 1: A missing six and a half games, And that's like
Speaker 1: I mean, we've this has been the debate for months now,
Speaker 1: right like to A missed over a third of the
Speaker 1: season and we still were in the mix in Week
Speaker 1: eighteen like that, that's I think that's probably where the
Speaker 1: disconnect comes from from the from the national or rather
Speaker 1: like the NFL giving the Dolphins five primetime games and
Speaker 1: the fan base that feels a little bit snake bitten
Speaker 1: right now. And I get it, trust me, I do.
Speaker 1: It's it's been that way for for quite some time
Speaker 1: for this organization, for this team. If you're a fan
Speaker 1: of this team for you know, twenty five thirty years,
Speaker 1: I get it. But I think that's why you know
Speaker 1: they're saying that two is only missed that many games.
Speaker 1: That's the most games he's missed in a single season,
Speaker 1: right So I don't think that's the expectations that every year.
Speaker 1: But he has to stay healthy. And to reiterate the
Speaker 1: point I've made so many times, on the show. I
Speaker 1: think the Cardinals game was really what the offense should
Speaker 1: have been from week one, right, and we got a
Speaker 1: little spoiled there for two years with these red Hearts
Speaker 1: red hot starts offensively, I mean, twenty twenty three was
Speaker 1: a four hundred and sixty six yard passing day from
Speaker 1: the quarterback, and then seventy points two weeks after that,
Speaker 1: And I thought the Week two game against the Patriots
Speaker 1: is one of two was best execution games just in
Speaker 1: terms of running the offense and going to the correct
Speaker 1: read and putting the ball where it's supposed to be
Speaker 1: on time frequently against a different style of defense, and
Speaker 1: that three high look, it's twenty twenty two in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two, Rather it was to come back against the Ravens,
Speaker 1: and then Tua gets hurt a couple of weeks later,
Speaker 1: but returns and we start rolling up thirty points every
Speaker 1: single game and the offense kind of carries us while
Speaker 1: the defense is kind of getting ran over by Detroit
Speaker 1: in Chicago, right. But it was pretty much the same
Speaker 1: thing last year when Tua comes back for the Cardinals
Speaker 1: game after a really really challenging opening parts of the
Speaker 1: season with Scyler Thompson, Tim Boyle, and then eventually Tyler Huntley.
Speaker 1: But after that twenty seven points against the Cardinals, twenty
Speaker 1: seven against the Bills, twenty three in a win over
Speaker 1: the Rams, and then thirty four and thirty four and
Speaker 1: back to back games his first five games back, So
Speaker 1: two games over thirty four or over thirty points, I
Speaker 1: should say, and then nothing lower than twenty three and
Speaker 1: two games right there at twenty seven, which if you
Speaker 1: ever twenty seven points per game in the league, you're
Speaker 1: probably going to the playoffs. So we need to find
Speaker 1: a way to get back to being inventive. Inventive I
Speaker 1: should say, and ahead of the curve in week one,
Speaker 1: not what we saw last year with this, like I
Speaker 1: suppose deeper evolution of the screen game that didn't really
Speaker 1: work aside for a couple of fun like pop plays.
Speaker 1: But aside from Tua being hurt, to me, what caused
Speaker 1: the offense to take a massive step in the wrong
Speaker 1: direction was not taking advantage of light boxes with the
Speaker 1: run game, because this passing game a fords you space
Speaker 1: in that way, and you have to make the defense
Speaker 1: respect the run game in order to get your shots
Speaker 1: down field. And passing game and in twenty twenty three,
Speaker 1: we excelled at this. When people ask like, why did
Speaker 1: we not have a downfield passing game, it's because you
Speaker 1: couldn't run the ball. That's the only reason why teams
Speaker 1: are going to be happy to allow eight Chan to
Speaker 1: have one thirty yard run per game if I have
Speaker 1: eight other carries where he gets two yards or less,
Speaker 1: because that's consistently putting myself in an advantageous from a
Speaker 1: defensive play calling situation. So you can have your even
Speaker 1: if you have three thirty yard runs a game, I
Speaker 1: really don't care because the other fifteen you're gonna put
Speaker 1: yourself behind the eight ball and have a negative play offensively.
Speaker 1: So I don't mind going fifteen to three on a
Speaker 1: play on a run game standpoint, and eight Chan was
Speaker 1: a big part of that, the biggest part of it
Speaker 1: I thought. I thought his rookie season vision was outstanding.
Speaker 1: I think that last year was a drop off in
Speaker 1: that area. He wasn't as sharp with his reads and
Speaker 1: how he read blocks and kind of anticipated angles and
Speaker 1: how to attack them. But I don't think that means
Speaker 1: he's incapable of seeing things better, because we do have
Speaker 1: proof of concept and Devon talked about this watching cutups
Speaker 1: last year. I felt like I left a lot of
Speaker 1: the yards on the table end quote, and in this system,
Speaker 1: the back's decision making and the track that he takes
Speaker 1: impressing the gap and really kind of you know, making
Speaker 1: things play out the way they're designed to and then
Speaker 1: reading the angle of the blocks and hitting the gap
Speaker 1: with good smart decisions.
Speaker 2: It's a lot to chew on.
Speaker 1: And for Devon, his role went from a one B
Speaker 1: you know, behind Raheem Mostert there sort of and kind
Speaker 1: of the change of pace like look out, here comes
Speaker 1: the you know, Andres Munios the best closer in baseball
Speaker 1: out of the bullpen, throwing ninety nine mile an hour
Speaker 1: gas every single pitch with a devastating sinker. Like then
Speaker 1: he went to being a starter. He couldn't just go
Speaker 1: to the fastball all the time. And we've talked about,
Speaker 1: you know this with with how Jalen Wright, Alexander Madison,
Speaker 1: Oli Gordon and their ability to make you know, to
Speaker 1: take a step ahead in the offense and reduce the
Speaker 1: true running back load of a chan. And allow me
Speaker 1: to make this abundantly clear, I don't want to reduce
Speaker 1: a chan's workload I just I think he's one of
Speaker 1: the best skill players receive a running back tight under
Speaker 1: otherwise in the entire National Football League. But if we
Speaker 1: can get more wide receiver snaps, more swings and screens
Speaker 1: and varied pre snap alignments, and utilize more Jalen Wright
Speaker 1: in some of those single back sets as the true
Speaker 1: running back, I think defenses respect that more.
Speaker 2: I think it challenges.
Speaker 1: Your vertical element even more than if you didn't have
Speaker 1: a chan in that role. I thought he really showed
Speaker 1: his salt, right, that is as a zone runner and
Speaker 1: where a Chance says that he left yards out there.
Speaker 1: To me, that was on tape of him trying to
Speaker 1: hit the big play, and he talked about that and
Speaker 1: not taking the cutbats taking the yards that was there
Speaker 1: and affordable to him, which is a cardinal sin in
Speaker 1: this offense. And that's why I think, you know, he
Speaker 1: probably got a little bit of an earful from the
Speaker 1: coaching staff because the number one rule of this offense
Speaker 1: is we're going to create overplay and then take advantage
Speaker 1: of how you've done that. It's like, I mean, that's
Speaker 1: that's all of sport, right, Get the opponent thinking one
Speaker 1: thing and then zag when they think you're gonna zig.
Speaker 1: So I think the tape don't lie. And I love
Speaker 1: that he's attacking it head on. And it's akin to
Speaker 1: what John Embreys said about John hus Smith, who broke
Speaker 1: every franchise record right for tight ends last year, and
Speaker 1: the first thing Embry says about him in his first
Speaker 1: media availability is well, you know, he left one hundred
Speaker 1: and eighty five yards in the field after the catch
Speaker 1: that he could have had. And I'll never forget having
Speaker 1: a conversation with coach Embo about the after the Rams
Speaker 1: game when I was like, what do you think about
Speaker 1: that tight end? That tight end run? Remember John who
Speaker 1: had that big right after catch? And he goes, well,
Speaker 1: I think it's about time he starts listening to me.
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, so we're coaching him hard then,
Speaker 1: even though he broke records and that's hey, you know
Speaker 1: that's complacency is a death neil in the NFL. Right.
Speaker 1: So I just love that after a record breaking season,
Speaker 1: that's what we're doing and asking the question what more
Speaker 1: can we do? That's the type of grit that will
Speaker 1: make you better and progress your skills as a football team.
Speaker 1: Back to the run game here, it wasn't just some
Speaker 1: bad reads by Devaughan, again making that abundantly clear. This
Speaker 1: is a comprehensive picture. This is a comprehensive game that
Speaker 1: requires eleven people doing their job on every single snap.
Speaker 1: Because I thought some of the decisions were because the
Speaker 1: guard play would get beat too early on in the
Speaker 1: snap and not get enough movement. And you know, they
Speaker 1: banked on continuity last year, and I tried to see
Speaker 1: that as a potential formidable solution and it wasn't. It wasn't,
Speaker 1: and they told you it wasn't because of what they
Speaker 1: did this offseason with James Daniels and Jonah sevit Naya
Speaker 1: with a top of the second round trade up player
Speaker 1: and a high price free agent. That tells you how
Speaker 1: they felt about that position and how it had to
Speaker 1: get fixed. And on paper it looks fixed. And above
Speaker 1: all of that, I felt the tape showed an inconsistent
Speaker 1: ability to win on the edge in the running game,
Speaker 1: i e. The tight end position, and sometimes it tackle,
Speaker 1: And that tackle part really coincided with Austin Jackson's injury.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm gonna go back and watch these games here,
Speaker 1: probably over the summer, which tells you how psychotic I am,
Speaker 1: because I'm about to welcome in my third child and
Speaker 1: I'll be crazy busy and probably trying to get some
Speaker 1: golf rounds in there too while I'm watching, you know,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four Dolphins offensive tape. But I want to
Speaker 1: go watch that game again, because we got whatever we
Speaker 1: wanted on the ground game, really in the passing game
Speaker 1: every single drive after most Start's fumble to open the
Speaker 1: second half when we were up was at ten to six,
Speaker 1: I think it was at that point of the game.
Speaker 1: But then Austin gets hurt and the run game never
Speaker 1: got back to where it was in that one. So
Speaker 1: Austin's back Patrick Paul locked in a left tackle. We
Speaker 1: improved the tight end position with Pharaoh Brown. And I'm
Speaker 1: a big believer in Jalen Conyers. And we heard John
Speaker 1: Embrase is a potential three down player. That's telling to
Speaker 1: me in terms of how they view him. I know
Speaker 1: that the team felt that he was a guy that
Speaker 1: probably should have been drafted more so than going undrafted.
Speaker 1: On top of the fact that I think that Julian
Speaker 1: will play better than he did last year, just as
Speaker 1: he played better last year than he did as a rookie.
Speaker 1: We've gone over this how difficult the tight end position
Speaker 1: can be to kind of pick up from a mental standpoint,
Speaker 1: a mental load and how much you have to process
Speaker 1: in real time while you're trying to hit two hundred
Speaker 1: and sixty pounds moving targets who were run four four forties, right, Like,
Speaker 1: that's the average defensive entities NFL is quite the moving target.
Speaker 1: And to conclude the tape review with the numbers and
Speaker 1: sort of bridge those two things together. You know, most
Speaker 1: negative runs in the league last year, right, we had
Speaker 1: eighty of them that lost Yardage's I mean you run,
Speaker 1: give or take a thousand plays per year, that's almost
Speaker 1: ten percent of your plays where you lost yardage. And
Speaker 1: that's the defense saying we're gonna take those wins all
Speaker 1: day long. If we can get those because you can't
Speaker 1: take advantage of our light box and we can keep
Speaker 1: the roof on the defense, that's you're gonna have to
Speaker 1: go fifteen play drives, as the Dolphins did for much
Speaker 1: of the year. So the running game, it's funny because
Speaker 1: you think, like the way you get the more explosive
Speaker 1: quick strike offensive drives is you got to get your
Speaker 1: passing game cooking again. The way to do it is
Speaker 1: to get your run game going again. And I think
Speaker 1: you can make strides right there. You reduce those negative runs,
Speaker 1: you reduce your need for true dropbacks, which reduces number
Speaker 1: of sacks. And this quarterback, if he's taking ten true
Speaker 1: dropbacks a game, with how quick he gets the ball
Speaker 1: out of his hands, he probably takes one sack of game.
Speaker 1: That's why his sack numbers are so ridiculously low. And
Speaker 1: you see when he comes out of the game for Skyler,
Speaker 1: if a Huntley or for Boil, the sack numbers go up.
Speaker 1: It's just it kind of derails the system in a way.
Speaker 1: And that's not just a Shanahan offensive feature anymore. Every
Speaker 1: team wants to reduce their dropbacks and play quick gameplay
Speaker 1: pass or play action game. I should say, but when
Speaker 1: you're in second and twelve, you have to call true
Speaker 1: drop back game.
Speaker 2: So you can improve that.
Speaker 1: And with a successful run game, you can also encourage
Speaker 1: defenses to become more aggressive. If we're piling up five
Speaker 1: and a half yards per carry and we have, you know,
Speaker 1: a twenty to ten lead in the third quarter, and
Speaker 1: we come out of the half and it's eight chan
Speaker 1: for six, eight, Chan for five. All of a sudden,
Speaker 1: it's a first and ten at to forty one. Here
Speaker 1: comes jalan right for eight yards. He gets three yards
Speaker 1: on second and two, and now it's a first and
Speaker 1: ten at midfield. And they're not gonna just sit back
Speaker 1: and be like, okay, we can we can watch them
Speaker 1: take eight minutes off the clock and kick a field
Speaker 1: goal and go up thirteen. They're gonna sneak a safety
Speaker 1: down in the box and they're gonna try to run
Speaker 1: blitch you, and then you get you know, potential miscommunications,
Speaker 1: you get potential one on ones in the secondary. And
Speaker 1: that's how Jalen Waddle catches an eight yard slant and
Speaker 1: turns it into a forty yard play. And I mean
Speaker 1: it also means you're not gonna get a bracket on
Speaker 1: Reak and Waddle. You might vacate a middle of the
Speaker 1: field zone defender when we throw that slant, and that
Speaker 1: creates that one on one chance against the safety and
Speaker 1: open space. And then if you tackle us, like okay,
Speaker 1: it's a fifteen yard play. If you miss that tackle, well,
Speaker 1: it's a seventy yard touchdown on the backside. So that's
Speaker 1: where I go back to this offense being here we
Speaker 1: go again to make a golf analogy. If my club
Speaker 1: path at the downswing is one degree off, it's a
Speaker 1: slight change that can make the biggest difference to keep
Speaker 1: your ball straight, reducing side spin and adding thirty forty
Speaker 1: yards of distance, which we all know we want that
Speaker 1: you want to hit your shot into the green with
Speaker 1: a nine iron, not a five iron. We love wedges
Speaker 1: into our greens and regulation attempts, right, that's the best
Speaker 1: way to score low. And if we can just sort of,
Speaker 1: you know, reduce these negative runs and from a personnel
Speaker 1: change and incumbent improvement after self scouting and working at it,
Speaker 1: I think you can knock you know, the proverbial five
Speaker 1: or six strokes off your game with just this one
Speaker 1: minute change. Because I want to take a break real quick.
Speaker 1: We'll come back on the other side and break this
Speaker 1: down by the numbers, and just a heads up, this
Speaker 1: podcast is going to go super long. I have a
Speaker 1: lot to get to here, so you're looking at a
Speaker 1: forty minute episode here today. First fifteen, you know the
Speaker 1: can Let's go ahead and take our break, come back
Speaker 1: and compare the Dolphins run game in twenty twenty three
Speaker 1: with yards before contact versus two high structures. All of
Speaker 1: that compare to twenty twenty four and give you more
Speaker 1: evidence as to how this Dolphins offense can go back
Speaker 1: to scoring thirty points per game.
Speaker 2: By running the football.
Speaker 1: That's next draft on podcast, your host Travis Wingfield, brought
Speaker 1: to you by Auto Nation. Let's get one thing perfectly
Speaker 1: clear here off the top of the podcast. When I
Speaker 1: say run the football more, it doesn't mean just run
Speaker 1: the ball to run the ball. I'm talking about efficiently
Speaker 1: running the football to make the defense respected enough to
Speaker 1: adjust to it. That's what we're going for here. And
Speaker 1: the way you do that is running it against certain
Speaker 1: structures where there are certain down and distances, and they're
Speaker 1: going to say, we're not going to respect the run
Speaker 1: game here because we want to protect the Tyreek Hill
Speaker 1: seventy yard touchdown, and we're not so worried about a
Speaker 1: Devon eight chan six yard run because we know that,
Speaker 1: you know, fifteen of the eighteen times we can keep
Speaker 1: it for a three yard gain or less. When you
Speaker 1: can get teams out of that mode of thinking and
Speaker 1: you can go to that Buffalo game and you can
Speaker 1: consistently put yourself in second three second two. They can't
Speaker 1: stop the passing offense either, because the short stuff remains
Speaker 1: there for them, and just that game plan is going
Speaker 1: to fail. So the key to it all is to
Speaker 1: have an efficient running game, to give yourself a chance
Speaker 1: to have an efficient passing game that forces the defense
Speaker 1: to either change what they're doing or just get picked
Speaker 1: apart down the field while killing clock and scoring touchdowns.
Speaker 1: So that's where the value of the efficiency of the
Speaker 1: running game against those looks becomes so important. I'm not
Speaker 1: saying hand the ball off and bang your head into
Speaker 1: a wall against a base defense with a safety sneak
Speaker 1: down with eight man boxes don't do that. But when
Speaker 1: they play those light boxes and give you two high structures,
Speaker 1: you have to find a way to get five plus
Speaker 1: yards per carry. And so I went back and looked
Speaker 1: at this twenty twenty three versus twenty twenty four the
Speaker 1: way box. I think it's important to kind of when
Speaker 1: you get too much info and data in a podcast,
Speaker 1: to just mix it up a little bit. So there's
Speaker 1: a little Charlie Kelly for you hitting base balls drunkenly
Speaker 1: after getting off a flight, drinking fifty six beers in
Speaker 1: the air, Wade bog style. So in twenty twenty three,
Speaker 1: versus two high structures, Dolphins had two points three yards
Speaker 1: before contact. That means the running back was two yards
Speaker 1: beyond the last scammage before they got contacted. On average,
Speaker 1: that was eleventh most in the National Football League. And
Speaker 1: against those structures they averaged five point two yards per
Speaker 1: rush that was seventh most in the NFL. Punishing two
Speaker 1: high looks at over five yards per carry and getting
Speaker 1: more out of what's even blocked there. Because when your
Speaker 1: yards before contact is lower than your rushing average, that
Speaker 1: means the running backs are doing a pretty good job.
Speaker 1: And then this is in total total yards before contact
Speaker 1: was or rather average yards before contact was one point
Speaker 1: nine to five that was third in the National Football League.
Speaker 1: So that means we blocked it up at the third
Speaker 1: best rate for our running backs in total. Whether the
Speaker 1: structure was too high or whatever it was that that's
Speaker 1: the comprehensive number there. Yards after contact for our running
Speaker 1: backs was one than six hundred and thirty and eight.
Speaker 1: Chan's average yards after contact was number one in the
Speaker 1: league five hundred and thirty four total yards but just
Speaker 1: under five yards every single rush after initial contact. Eight
Speaker 1: chan was awesome, The run blocking was awesome, most was awesome.
Speaker 1: The run game worked in every single aspect. In twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four, run game versus two high structures, yards before
Speaker 1: contact went down to one point nine to one. That
Speaker 1: fell from eleventh down to seventeenth. Now here's where the
Speaker 1: real rub is. And this is why, again, they told
Speaker 1: you they wanted to replace the guards. They had to
Speaker 1: get better guard played. They told you that. That's no
Speaker 1: one's arguing that. But this is why there's so much
Speaker 1: pushback from myself, from Kyle Krabs, from people that really
Speaker 1: dig into the stuff. When you just say you have
Speaker 1: to fix the offensive line, it was more than that.
Speaker 1: It was the running backs. It was a tight ends.
Speaker 1: We've covered it and this is a good example of that.
Speaker 1: Rush average was four point six yards per carry. That
Speaker 1: is twenty second in the National Football League. And that
Speaker 1: disparity where we talked about eleventh and yards before contact
Speaker 1: with a seventh ranked rushing attack. That means the running
Speaker 1: backs are getting more than what's blocked for them. And
Speaker 1: if it's the same number you're doing, you're doing the same.
Speaker 1: But now yards before contact seventeenth, rush average twenty second,
Speaker 1: that tells you that there's a disparity there in terms
Speaker 1: of the running backs ability for the lack of rushing. Now,
Speaker 1: if you really boil it down and get into the
Speaker 1: nitty gritty of situational football, you can trace it back
Speaker 1: to shortcomings really all over like again, a league worst,
Speaker 1: and this is by a long shot, negative point h
Speaker 1: nine yards before contact on short yardage runs. And that's
Speaker 1: where the offensive line stuff really comes into play. Right,
Speaker 1: I totally am in agreeance across the board with all
Speaker 1: the angry fans about that. You were right about the
Speaker 1: concept that we couldn't move people in short yardage, but
Speaker 1: the back couldn't do much on his own, and the
Speaker 1: edge was bad as well. It was all bad like
Speaker 1: John who had an awesome season, but he lost so
Speaker 1: many blocks across his face in short yardage or in
Speaker 1: pass pro. And then Darren Smyth was cut for a reason.
Speaker 1: It was just weekly film review was a challenge to
Speaker 1: watch there, and Julian Hill was a work in progress.
Speaker 1: And by the way, the thirty first ranked team in
Speaker 1: the league in this category was in the positive. They
Speaker 1: were point five to three yards. We were the only
Speaker 1: team in the negative, and nobody was within a half
Speaker 1: yard of being in the negative. Our total yards before
Speaker 1: contact twenty twenty four was one point oh four, so
Speaker 1: our run blocking gave us the twenty seventh best yardage
Speaker 1: before initial contact, and then our yards after contact fell
Speaker 1: to twelve fifty eight and eight Chan went from down
Speaker 1: to five ninety, but his average went to two point
Speaker 1: nine one, So in twenty twenty three he averaged four
Speaker 1: point nine to four yards after initial contact. Last year
Speaker 1: it was two point nine to one. Almost half as many,
Speaker 1: I mean explosive runs went by the boards because of
Speaker 1: the backs more so than the offensive line, in my opinion.
Speaker 1: And I'm not sure what else you need you know
Speaker 1: besides this stat to prove that it was the most
Speaker 1: in the NFL among players with one hundred carries in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three, and last year it fell to thirty seventh.
Speaker 1: And how did our play action passing game get impacted
Speaker 1: by that? Well in twenty twenty three, And I'm only
Speaker 1: gonna use two because I don't care about anybody else
Speaker 1: in this category. One twenty four for one to seventy seven,
Speaker 1: that's a seventy point one percent completion rate. He had
Speaker 1: over sixteen hundred yards, it was nine point two yards
Speaker 1: per pass That is a really good figure. Eight touchdowns
Speaker 1: and two picks, a one to oh nine point one
Speaker 1: passer rating. He had eleven big time throw that's tight
Speaker 1: window down the field shots. Recording to Pro Football Focus,
Speaker 1: he had four turnover worthy plays and he averaged two
Speaker 1: point seven to two seconds time to throw, so he
Speaker 1: had more time to throw because in this year that
Speaker 1: number went down, So seventy percent nine point two one
Speaker 1: oh nine passer rating, eleven big time throws, four turnover
Speaker 1: worthy plays and two point seven to two seconds time
Speaker 1: to throw. Last year he was seventy six for one
Speaker 1: oh four. And there's the injuries right that right, he
Speaker 1: reduced his number by over seventy attempts. That was seventy
Speaker 1: three percent. But of course we threw the ball short
Speaker 1: to the line of scrimmage. Eight hundred and fifty two
Speaker 1: yards was eight point two yards per attempt, so a
Speaker 1: full full yard dip in YPA. Three touchdowns compared to
Speaker 1: eight and two picks and a ninety eight point seven
Speaker 1: passer rating. He had just three big time throws, which
Speaker 1: tells me he wasn't getting much influence on the defense
Speaker 1: down the field. He had the same number of turnover
Speaker 1: worthy plays. That's four and he had a two point
Speaker 1: five seven second time to throw, so two tenths of
Speaker 1: a second drop off there, and he only completed point
Speaker 1: two percent higher a completion rate and one point four
Speaker 1: yards per attempt per yard higher in regular passing compared
Speaker 1: to play action twenty twenty four. But in twenty twenty
Speaker 1: three he had a one point six yard jumped on
Speaker 1: non play action passes. So, just to reiterate, aside from
Speaker 1: the quarterback missing games, this is it. This is what
Speaker 1: you do, what you go into the offseason with and
Speaker 1: come away from yourself scouting when you ask where do
Speaker 1: we come up short? It was right here? And how
Speaker 1: do you improve it? That's the most important question? And
Speaker 1: their answer was James Daniels, Jonah Savit and Aaya, Nick Westbrook,
Speaker 1: Akine Farrell Brown, Ollie Gordon, Alex Madison, Larry Boram, and
Speaker 1: we'll see what happens the rest of the way. And
Speaker 1: I subscribe to the idea that there's a reason every
Speaker 1: damn time they post one of those charts or a
Speaker 1: stat rundown, like I saw Warren Sharp post the highest
Speaker 1: EPA on third downs last year and two was sixth
Speaker 1: behind like Burrow, Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson, Patrick Mahomes, and
Speaker 1: like Jalen Hurts. He's always with those guys in those
Speaker 1: categories on every single one of these charts. And if
Speaker 1: I may take it a step further on what is
Speaker 1: a very analytical podcast, and for that sake, we'll go
Speaker 1: ahead and do this real quick, because that is what's up.
Speaker 1: And what's up is the third down EPA is essentially
Speaker 1: a measure of how a quarterback makes plays in obvious
Speaker 1: passing downs, like they know what's coming. How can you
Speaker 1: play make it? Everyone says, well, you have to be
Speaker 1: able to create off structure to do that. No, Tua
Speaker 1: just does it at a high level, playing from the
Speaker 1: pocket like most good quarterbacks do. And we have these
Speaker 1: stretches where the offense was really damn effective. When he
Speaker 1: first came back off the injury in the San Francisco game,
Speaker 1: if we just catch a damn football, that game's a runaway.
Speaker 1: In the fourth quarter after the first quarter of the
Speaker 1: Green Bay game. He played pretty well in that one,
Speaker 1: I mean really all but the Houston game and then
Speaker 1: a pretty good chunk of that Green Bay game. And
Speaker 1: to do that with really not much of a running
Speaker 1: game from basically the Buffalo game on. Well, that's why
Speaker 1: I want to get the running game going. And this
Speaker 1: is kind of like how Tua goes. Like. Tua can
Speaker 1: play like top twelve quarterback level when he's got no
Speaker 1: running game and minimal support around him. But when you
Speaker 1: get him like a highly functioning run game and an
Speaker 1: offense that clicks for him, he becomes like a top
Speaker 1: three quarterback production in production every single time you get
Speaker 1: that for him. And getting back to what we did
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty three, and we had a pair of
Speaker 1: athletic tackles, a center that could push, that could win
Speaker 1: on the edge, two guards who are as big as
Speaker 1: they are athletic and allow us to push you off
Speaker 1: the football and run you on the perimeter. Both Isaiah
Speaker 1: Winn and Rob Hunt had first round athletic ability and
Speaker 1: first round size to go along with that. That's what
Speaker 1: Daniels and savit I Andaya have two wide receivers who
Speaker 1: are the number one on most teams across the NFL.
Speaker 1: You know, talk to a wall if you don't believe
Speaker 1: about it. In Jaylen Waddle, he's such a great player
Speaker 1: that needs to get more production. I'm with you on
Speaker 1: that a dynamic tight end, we didn't have that in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two. A dynamic running back like Devon a Chan,
Speaker 1: we didn't have a player like him in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 1: It kind of sounds like what we have in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five, you know, from twenty three to twenty two.
Speaker 1: And because I just keep thinking about this more on
Speaker 1: the topic of Tye, you know, I saw this very
Speaker 1: interesting fantasy football stat about him. This is the part
Speaker 1: about fantasy football heads that I love, and there's a
Speaker 1: lot that I don't love, but this these in depth
Speaker 1: research projects that provide real game value. So our defensive
Speaker 1: pass game opponents from year over year stats, and you know,
Speaker 1: nobody's getting a bigger fantasy point per game adjustment than
Speaker 1: Tyreek Hill and Wattle was fourteenth on that list. Essentially,
Speaker 1: it says that this year's average pass defense rank is lower,
Speaker 1: and that's a slippery slope slope because it's off last
Speaker 1: year's rankings. But this part is what really interests me.
Speaker 1: I wrote, soap, it's a slope slope, sippery, slippery soap.
Speaker 2: It's kind of funny.
Speaker 1: Ten of our seventeen opponents this year ranking in the
Speaker 1: top twelve of single high safety looks, and Tyreek was
Speaker 1: eighty seven percent more productive last year against that against
Speaker 1: single high than two safety looks split safety looks. And
Speaker 1: if we run the ball like I think we can
Speaker 1: and want to, then I think we can force that
Speaker 1: issue more. Or if teams say we're not going to
Speaker 1: mess with that and then they call the defense that's
Speaker 1: not their bread and butter, well then you've already created
Speaker 1: an advantage by forcing them out of their game because
Speaker 1: of how your personnel threatens it. Again, I remain extremely
Speaker 1: bullish on this offense, to the surprise of nobody last break.
Speaker 1: Right there, we are deep into the podcast and I
Speaker 1: have a lot more content here to get to a
Speaker 1: lot of mel bad questions from y'all. I might save
Speaker 1: somebody's for later on on the show. We'll do that
Speaker 1: next Here. Draft Time Podcast brought to you by Auto Nation. Okay,
Speaker 1: I had a bunch written out here, and so what
Speaker 1: I'm going to do is punt on one of these
Speaker 1: segments until later in the week. I should say a
Speaker 1: bunch of these questions. So if you don't hear your
Speaker 1: question today, I'm going to answer it by the Friday podcast.
Speaker 1: Sound good because we're gonna have this show tomorrow. We
Speaker 1: have a practice to cover OTA practice.
Speaker 2: I can't wait for that.
Speaker 1: We're gonna have Coach McDaniel players after practice in like
Speaker 1: an hour fifteen or so of actual football to cover
Speaker 1: for you guys, so you don't want to miss that.
Speaker 1: And then we'll come back on Friday, and I've already
Speaker 1: planned out a bunch of these questions and then I'll
Speaker 1: add the ones I didn't get to as well. So
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna do a few of these off the top.
Speaker 1: We'll go to about a half hour and we'll cut
Speaker 1: the show right there. Okay, that one, we can kind
Speaker 1: of just have some more time, so you guys hit
Speaker 1: up the mail bag thread early and often, so first,
Speaker 1: thanks for helping produce the show here, and I love
Speaker 1: when this happens. We got some questions from a couple
Speaker 1: of times, so I'm gonna start with this one here.
Speaker 1: It was asked by both coach O line Coach Smith
Speaker 1: sixty three, you guys know him as Eric Smith. He
Speaker 1: does great offensive line in general film cut ups for
Speaker 1: the Five Reason Sports Network. I did his podcast with
Speaker 1: Hasam Patel a few months back. Really fun conversation there
Speaker 1: and then Ben Brown excuse me at Ben Brown ninety
Speaker 1: seven asked the same question, so Al Frankenstein the two
Speaker 1: questions together as one. Essentially, they asked this, does the
Speaker 1: return of Chubb and Phillips offset the loss of Ramsey
Speaker 1: and Fuller in the secondary? And I love this question
Speaker 1: because there's so many layers to it, and as you
Speaker 1: guys know, this podcast loves to get into the weeds. Also,
Speaker 1: just heard Cam got put in the time out, so
Speaker 1: had a boy first. Ramsey is still on the roster today, right,
Speaker 1: And we had a lot of back and forth Coach
Speaker 1: Weave about this, and quite frankly, I thought the volunteers
Speaker 1: not hostages comment was the best part of the entire
Speaker 1: press conference. But if he's moved, and it sounds like
Speaker 1: he will be, And with Greer saying so many times
Speaker 1: that we've been in contact with some of the other
Speaker 1: free agent cornerbacks out there, what I'm getting at is,
Speaker 1: I don't think it's going to be Cater and then
Speaker 1: a two man combo from the rest of the guys
Speaker 1: we have here. I think it's more likely that it's
Speaker 1: Cater somebody who's brought in, and then someone else from
Speaker 1: the team, right, And maybe not even that because we've
Speaker 1: as we've covered at length, sometimes that extra defensive back
Speaker 1: is a third safety, and I think both. I think
Speaker 1: the plan right now it's may so who knows, But
Speaker 1: I think the plan is for if he and Ashton
Speaker 1: to be starters, to be brought into play, and then
Speaker 1: I think that Patrick McMorris has a chance to get
Speaker 1: some serious run as a big nickel, you know, the
Speaker 1: fifth defensive back coming on the field, being a safety
Speaker 1: opposed to a cornerback. And I could definitely see a
Speaker 1: world where you have that big nickel grouping of Iffy
Speaker 1: Davis mc morris and then with cater and like Jack
Speaker 1: Jones or Wassull Douglas or whatever it might be.
Speaker 2: I don't know who it's going to be. Now.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to sit here and say it doesn't
Speaker 1: matter what you have at cornerback as long as your
Speaker 1: pass rush is good. Now, the twenty fifteen Broncos, you
Speaker 1: can pull up their tape and see countless reps against
Speaker 1: like Tom Brady, and in the AFC Championship game for
Speaker 1: that matter. You know, the best protection setter and the
Speaker 1: best get the ball out quick quarterback of all time.
Speaker 1: But with DeMarcus Ware and Von Miller and Sylvester Williams
Speaker 1: and Malik Jackson and Shaq Barrett. There just wasn't a
Speaker 1: lot that teams could do to manage that pass rush.
Speaker 1: If you have that an all time great pass rush,
Speaker 1: then I can say I don't really care who your
Speaker 1: cornerbacks are. But even that team had like a key
Speaker 1: to leave and Chris Harris right, so like they had
Speaker 1: Pro Bowl cornerbacks too. But unless you're generational that way,
Speaker 1: I think it's fool's gold to say it doesn't matter
Speaker 1: who your cornerbacks are. Because we saw this in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two and that was a big point of contention
Speaker 1: from me, and coming back in twenty twenty three say
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, we're much better here at this position
Speaker 1: because of what we have at cornerback, and the pass
Speaker 1: rush is going to be better because of that too.
Speaker 1: They both were top ten that year after Chubb arrived.
Speaker 1: If you break it down by like week eight on
Speaker 1: in past rush win rate, but that defense still gave
Speaker 1: up tons of points and it was because Byron Jones
Speaker 1: was a mystery all year. X was kind of you know,
Speaker 1: on the back end of his career. Needham and Trill
Speaker 1: both got knocked out for the year. Early on, we
Speaker 1: had two guys that signed a Special Teams aces and
Speaker 1: Justin Bethel and key On Crossing, And by week ten,
Speaker 1: both those guys were playing on the perimeter and they
Speaker 1: played like Bethel played really well. I thought that year,
Speaker 1: Crossing not so much. But I mean they weren't signed
Speaker 1: to play cornerback every single like sixty snaps a game.
Speaker 1: They were supposed to play, you know, sparingly and then
Speaker 1: go be special teams demons. And I wanted to pull
Speaker 1: some data on this, and I was just messing around
Speaker 1: with opposing quarterback time to throw and the I guess
Speaker 1: the correlation of the stats from that, but I don't
Speaker 1: think it works because as we heard coach, we've say,
Speaker 1: you know, teams look to take the short stuff against
Speaker 1: our system because our system with all the quarters and
Speaker 1: you know, two highs and the different uh you know, multi.
Speaker 2: The how do I say this?
Speaker 1: The the defense is so steeped in like two and
Speaker 1: three high structures in the back back end, whether it's
Speaker 1: quarter quarter half, you know, split field, half half, whatever
Speaker 1: it is, you invite the underneath game because you're pulling
Speaker 1: guys out of that spart of the field to reduce
Speaker 1: the vertical passing game, which is NFL you know, one
Speaker 1: on one these days. But the quarterbacks that see that
Speaker 1: and take the short stuff and get the ball out fast,
Speaker 1: they're not doing that because the pass rush is on them.
Speaker 1: They're doing that because it's the best read in the
Speaker 1: progression for the quarterback at the time. And so sometimes
Speaker 1: quick game quick time to throw for a quarterback is
Speaker 1: bad for a defense because that means the quarterback was
Speaker 1: able to read pre snap where the ball had to
Speaker 1: go and didn't deviate from that. And we've seen Tua
Speaker 1: just destroy teams doing that. So it's not a great measure.
Speaker 1: But you can toggle time to throw at one tenth
Speaker 1: of a second at a time, and the yards per
Speaker 1: pass or yards per play I should say, are always
Speaker 1: are always over like five, even down to one point five.
Speaker 1: So the league average is five point three. And here's
Speaker 1: what I found something useful. Almost uniformly, each extra tenth
Speaker 1: of a second the quarterback has equates to another tenth
Speaker 1: of a yard per play. So like two seconds time
Speaker 1: to throw was five point eight yards per play, two
Speaker 1: point one seconds to throw was five point nine yards
Speaker 1: per play, two point two was six yards and so
Speaker 1: on and so forth a good time for this. So
Speaker 1: to answer your question, yes, obviously if we get to
Speaker 1: the quarterback faster, that can create more issues. But I
Speaker 1: think you have to look at it like this, and
Speaker 1: this goes back to the Denver comment. You know the
Speaker 1: guys that that could win one on ones at any
Speaker 1: point and reduce the need to blitz. Now it does
Speaker 1: that mean you never blitz? No, of course not, because
Speaker 1: the key for any defense and the reason I think
Speaker 1: that Weaver is a brilliant game planner and game caller
Speaker 1: is he mixes it up so well. His staff is
Speaker 1: constantly feeding him tendencies throughout the course of the game. Hey,
Speaker 1: you've only blitzed Ramsey this many times. You've only you know,
Speaker 1: called on Seiler for or rather Jordan Brooks for it,
Speaker 1: blitz this many times and he deciphers what that means
Speaker 1: and then he breaks up his cadence accordingly. And the
Speaker 1: sim pressure and blitz with all the rush games they run,
Speaker 1: all of that has so much value. But in a
Speaker 1: base look which is our Nickel package right? For two,
Speaker 1: if I can line up with four of the five
Speaker 1: between Chubb Chop Chubb Chop, Phillips, Zach and kg All
Speaker 1: of those guys can be one on one pass rush
Speaker 1: or pass protectors, and then that gives us, you know,
Speaker 1: seven in coverage, and if you play connected, well communicated football,
Speaker 1: then seven is more than the eligible five.
Speaker 2: You're gonna score your wins that way.
Speaker 1: And all of this ties back to Weaver talking about
Speaker 1: where they are now in the system compared to a
Speaker 1: year ago and McDaniel telling me that he felt a
Speaker 1: click midyear last year, and now they believe they could
Speaker 1: be even further along from day one, especially with OTA
Speaker 1: attendance outside of five because we don't expect them to
Speaker 1: be here with our defense ranking seventh in the NFL
Speaker 1: and EPA per play over the second half of the
Speaker 1: season right when that that clicking point was. And by
Speaker 1: the way, three of the other teams in that mix,
Speaker 1: or rather the rest of the teams ahead of us
Speaker 1: in that mix were Philly, Baltimore, Seattle, Houston, Green Bay,
Speaker 1: and Minnesota. Like we know what Minnesota's defense dated last year,
Speaker 1: phiadel Fields was one of the best in the league.
Speaker 1: But how about Baltimore and Seattle being two other teams
Speaker 1: that you know, Mike McDonald and Zach Orr and then
Speaker 1: Anthony Weaver. Three teams off that Raven's tree that we
Speaker 1: talked about so frequently. That's now the most in vogue
Speaker 1: defensive system in the NFL. Not to mention, you also
Speaker 1: get Houston and there with Tamiko Ryan. So those were
Speaker 1: like the best defenses in the league down the stretch
Speaker 1: last year. And I go back to this comment about Weaver.
Speaker 1: You know, whichever combination of eleven, however the shakes out,
Speaker 1: we will play good defense because of the conviction and
Speaker 1: the trust they have in one another. So that's kind
Speaker 1: of where I come down that. Let's do a couple
Speaker 1: more things here real quick. I want to there's there
Speaker 1: was a review question on the Apple Reviews, which if
Speaker 1: you guys put a question in the Apple Reviews with
Speaker 1: the five star rating, I will answer it. So this
Speaker 1: comes from it's just Robbie, why is it so great
Speaker 1: to have Anthony Weaver as our DC if he's just
Speaker 1: most likely going to leave after the season to be
Speaker 1: a head coach, well, number one, if he does leave
Speaker 1: to be a head coach somewhere, that probably means we
Speaker 1: had a pretty good year, especially defensively. And as you
Speaker 1: guys know, how I feel about the offense. If if
Speaker 1: Weaver gets a head coaching job next year, that tells
Speaker 1: me the defense was good and if twist Stay is
Speaker 1: healthy that I know the offense will be good. Then
Speaker 1: you might break your playoff drought Jet Robbie like. That's
Speaker 1: that's the that's the upshot of that. And if he leaves,
Speaker 1: you get two third round draft picks for him too.
Speaker 1: So and I think what we has done with this
Speaker 1: defensive staff is he's built a really good report with
Speaker 1: the coaches beyond him and did a good job of
Speaker 1: bringing in his guys but also keeping the guys that
Speaker 1: he felt were, you know, of of value to him,
Speaker 1: like Austin Clark and not I shouldn't say a value
Speaker 1: of him, but guys that you know he thought were
Speaker 1: that he didn't have to replace them for those positions.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of good coaches on the staff.
Speaker 1: And then I think it allows you to continue to
Speaker 1: try to look for that system and try to find
Speaker 1: the next guy to call that system. So would it
Speaker 1: be a loss, Yeah, every team that has to replace
Speaker 1: a coordinator, it's a loss for that team. But you
Speaker 1: know who loses coordinators. The best teams in the league
Speaker 1: That's why I would be very excited about losing him,
Speaker 1: because it would mean we had a great year this
Speaker 1: year in my opinion, and I just think he's a
Speaker 1: great football coach. I hope he doesn't leave here, but
Speaker 1: if he does, that probably means we did pretty good
Speaker 1: this year. Last one Here a short and sweet one
Speaker 1: from Kevin Duran at Kevin MD four. Which combo do
Speaker 1: you want protecting your millions? If you're Walter White? Is
Speaker 1: it Jesse and Mike from the show? Is it Hewle
Speaker 1: and QB from the Show? Is it KG and Jordan
Speaker 1: Phillips or Jonah and James? Or is it Richmond Webb
Speaker 1: and Keith Simms? My goodness, what a question. I'm going
Speaker 1: to go process of elimination style here. So Webb and
Speaker 1: Sims they're legends, two of the best ever, but at
Speaker 1: this stage I want them to have cushy jobs. They're
Speaker 1: not being my muscle anymore. They're you know, their prime
Speaker 1: was a while ago. They've earned the right to kind
Speaker 1: of put their feet up. I can't have Jesse Pinkman
Speaker 1: attached to my projects. Too volatile and quite frankly, too
Speaker 1: easy to physically overtake. I think any of the other
Speaker 1: three combinations would be acceptable here. Hewle and QB did
Speaker 1: it in the show, so and plus you got the
Speaker 1: smooth talker and Bill Burr and Hewl is just pure muscle.
Speaker 1: And then KG and JP might be the strongest two
Speaker 1: man combo on the entire damn planet. And then Jonah
Speaker 1: and James. They literally protect a two hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: million dollar atas set for their actual jobs, and for
Speaker 1: that reason, I'm taking the two guards Jonah and James.
Speaker 1: They are my official heel and QB from Breaking Bad.
Speaker 1: keV also asked me who gets the most reps alongside
Speaker 1: Jordan Brooks this year. I believe that begins with Tyrrel Dotson.
Speaker 1: I think that he's got a pretty good leadership grasp
Speaker 1: in that room, and he's been playing some He played
Speaker 1: some good football down the stretch last year, and I
Speaker 1: think the team believes in him.
Speaker 2: His contract reflects that.
Speaker 1: But I really think that Willie Gay is special from
Speaker 1: an explosive standpoint, and if he clicks in the system
Speaker 1: and we've can unlock him like I think he can,
Speaker 1: I think we'll start with Dotson. I think you'll see
Speaker 1: Gay kind of chew into that role as you go along,
Speaker 1: and I would say Gay starts Week eight team if
Speaker 1: he's healthy, alongside of Brooks, because I think that his
Speaker 1: ability in this defense could be that special. Okay, I
Speaker 1: have so many more questions to get too, but we
Speaker 1: are deep into the podcast. I'm gonna go ahead and
Speaker 1: pause on those, come back and get him on Friday tomorrow,
Speaker 1: Ota practice coverage. Plenty of content coming your way here
Speaker 1: on the Draft Time Podcast. In the meantime, you all
Speaker 1: please be sure subscribe, rate review of the show. Follow
Speaker 1: me on social at Wingfold NFL. Follow the team at
Speaker 1: Miami Dolphins. Check out the fish Tank podcast with Seth
Speaker 1: and Juice, check out the YouTube channel for Dolphins HQ,
Speaker 1: Media availabilities, and so much more, and last but not least,
Speaker 1: Miami Dolphins dot Com. Until next time finds up Calin
Speaker 1: Cameron Daddy so already don't