Speaker 1: Two fires touch stop Waddle stocked into the end zone
Speaker 1: of Miami tight broke window. They had to get that
Speaker 1: touchdown on that play. They give it. What is up,
Speaker 1: Dolphans And welcome to the Drivetime Podcast, part of the
Speaker 1: Miami Dolphins podcast network, covering your team, your Miami Dolphins.
Speaker 1: I am Travis Wingfield. I'm gonna be your host, bringing
Speaker 1: you your daily dose of Miami Dolphins football. And on
Speaker 1: today's show, it has been had been sixty three days
Speaker 1: since the Miami Dolphins last loss in that run has
Speaker 1: now come to its conclusion. It's a convincing thirty four
Speaker 1: to three defeat in Nashville. We're gonna get to the
Speaker 1: five takeaways, check on some of the storylines. I was
Speaker 1: interested in going into this game and assess where we
Speaker 1: go from here. Here from Brian Flores and to a
Speaker 1: tongue of Iloa from somewhere in South Florida. This is
Speaker 1: the Drive Time Podcast. So no post season play for
Speaker 1: the Dolphins in the game that Miami had to have
Speaker 1: to stay alive in the postseason chase, and it just
Speaker 1: didn't really go that well. From the very start of
Speaker 1: the football game, some key moments and opportunities to possibly
Speaker 1: get back in the game. We're gonna cover all those moments,
Speaker 1: including some of the stuff offensively, defensively, some of the
Speaker 1: calls and the explanations of those calls in this game.
Speaker 1: But I want to go ahead and start this podcast
Speaker 1: with Brian Flores on the team not playing well enough
Speaker 1: to win. With as much riding on this game as
Speaker 1: there was on Sunday. Every week, we we we put
Speaker 1: our best foot forward. They try to U have a
Speaker 1: good performance. It was no different this week. I think
Speaker 1: our guys prepared the right way. The way how good
Speaker 1: we could practice signs are a good team. They had
Speaker 1: a good plan. We didn't play well enough in any
Speaker 1: of any any any phase. And you know that starts
Speaker 1: with me then coaching well enough either songs m We'll
Speaker 1: go go back and make the corrections, and trying to
Speaker 1: play better next week. My own personal crafty story lines
Speaker 1: here and how it just really didn't come out in
Speaker 1: the Dolphin's favor and almost any facet. I mean Ryan
Speaker 1: Tannehill versus some of the free rushers the Dolphins have
Speaker 1: been able to create over the course of the winning streak.
Speaker 1: Just couldn't get those couldn't really get him off his spot.
Speaker 1: There was one instance where I thought they did get
Speaker 1: him off his spot, and it wasn't in completion, But
Speaker 1: that was really it that the course of the game
Speaker 1: was curious about a j Brown working on Xavian Howard
Speaker 1: or Byron Jones, or double teams or zone. I think
Speaker 1: we saw a little bit of all of that in
Speaker 1: this game. He only caught two for forty one. So
Speaker 1: Miami did a good job neutralizing the Titans top offensive
Speaker 1: weapon in the absence of Derrick Henry and Julio Jones.
Speaker 1: But the Titans offense just didn't really have to do
Speaker 1: a lot today with Miami's offensive performance and to in
Speaker 1: the elements was a question. We are a storyline. I
Speaker 1: was curious to see how it played out. Eighteen forty
Speaker 1: two oh five, four sacks, no touchdowns, gets the pick
Speaker 1: that gets kicked up into the air, which is unlucky,
Speaker 1: but there were some other players in the game that
Speaker 1: went in his favor as well. He finishes with a
Speaker 1: fifty three point one passer rating. Who can run the
Speaker 1: football in this contest? Well, the Titans answered that rather vehemently.
Speaker 1: The number two ranked defense against the run in Tennessee
Speaker 1: versus the number seven ranked Dolphins run defense coming into
Speaker 1: this game. Titans win that one handily as well. And
Speaker 1: then just how Miami would handle a game in elements
Speaker 1: in cold weather that required against the physical football team
Speaker 1: that had a good game plan like coach Flora has
Speaker 1: mentioned there against a tough, physical team, and how the
Speaker 1: rushing kind of balance would go in this game and
Speaker 1: how that would create the tone of this game. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think we can all agree we know how that
Speaker 1: went in this one. Let's go ahead and go back
Speaker 1: to head coach Brian Flores here about how his team
Speaker 1: is feeling coming off this loss. You know, I don't
Speaker 1: have the performance I'm looking forward. You're dispointed, um, but
Speaker 1: you know this this group, well, they're gonna stick together,
Speaker 1: support one another, get back out there tomorrow, make the
Speaker 1: corrections tomorrow, prepare for up for for another big game
Speaker 1: next week. The big game Brian Floors is talking about
Speaker 1: Week eighteen, the last game of the Miami Dolphins season.
Speaker 1: The takeaways here, number one, It starts with the quarterback position.
Speaker 1: I really just thought the last three games in different
Speaker 1: capacities that the performance of Tongua Byloa had not been
Speaker 1: to the standard of what we had expected. Over the
Speaker 1: course of the previous portion of the season, in that
Speaker 1: middle part of the season, coming back off the finger injury,
Speaker 1: the thumb injury since he replaced Jacobe Brissette, the Baltimore game,
Speaker 1: and some considerable strides throughout the course of his career.
Speaker 1: But now off of that stretch, a three game stretch
Speaker 1: of kind of the same mistakes that became weekly that
Speaker 1: he kicked out during that stretch and cut those curious
Speaker 1: interceptions down, we see we see not just those, but
Speaker 1: more opportunities of those some weird short hop throws that
Speaker 1: don't quite get there, some off target throws that some
Speaker 1: strange decisions with ball location and where to go, and
Speaker 1: it resulting in balls getting batted into the air and
Speaker 1: possibly intercepted. And O J talked about this early on
Speaker 1: in the game, how it seems like in some of
Speaker 1: these games it Takeshi a while to get warmed up.
Speaker 1: Like the Jets game a couple of weeks ago, first
Speaker 1: quarter was not very good, the Saints game, got a
Speaker 1: very slow start in that game, playing poorly to the
Speaker 1: start and then having more of those mistakes trickle out
Speaker 1: throughout the course of the game. And the accuracy issues
Speaker 1: is a part that the rest of stuff, okay, like
Speaker 1: we can work on that, we can get better at that,
Speaker 1: but at least the end of the day, we know
Speaker 1: that he is always going to be a high completion
Speaker 1: percentage accurate quarterback who when he has the right throw
Speaker 1: and has the right read, the ball is gonna be
Speaker 1: where it needs to be. But that just wasn't the
Speaker 1: case in this game. High low, wide behind all game long.
Speaker 1: He struggled with the accuracy. And that's gonna be one
Speaker 1: of our takeaways later on about the uncharacteristic elements of
Speaker 1: this game. But man, how uncharacter touristic was that of
Speaker 1: this quarterback? And that's I think where you get a
Speaker 1: lot of the narrative and some of the stuff that
Speaker 1: you're you're gonna see on Twitter. And I talked about
Speaker 1: this on post game how this type of game and
Speaker 1: this type of moment it invites the conversations that you
Speaker 1: you hate having him on Twitter right and social media
Speaker 1: and you want to just be able to say, no,
Speaker 1: we're good right there, it's doesn't it's done with. We
Speaker 1: don't need to even look at the draft or free
Speaker 1: agency or whatever the case may be. And that's not
Speaker 1: going to be the case that you're going to have
Speaker 1: to deal with that this off season because of this performance.
Speaker 1: That's how this league works. It's it's high risk, high reward,
Speaker 1: and when you don't perform in these big moments, that's
Speaker 1: what people see and that's what people are going to remember.
Speaker 1: So when you could put your hat on the accuracy
Speaker 1: and you don't have that, that's when that conversation, that's
Speaker 1: when that leads to a performance like this one, that
Speaker 1: leads to a conversation like that one. I mean the
Speaker 1: two misses on the first series. There was a throw
Speaker 1: behind Mike and Davante on on on different dig routes,
Speaker 1: not setting his feet on that one that I was
Speaker 1: talking about to a Monty hooker that could have been
Speaker 1: picked off where he gets This is something that I've
Speaker 1: noticed has been a bit of a trend on these
Speaker 1: high balls over the middle where the feet don't get set.
Speaker 1: And it's so weird because normally he's so good with
Speaker 1: the footwork and the they do get set and he
Speaker 1: drives the football because of it. But that little shuffle
Speaker 1: away from the initial interior pressure and then the release
Speaker 1: is quick and good, but the feet have not matched
Speaker 1: up yet, and so the ball sails on him as
Speaker 1: he doesn't get the feet set on that play and
Speaker 1: it goes over Mike's head and Monty Hooker has a
Speaker 1: possible interception opportunity that gets dropped. The ball comes out
Speaker 1: of his hand on the lost fumble that sets it
Speaker 1: tightens up with a seven oh lead at the plus
Speaker 1: fourteen yard line. Just trying to throw a quick hitter,
Speaker 1: a now route right too, Jalen Waddle coming back to
Speaker 1: the to the formation a little bubble inside bubble type
Speaker 1: of screen, little tunnel screen. Ball just flipped out of
Speaker 1: his hands like and then it failed exchange later on
Speaker 1: on a third and short play. Just these these little
Speaker 1: things that pop up, those are difficult to overcome. And
Speaker 1: then when you're not accurate on top of that, very
Speaker 1: difficult to overcome. And you know the other point here
Speaker 1: about this his I don't think it's unfair to ask
Speaker 1: the question about the performance in implement weather games Buffalo
Speaker 1: last season. I mean I talked about this also in
Speaker 1: the radio, about how there were so many drops in
Speaker 1: that game and different elements and the defense could not
Speaker 1: get a stop to save their lives, and how the
Speaker 1: three picks may have been might have been a little
Speaker 1: bit more because of that than it was, you know,
Speaker 1: the quarterback play being not good for sixty minutes, but
Speaker 1: in this game, you didn't have those things and the
Speaker 1: quarterback play was not good. And yet that was There
Speaker 1: was sleet in that first half, I understand that, but
Speaker 1: it did clear up at times throughout the course of
Speaker 1: the game. There was some wind gusts here and there.
Speaker 1: But the ball was just all over the place in
Speaker 1: this game. Last year at Denver, it wasn't it was
Speaker 1: just a cold day. Wasn't snow or rain, but it
Speaker 1: was cold. And that's what happens in the a f C.
Speaker 1: East East Rutherford, the meadow Lands, the Foxboro, Buffalo, it's
Speaker 1: cold weather cities. So it's just something to think about it.
Speaker 1: It's wasn't good in this game. We haven't seen it
Speaker 1: good yet. You really hope that it does get better.
Speaker 1: And let's go ahead and hear from Brian Flores talking
Speaker 1: about the impact this game had, or the weather conditions
Speaker 1: I should say had on this football game. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean I think it was raining, it was slick. But
Speaker 1: regardless of that, we've got to do a good job
Speaker 1: for tecking football and it's always our number one priority.
Speaker 1: We got to do a better job protecting it. It's
Speaker 1: always the top priority. And look, you know they had
Speaker 1: the same elements we had. We're dealing with some even
Speaker 1: playing field. From that, you gotta do a better job.
Speaker 1: And so I kept looking for this portion of the
Speaker 1: game where Tah would find that little flicker of get
Speaker 1: heating up and hitting that hot streak we've seen pretty
Speaker 1: much every game, even when he hasn't played, like I said,
Speaker 1: up to the standard we expect of him. And he
Speaker 1: gets off the goal line with that great second and
Speaker 1: tent RiPP to Davante Parker down by fourteen. That's a
Speaker 1: big time throw that the Dolphins had to get going
Speaker 1: to get themselves back in that temp over them offense
Speaker 1: and kind of get things rocking and roll. And then
Speaker 1: it's another big game down the field till Mike get
Speaker 1: sicky and I saidtle load passed down the seemed to
Speaker 1: Derham Smith. Then we take a sack and the driver
Speaker 1: is basically over from there. Then we come right back
Speaker 1: and miss a throw to Jail and Waddle on a
Speaker 1: slant where he's open with a clean pocket ball over
Speaker 1: the top of his head in the fourth quarter. But
Speaker 1: then we're back with a forty five yard rip to
Speaker 1: Jail and waddle for a gorgeous corner route and then
Speaker 1: it's back to back mrs after that. So I thought
Speaker 1: the line play was good. I thought Duke was running
Speaker 1: the ball pretty well as well. It just wasn't to
Speaker 1: his game. And I wanted to go to this part
Speaker 1: of the tourist press conference post game because I mentioned
Speaker 1: the last three games I just were not as good
Speaker 1: as the previous games. So here's what to I said
Speaker 1: after the game about how teams maybe played them differently
Speaker 1: or adjusted over the course of the last three games
Speaker 1: with the Jets, Saints, and now Titans. Here's to a
Speaker 1: mostly by the Titans right here, I think, and I
Speaker 1: think they really run what what they do well. There's
Speaker 1: is really not much game planned unless it's it's third down.
Speaker 1: You know, they'll they'll bring some pressure here and there
Speaker 1: on normal down and distances, but other than that, they
Speaker 1: thick to what they do and what they do really well,
Speaker 1: and they just go out there and execute. You know,
Speaker 1: we we try to stick to what we do and
Speaker 1: try to execute, but obviously that wasn't the case today.
Speaker 1: Ease today. And then on this first takeaway, let's go
Speaker 1: ahead and finish up with another point from to about
Speaker 1: what the Dolphins offensive game plan coming into the game
Speaker 1: was in the loss only, we wanted to try and
Speaker 1: push the ball down field, get into some of the
Speaker 1: the areas that we felt we're going to be avoided
Speaker 1: with the play action game, you know. We we wanted
Speaker 1: to try to stay ahead of the sticks, being manageable
Speaker 1: third downs, but that wasn't the case with our first
Speaker 1: three series. We were third and nine, I think third
Speaker 1: and ten, you know, and and maybe another third intent
Speaker 1: uh but yeah, I mean, you can't you can't go
Speaker 1: out there and you know and not not being able
Speaker 1: to execute on the road against a good team, you know,
Speaker 1: and expect the outcome to be good. So it just
Speaker 1: needs to be better execution from us us. Let's take
Speaker 1: a short pause and we'll come right back with takeaway
Speaker 1: number two Drivetime Podcast five takeaways from the Dolphins Sunday
Speaker 1: lost the Titans thirty four to three, and Week number seventeen.
Speaker 1: Takeaway number two on this edition of the Drivetime Podcast
Speaker 1: is that this game was way too close to the
Speaker 1: same script we saw earlier in the season, where the
Speaker 1: strong defense deteriorates as the game goes along and the
Speaker 1: offense really fails to put together much our amount really
Speaker 1: any type of scoring drive at the course of the game.
Speaker 1: And that was so often the case early in the season,
Speaker 1: and we saw in this one, and it wasn't a
Speaker 1: fun time to be reminded of that game script. And
Speaker 1: for the Titans to come out here and Waddle had
Speaker 1: had I think it was three straight games with nine
Speaker 1: catches for ninety plus yards or eight catches for ninety
Speaker 1: plush yards, they pretty much removed him. Besides one play
Speaker 1: in the game, I think it was late into the
Speaker 1: third quarter. He had one catch for just no yards
Speaker 1: in the game, which is so again just kind of
Speaker 1: out of character for this Dolphins offense. They've always been
Speaker 1: able to find ways to get the rookie receiver involved.
Speaker 1: He finishes the game with three catches for forty five yards.
Speaker 1: Confirm that three catches for forty seven yards, So he
Speaker 1: is now two catches shy of tying an Kwan Bolden's
Speaker 1: single season receptions mark for a rookie receiver. We talked
Speaker 1: about two was miss throws and how that was problematic
Speaker 1: for the offense is kind of just getting stuck in
Speaker 1: the mud and not being able to do much. That
Speaker 1: ineligible man downfield early in the game basically takes Miami
Speaker 1: out of a first and ten from right around midfield situation.
Speaker 1: With the first two plays in the game, like already
Speaker 1: having good success getting upfield and they would convert that
Speaker 1: first down later. But I just thought it was just
Speaker 1: emblematic of how this game went. Kind of like the
Speaker 1: Jason Sanders kick off the crossbar that bounces back from
Speaker 1: fifty three yards, you never see him not have enough
Speaker 1: leg and on the play before that, a sack coming
Speaker 1: around the right end there pushes that field goal from
Speaker 1: I think it was a nine yard loss from forty
Speaker 1: five forty four yards to fifty three yards, and that
Speaker 1: of Orsk goes off the crossbar, uh, just being loose
Speaker 1: with it in the pocket. Like right after that bomb
Speaker 1: to Jitlan Waddle on the double reverse pass that with
Speaker 1: the flee flicker type of action to not be aware
Speaker 1: of the surrounding areas and that that particular play that's
Speaker 1: not a good look. And then right after that, Waddle
Speaker 1: has a drop on the drive after Miami falls down three.
Speaker 1: So just a lot of these things that got in
Speaker 1: the way of the Dolphins success and that was the
Speaker 1: idea of two things I said earlier on the podcast
Speaker 1: is this season that I forgot about it, and I'm
Speaker 1: glad that I did, because it wasn't much fun talking
Speaker 1: about it. But the Murphy's law, how everything that could
Speaker 1: go wrong did go wrong. And then what coach Flores
Speaker 1: had mentioned it we kind of talked about in the
Speaker 1: podcast as a result, was how guys would take turns
Speaker 1: making mistakes it seemed at times for this Dolphins team.
Speaker 1: So here's head coach Brian Floors on the team's failure
Speaker 1: to execute. And I think it always comes about and
Speaker 1: comes back to fundamentals and technique and tackling, defeating excuse me, tackling,
Speaker 1: breaking tackles, blocking guys, defeating blocks, and um hm, you
Speaker 1: know we can come up with all this. You have
Speaker 1: a plan, but at the end of the day, that's
Speaker 1: that's that's really one football balls onto them. So you
Speaker 1: gotta take care of those fundamentals. And you know, we
Speaker 1: had some some communication issues as well, So yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess against a good team, you gotta take care
Speaker 1: of all those little things or else they take advantage.
Speaker 1: You know. Seth kept making this point on the post
Speaker 1: game show on five sixt w q A m about
Speaker 1: how he didn't feel like this game was like the
Speaker 1: game against Tampa Bay earlier or the game back in
Speaker 1: Week two against Buffalo. I always just a three phase SmackDown,
Speaker 1: and he's he's really right. I mean, the Titans had
Speaker 1: one more first down in Miami, seventeen to sixteen. That number,
Speaker 1: it kind of blows me away. They had just fifty
Speaker 1: two more yards. It was just the mistakes and the
Speaker 1: offensive really ineptitude through the course of the game. Just
Speaker 1: three for eleven on third down. They were seven for
Speaker 1: fifteen on third downs. That's what where of your big
Speaker 1: differences comes into play. But yeah, just not good enough
Speaker 1: for the Dolphins. You heard coach Flores talk about the
Speaker 1: execution not good enough, fundamentals not good enough in this game.
Speaker 1: The third takeaway is that the nut the run defense
Speaker 1: is not the one we were used to going into
Speaker 1: this game. Deonta Foreman has fourteen carries for seventy yards
Speaker 1: in that first half. We talked about him having the
Speaker 1: lowest average coming into the Titans running backs, but he
Speaker 1: rips off a big day. They then hit the thirty
Speaker 1: yard wildcat on a really game clinching type of play
Speaker 1: in the fourth quarter where you're down by fourteen, third
Speaker 1: and inches right around midfield. They get that, not just
Speaker 1: the conversion, but they run it into field goal range
Speaker 1: and eventually go in for the touchdown, and then that
Speaker 1: helped to set up the play action passing game. We
Speaker 1: talked about that as one of the keys Titans averaging
Speaker 1: two and a half yards better per pass when they
Speaker 1: go play action, and we talked about how you can
Speaker 1: create that without having to run the football. But we
Speaker 1: saw that early in the game that they tried to
Speaker 1: get to those looks, but you would see Jerome Baker
Speaker 1: kind of falling into the hook zone and interrupting a
Speaker 1: possible passing laner Xavien Howard getting his hand around for
Speaker 1: a pass break up. And so they were able to
Speaker 1: impact those play action passes early because they were doing
Speaker 1: a good job on early ounds of stopping the run.
Speaker 1: But once that got away, it made kind of everything
Speaker 1: go away because then Tannehill could get those naked boots
Speaker 1: and get involved in the running game those little play
Speaker 1: action looks where he gets a tight end leaked in
Speaker 1: behind the coverage for a wide open walk in room
Speaker 1: service touchdown pass. So a lot of that came off
Speaker 1: of the running game, and it seems like even when
Speaker 1: things would get stacked up at the line of scrimmage,
Speaker 1: and I talked about how Christian Wilkins was a bright
Speaker 1: spot in this game on Twitter because he continues to
Speaker 1: just you know, they had to hold him a couple
Speaker 1: of times. He gets into the into the backfield, makes
Speaker 1: a couple of plays at line of scrimmage a couple
Speaker 1: of times, like every game, He's just a lot to
Speaker 1: deal with. And even with a performance of that nature
Speaker 1: and other guys making plays, with the course of the game,
Speaker 1: it just seemed like they would stack things up and
Speaker 1: then find a way to push the pile an extra
Speaker 1: three or four yards, and going from that second and
Speaker 1: nine to second and six to me, seemed like a
Speaker 1: big deal in this game. Now they got Taylor Lawan
Speaker 1: and Roger Staffold back, so I mean that's you know,
Speaker 1: this is no slouch on the other side of line
Speaker 1: of scrimmage. I mean, they that offensive line had gone
Speaker 1: through its tribulations this season, but they get those two
Speaker 1: guys back makes a big difference. And I thought that
Speaker 1: little key detail was a big reason for it. They
Speaker 1: finished the game forty rushes for a buck and you
Speaker 1: can see that got inflated late, but I thought that
Speaker 1: was indicative of how the game went on, went through
Speaker 1: the course of all sixty minutes, and again they built
Speaker 1: a Russian game off that passing game for Tannehill to
Speaker 1: just go thirteen for eighteen for a buck twenty and
Speaker 1: two touchdowns. Takeaway number four. I kept referencing this earlier
Speaker 1: on how some of the really all of the losses
Speaker 1: for the most part this year have come at the
Speaker 1: expense of uncharacteristic mistakes. And we've this is just kind
Speaker 1: of an additional takeaway here, but we talked about it already,
Speaker 1: the things you haven't seen from this team, Like we
Speaker 1: talked about with some of the inaccurate throws and the
Speaker 1: mistakes that have just kind of been the same script
Speaker 1: this season. But even then, like we've come to, you know,
Speaker 1: we talked about standards, like Javon Holland took a couple
Speaker 1: of bad angles in this game that I thought sprung
Speaker 1: big running plays which just haven't seen that much this year.
Speaker 1: Xabing Howard gets a flagged for a defensive pass interferens.
Speaker 1: We're pretty clearly he did in fear of that pass
Speaker 1: route on first and twenty to get them behind a
Speaker 1: bad chain situations. Davante Parker, the most relaxed human being
Speaker 1: on the team, loses his cool and I can't blame
Speaker 1: him for that, but it's just one of those games
Speaker 1: where all these things are kind of mounting and snowballing,
Speaker 1: and that's how you wind up losing by thirty one points.
Speaker 1: And the last one here this is more of a
Speaker 1: last year thing. But again for Sanders into the win
Speaker 1: fifty three yards off the crossbar, like since when That's
Speaker 1: not what I'm used to seeing from him. And that's
Speaker 1: that's where it's that's where you start to just kind
Speaker 1: of like, Okay, well, now what because when you see
Speaker 1: things occur that you're not familiar with in the sport,
Speaker 1: with his team, with his game, and that's where you're
Speaker 1: kind of like, all right, well back to the drawing board.
Speaker 1: I guess I don't really know. It's it's that's the
Speaker 1: That's the beauty and the difficulty of the NFL is
Speaker 1: how emotionally charged it is, and how every game has
Speaker 1: so much riding on it and every single performance feels
Speaker 1: like the most important thing in the world. And that's
Speaker 1: that's the beauty of this game. But also that's why
Speaker 1: it hurts so much when you don't get the results
Speaker 1: you want. And I think that a lot of these
Speaker 1: things might have a lot of you like me tonight
Speaker 1: kind of with our head in our palms, asking ourselves,
Speaker 1: what the heck happened out there? Can we can we
Speaker 1: run that back? We try that again? Maybe I don't know.
Speaker 1: It hurts, man, it sucks. Takeaway number five quick a
Speaker 1: short break. Takeaway number five on this Sunday recap edition
Speaker 1: of the Dolphins and Titans Week seventeen game of the
Speaker 1: Drive Time Podcast. Is that playoff contention? The season as
Speaker 1: we know it has come to an end. With that loss,
Speaker 1: the Dolphins have been eliminated from one postseason contention. They
Speaker 1: can still clench back to back winning seasons with a
Speaker 1: win next week against the Patriots. That would be the
Speaker 1: first time since two thousand to two thousand three seasons.
Speaker 1: That was the last two years of the first stint
Speaker 1: of Ricky Williams. A small consolation on what I know
Speaker 1: a lot of you were hoping to get from this season.
Speaker 1: So I asked this question to the guys in the
Speaker 1: postgame show, what has this season meant? What have you
Speaker 1: learned what we need next year? And what the season
Speaker 1: has meant was to me was to teach you, and
Speaker 1: this is every single year, but this year definitely to
Speaker 1: teach you to not react too positively and too negatively
Speaker 1: to a single football game. We've seen what kind of
Speaker 1: streaks and runs and the way teams can play for
Speaker 1: periods of time. We've seen that, so I hope we
Speaker 1: all learn from that, and that to me also is
Speaker 1: a What it's meant to me is a lesson in
Speaker 1: press perseverance, which is awesome to have. And what do
Speaker 1: we need next year? Well, we have one more game
Speaker 1: to go. I'm not gonna get into specifics just yet
Speaker 1: because I have a month to get ready for the
Speaker 1: Senior Bowl, another month to get ready for free agency
Speaker 1: after that, then two more months of more draft prep
Speaker 1: after that as well. But these are some things that
Speaker 1: I would just put as general general things that we
Speaker 1: need to have a better idea of at this time
Speaker 1: next year. Number One, what's the offense is identity? What
Speaker 1: do you want to be just it just seemed like
Speaker 1: too many times this year, whether it's a drive or
Speaker 1: a series or a game or whatever, we'll be going
Speaker 1: one way then something would flip. We couldn't get back
Speaker 1: to that successful part of what whatever was working. And
Speaker 1: it was pretty clear that when Waddle wasn't going, this
Speaker 1: offense was having a real tough time moving the football.
Speaker 1: So finding more, I guess, more more options offensively too,
Speaker 1: to be able to successfully move the football with more regularity,
Speaker 1: because that was a problem all season long. Number two,
Speaker 1: don't rest on the defensive laurels because the safety room
Speaker 1: was good, but doesn't stop even going out and getting
Speaker 1: a Javan Holland to make it really good. I always
Speaker 1: like strengthening strengths a big that's a big thing for me.
Speaker 1: Number three is just the big games. And this kind
Speaker 1: of goes back to more today. Just too many times.
Speaker 1: I mean, how many times have we since I don't know,
Speaker 1: the early two thousand's. I mean the team game in Buffalo,
Speaker 1: the two eight game in the meadow Lands were two
Speaker 1: big wins. But tell me tell me any other big, big,
Speaker 1: tough and this isn't necessarily but I'll throw it in
Speaker 1: their tough road games where this team has gone in there,
Speaker 1: maybe against some of the odds, against some of the expectations,
Speaker 1: and one when they had a chance to make people
Speaker 1: step back and say, okay, alright, Dolphins, we see you Buffalo.
Speaker 1: Last year, that's thirty point lost last year, thirty one
Speaker 1: point lost. This year Minnesota two eighteen, that game was
Speaker 1: a thrashing. Remember the Dolphin cook game. There after the
Speaker 1: miracle game two fourteen, there was a loss to the
Speaker 1: Ravens where it was close at halftime of Baltimore pulled
Speaker 1: away late, and then Miami got thralled by the Patriots
Speaker 1: the week after that and then basically had to play
Speaker 1: the string out two thirteen. Uh Buffalo. After beating the Jets,
Speaker 1: the Steelers and the Patriots and three consecutive games, you
Speaker 1: get the Buffalo shut out, and then the breaks, the breaks.
Speaker 1: You need to give yourself a one game playing against
Speaker 1: the Jets at home, but that didn't go with our
Speaker 1: way either. So just too many times these days where
Speaker 1: you feel very anxious in a good way going in.
Speaker 1: That's what we want. You want these pregame jitters and
Speaker 1: anxieties as a Dolphins fan, but too often they've ended
Speaker 1: just like this one. I want to see that change.
Speaker 1: That's my hope for a new year. All Right, we
Speaker 1: have one more week of regular season coverage coming y'all's way,
Speaker 1: but the podcast doesn't go way in the off season,
Speaker 1: we'll be right back getting to work ready for the
Speaker 1: Senior Bowl, free agency, the draft schedule, release, O t
Speaker 1: A s all the way up to training camp, and
Speaker 1: a second. The season starts after next week. We'll cover
Speaker 1: the Patriots week all week long, and then turn this
Speaker 1: page over to the off season. As the season officially
Speaker 1: for postseason contention is over, we'll cover all of that
Speaker 1: on Drive Town. That's gonna be my time. Stay tuned
Speaker 1: for a post game segment from myself, Seth and o
Speaker 1: J on five six w q a m. After the
Speaker 1: Dolphins loss in Nashville. You all please be sure to
Speaker 1: subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcast. Leave us a rating,
Speaker 1: leave us a review. You can follow me on Twitter
Speaker 1: at Wingfield NFL. You can follow the team at Miami Dolphins.
Speaker 1: Check out the fish Tank podcast. They have a best
Speaker 1: of your review episode coming up this week. You won't
Speaker 1: want to miss that. Check out the YouTube channel for
Speaker 1: all of our media availabilities as well as Dolphins Today.
Speaker 1: Until next time finds up Caroline, Daddy's coming home, and
Speaker 1: just a quick heads up. This was recorded before we
Speaker 1: knew the Dolphins were eliminated from playoff contention, so I
Speaker 1: keep that in mind. Here is the postgame segment from
Speaker 1: the five sixties w q a M Show between me,
Speaker 1: O j mcduffee Seth Levitt, the first segment from Dolphins
Speaker 1: and Titans, recapping right after the game went Finally, what
Speaker 1: is up, Dolphans And welcome to the fifth quarter postgame
Speaker 1: show on the Miami Dolphins Radio Network. The Miami Dolphins
Speaker 1: Podcast network is all here. O. J mcduffee and Seth
Speaker 1: Levitt from the Fish Tank. I am Travis Wingfield, the
Speaker 1: host of the Drive Time podcast and Juice. We start
Speaker 1: with you every single week, seventeen weeks now in the books.
Speaker 1: One more in the biggest season ever here in the
Speaker 1: National Football League. We came in here very fired upstate,
Speaker 1: three of us, ready for us, a squad to prove
Speaker 1: themselves against a narrative that was building against them, and
Speaker 1: they didn't do it. Juice. Yeah, once again, man, you
Speaker 1: know we'll get to this point in the year. We've
Speaker 1: seen it a few times. We've got an opportunity. You know,
Speaker 1: the whole narrative this week was Dolphins pretty much control
Speaker 1: their own destiny and go on the road. You know,
Speaker 1: and and a in a in my opinion, a winnable opportunity,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know land egg again. You know, it's
Speaker 1: it's a tough deal. We started off so bad in
Speaker 1: this game, especially offensively, that it became, you know, not
Speaker 1: so much fun to watch. Missed opportunities is what we
Speaker 1: what we can really pretty much say about this whole
Speaker 1: post game show. You know, missed opportunity going there and
Speaker 1: get a win. We had missed opportunities on the football
Speaker 1: field to make some plays, miss opportunities to recover some
Speaker 1: some fumbles, miss opportunities throughout the whole game. But then
Speaker 1: at the end, missed opportunities to make some tackles, so,
Speaker 1: you know, another missed opportunity, you know, to continue control
Speaker 1: our own destiny travels. It's it's painful, bro. I get
Speaker 1: the frustration by a lot of people. You know, you
Speaker 1: can read all the social media stuff you want to do, man,
Speaker 1: but personally for me, man, you you get so excited
Speaker 1: about stuff. You know, last yesterday I was at you know,
Speaker 1: watching Penn State game. I didn't even care about that.
Speaker 1: All I cared about what to the Dolphins are gonna
Speaker 1: do today? Like that, it meant nothing yesterday, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. But this game right here was so
Speaker 1: big and so much was you know, on the line
Speaker 1: for our team. And it's not over yet. You heard
Speaker 1: Jimmy talking about it late and you know in the
Speaker 1: broadcast it's not over yet mathematically. But man, when you
Speaker 1: got a chance to control your own destiny, big Seth,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, and you've got a chance
Speaker 1: to go out there, you know, and and and continue
Speaker 1: this this run that we're on. You know, it gets
Speaker 1: the team that you know, minus Derrick Henry, minus another
Speaker 1: one of Julio Jones on all fans. You know, the
Speaker 1: defense is good, but you know, but for us to
Speaker 1: go out there and not be able to, you know,
Speaker 1: to take out a couple of running backs, you know,
Speaker 1: a couple of tight ends and made plays. You know
Speaker 1: they want to talk about, you know, the Ryan's Handy
Speaker 1: Hill game. Ryan Taniel had that he had a solid game.
Speaker 1: He does with Ryan does you know when you got
Speaker 1: a good running game with it. But our opportunities that
Speaker 1: we didn't take advantage of is what what you know
Speaker 1: what messed up everything for us today? Seth Jews mentioned
Speaker 1: the disappointment of you know, I was just looking at
Speaker 1: the score up of last season's Week seventeen game that
Speaker 1: was finale. This not now we have eighteen weeks here,
Speaker 1: but thirty four to three, and one of these games
Speaker 1: that Dolphins fans kind of circles like, all right, this
Speaker 1: is the time for the same old Dolphins mantra to
Speaker 1: go away, for the Dolphins to prove themselves in a big,
Speaker 1: spotlight game. Last year, in that same situation, it was
Speaker 1: fifty six to twenty six against the Bills team that
Speaker 1: didn't really play the majority of their starters the entire game.
Speaker 1: And now thirty four to three is disappointment what you
Speaker 1: feel today because you were telling us kind of a
Speaker 1: different story back in the other room. Well, well, I'm
Speaker 1: definitely disappointed the game for sure. Yeah, absolutely. I think
Speaker 1: I had a little bit of a different feel for
Speaker 1: the game itself. But you know, you heard Jimmy said.
Speaker 1: Juice talked about Jimmy at the end of the broadcast
Speaker 1: there and he said, highly disappointing, and it is. And
Speaker 1: I think it was most disappointing to me is that
Speaker 1: they just as you said, just they didn't seize any opportunities.
Speaker 1: And you know, the Bills game, I felt they were
Speaker 1: completely outclassed last year. I think that, you know, it
Speaker 1: was a fun run. Last year, you saw a team
Speaker 1: that took a step forward, but ultimately they were outclassed.
Speaker 1: I don't feel that Tennessee is well. I mean they
Speaker 1: were today for arendy one points better, but I didn't
Speaker 1: feel that's what we saw today. And I think that
Speaker 1: to me, it was so much of it was self inflicted.
Speaker 1: It was those unforced errors. It wasn't that Tennessee came
Speaker 1: out with some game plan that we just couldn't figure out,
Speaker 1: and they just dominated the Dolphins all day. Again, they did.
Speaker 1: The score tells you that they did. But if you look,
Speaker 1: if you dig deeper into it, yeah, you can't throw
Speaker 1: a ball without the ball in your hand, Fumbling snaps,
Speaker 1: missing guys, open players, throwing the ball over their head.
Speaker 1: And I know a lot of that pointing to the quarterback,
Speaker 1: and and and and honestly, it really should and and
Speaker 1: I am a fan of to a tongue of la,
Speaker 1: I am not saying, you know, I think there's gonna
Speaker 1: be a lot of people jumping on the pile now.
Speaker 1: There's a great opportunity if you don't like to This
Speaker 1: was a great game to go jump on the pile here.
Speaker 1: But this is a guy who has been the most
Speaker 1: accurate quarterback in the league this year, and we didn't
Speaker 1: see any of that today. You know, Janalen Waddle was
Speaker 1: missing an action for so much of this game. And
Speaker 1: it didn't again, Travis Yoga, watch the All twenty two,
Speaker 1: but it didn't seem you didn't see a bunch of
Speaker 1: replays where they had three three defensive backs just bracketing
Speaker 1: him and there was nowhere to throw the ball to him.
Speaker 1: They just weren't finding ways to get him the ball
Speaker 1: when guys were open, they were missing him. And then
Speaker 1: there were two big plays, not the fall to the
Speaker 1: Miami Dolphins. And I don't like to blame officiating, but
Speaker 1: there was a pass interference call on the third and
Speaker 1: seven that went against the Dolphins inference. And there was
Speaker 1: the pass interference on the fourth down play just egregious
Speaker 1: where Davante Parker gets hit early and then his arm
Speaker 1: hooked and he's trying to catch the ball with one
Speaker 1: hand and they don't call that. And those were huge,
Speaker 1: potentially fourteen points swing there. Now you look back and say, well,
Speaker 1: it's a thirty one point game, but it wasn't when
Speaker 1: there was third and seven and that pass interference was
Speaker 1: called against Nick need him when he's getting pulled to
Speaker 1: the ground by his jersey. They go on to score
Speaker 1: a touchdown. There was a one score game prior to
Speaker 1: that drive. They're punting there if that call isn't made. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, there were some he plays that didn't go
Speaker 1: the Dolphins way, and when they had opportunities, they just
Speaker 1: missed them, and that's a tough pill to swallow. You
Speaker 1: also omitted the shades if I want to say, two
Speaker 1: thousand nine against the Pittsburgh Steels, when Ben Roethlisberger fumbles
Speaker 1: the ball going into the end zone, Dolphins recover it,
Speaker 1: show the ref of football, and they still award the
Speaker 1: ball back to the Steelers. The same thing happened in
Speaker 1: this game today. Come out of the pile with with
Speaker 1: the football and they don't give them the ball, even
Speaker 1: though I think it was Emmanuel Ogba came out of
Speaker 1: there with the ball. But Seth, you kind of mentioned
Speaker 1: the flow of that game and not feeling like there
Speaker 1: was any any point where the Titans were just vastly superior,
Speaker 1: maybe until the very end there, but that's that's kind
Speaker 1: of My theme here is that it followed the same
Speaker 1: script we became all too familiar with early in the season,
Speaker 1: where the defense starts strong and then just slowly deteriorates
Speaker 1: as the game goes along. And then, to go back
Speaker 1: to an old floralism is they took turns making mistakes,
Speaker 1: and they started right away, and that was a key
Speaker 1: to this games. You couldn't go into this game and
Speaker 1: hold and set up first and twenty. You couldn't go
Speaker 1: negate a twenty yard rip by Miles Gascon on our screen,
Speaker 1: pa Us with an ineligible man downfield. You couldn't allow
Speaker 1: a third nine sack to make a forty five yard
Speaker 1: field goal now a fifty four yard field goal. They
Speaker 1: took turns making mistakes in this game. And then, just
Speaker 1: to kind of finish that point just before I throw
Speaker 1: it back to you, to me, what this game does, guys,
Speaker 1: is it opens up all those narratives the Dolphins fans
Speaker 1: don't want to hear about. They're not ready for the
Speaker 1: big game, they're not a true contender. They might have
Speaker 1: to have another solution at the quarterback position. The things
Speaker 1: that make the off season not nearly as enjoyable as
Speaker 1: it is when you do have all those things. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean there are a lot of things. And we
Speaker 1: had these questions a lot. I mean we've we've we've
Speaker 1: tried to answer these questions a lot as as fans,
Speaker 1: as analysts, whatever we are. We try to answer a
Speaker 1: lot of these questions. And there are gonna be a
Speaker 1: lot more questions. I mean, obviously, you know, the situation
Speaker 1: is nothing that you'd hope for. But finally, you know,
Speaker 1: you think about it. Man, Look, the offense has been
Speaker 1: living off of defense for eight weeks plus, you know,
Speaker 1: and it finally came to the the roots. But the offense
Speaker 1: need to come out there and get something done. Couldn't
Speaker 1: get anything done. They had plenty of opportunit when he's
Speaker 1: like Seth talked about miss guys, missed opportunities. So I mean,
Speaker 1: this is one thousand percent the defense didn't play the
Speaker 1: same defense that where you used to see it. Couldn't
Speaker 1: stop the running. We need him to do that. But
Speaker 1: at the same time, though they've been they've been holding
Speaker 1: it down the whole time. This is this is clearly
Speaker 1: clearly in my opinion, on offense and teams. Late in
Speaker 1: the game, Yeah, we got blown out late in the
Speaker 1: fourth of course, seventeen points in the fourth. You know,
Speaker 1: running the ball, you got run blisses, you just help.
Speaker 1: You're selling out against the run, and you know, and
Speaker 1: they cracked some big runs against us on the wildcat.
Speaker 1: Also late the last touchdown to the end. All right,
Speaker 1: I'll give him that. But early in the game, plenty
Speaker 1: of opportunities for the offense to go out there and
Speaker 1: make some noise. Plenty of guys running wide open, bad throws.
Speaker 1: You Jeff talked about, you're throwing the ball with an
Speaker 1: empty hand, you know, not not the dunk, real empty hand,
Speaker 1: but empty hand in general, because you know you can't
Speaker 1: squeeze it in in bad weather. Then we come with
Speaker 1: some plays on offense, some double reverses. Michael sick. I mean,
Speaker 1: there was some craziness with this offense trying to I
Speaker 1: guess we're trying to jump start something. But at the
Speaker 1: same time, though, man, the offense is been so bad,
Speaker 1: and when you don't have Wallow involved, like we talked
Speaker 1: about it, Wallow, we didn't get Water involved till late
Speaker 1: did we know we're in trouble because Water was our
Speaker 1: guy on office. We've we've seen it, we tried it.
Speaker 1: We know that's where we go. So so I'm just saying, man,
Speaker 1: it was like more than anything, you know, offense and
Speaker 1: teams punting was terrible, miss field goal that it was
Speaker 1: long after this fat things like that. Those things kill
Speaker 1: you as well. Man, crossbar too for a guy that's
Speaker 1: I mean, I know it's obviously not at it's not
Speaker 1: August in South Florida, but a training camp. This guy
Speaker 1: is consistently putting the ball midway through the uprights from
Speaker 1: fifty six. A way to play in inclement weather, you know,
Speaker 1: December and January. Bro, every other team has to play
Speaker 1: in two. They played in it. You know, here's the reality,
Speaker 1: guys and juice. You talk all the time about it's
Speaker 1: tough way to make a living, to have fourteen fifteen
Speaker 1: eighteen play drives. There's too many opportunities to make a mistake.
Speaker 1: You can't lose seven in a row, you know. And
Speaker 1: then and then sit here and say, oh, well, the Dolphins,
Speaker 1: it's the same old Dolphins or maybe their pretenders. Oh
Speaker 1: wait a minute, they lost seven in a row. Let's
Speaker 1: not forget that. And so no team in the history
Speaker 1: of the NFL had had prior to this year, had
Speaker 1: lost seven in a row and then one seven in
Speaker 1: a row. Well, clearly that means no one won eight
Speaker 1: in a row after losing seven a row, and so
Speaker 1: you have to be perfect at that point. And it's
Speaker 1: been a fun run and I've loved it, and they
Speaker 1: still have an opportunity to find a finish above five hundred,
Speaker 1: which doesn't change anything we said after the last game.
Speaker 1: I think it speaks a lot to the guys in
Speaker 1: that locker room. I think it speaks a lot to
Speaker 1: the coaching staff, starting with coach Flores, to keep things together.
Speaker 1: But today today you wanted more. You wanted them to
Speaker 1: at least show up. If it was just a slug
Speaker 1: fest all game and they came out on the wrong
Speaker 1: side of it, maybe you know, you would be disappointed,
Speaker 1: but you just wouldn't feel like, you know, someone pulled
Speaker 1: the rug out from underneath you. And that's what happened today.
Speaker 1: That's again too familiar with filling you know, as far
Speaker 1: as covering this team or following this team for the
Speaker 1: last a couple of decades now, because they get to
Speaker 1: this point and it seems like the rug does get
Speaker 1: pulled out a lot. I think to your point, seth
Speaker 1: something else Dolphins fans maybe wanted to see, was the
Speaker 1: was the team's quarterback, the team's young former number five
Speaker 1: overall quarterback, take them up and down the field and
Speaker 1: keep them in that knockout type of game. That didn't happen.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about that and the weather, and to juice
Speaker 1: this point earlier, I believe it's Raiders win or the
Speaker 1: Raiders do win their game, and I believe it's the
Speaker 1: Chargers or Stealers. If either of those two teams win,
Speaker 1: I believe the Dolphins season will come to an end
Speaker 1: after the seventeenth week of the season. But they can also,
Speaker 1: like Seth said, clinch a winning season with the win
Speaker 1: over the Patriots next seat, next game, and that would
Speaker 1: be the first back to back occurrences of winning season
Speaker 1: since two and two thousand three. We'll talk about two
Speaker 1: of the weather, we'll talk about the run defense. We'll
Speaker 1: hear from Brian Flores and to a tongue of Baloa.
Speaker 1: All that coming up again. The final score from Nashville
Speaker 1: thirty four to three. You're listening to the fifth quarter
Speaker 1: post game show on the Miami Dolphins Radio Network, brought
Speaker 1: to you by the Palm Beaches