Drive Time with Travis WingfieldWhat is up, Dolphans And welcome to the Draft Time Podcast. I am your host, Travis Wingfield, and on today's show, it is the last all twenty two review we're going to do on the entire team for I guess eight months until the preseason comes out. We'll do, you know, individual film breakdowns, but for now, the season finale offense defense top tapes. You know, the drill from the Baptist Health studios inside the Baptist Health Training Complex.
This is the Draft Time Podcast. Ye guess.
We're gonna get into the nuts and bolts of this game and some of the microcosms of the season, and by large, some of the issues within the program that I think can kind of be explained through this one game tape. But two of the bigger issues on this team this year. Number one, I talked about it on Social Miami had eighty negative runs this year plays that went for negative yards. Only one team in the last thirteen years has more than that. The twenty seventeen Bills had eighty one negative runs. And I think that's probably a pretty big issue for an offense that wanted to be ahead of the chains and reduced true dropback situations where you don't have to put your quarterback in a spot where pass rushers can tee off on them. This entire offense has steeped around the concept of manipulating pass rushers and taking those guys out of the game with your schema. And you do that by staying ahead of the chains, and the dolphins inability to get consistent running gains on the running game and early downs put them behind the chains frequently. It led to the kind of give up screenplays you saw, and I thought was the biggest issue the entire year.
On offense for the Miami Dolphins.
The second biggest issue to me was your best player kind of going full malcontent, right, And he didn't really pull any punches about this after the game and then continued trolling Dolphins fans on Twitter on Monday, which is just a real nice treat. So we appreciate that, Tyreek, And just to revisit the timeline of this guy here. For the last three years, I had kind of forgotten about all this until someone brought it up to me. The Marina incident when he broke that influencer's leg with that weird video, the house fire, which is probably just a coincidence and a kind of a tragedy, right, but it happened, and it was a distraction from the team. The divorce saga, I mean, that was strange as hell. The detainment outside of the stadium, which again over aggressive cops, but still that was a situation where the same guy keeps showing up in these issues like it's looking the mirror time. Right. Then you got the stuff on the field, removing himself from games. I mean, Mike Florio wrote a piece today about how the Dolphins could potentially go after his guarantees because he wouldn't go into the game. I don't know how that works, but I think it's interesting. And then also offering up himself that he voluntarily skipped practices, offering up down the stretch last year that he wasn't the same player playing with the same fire and that's why his production tailed off towards the end of the year. The perpetual trolling of our own fans, including missing practice on Friday with an illness quote unquote to be at his store to run credit card cards and handout shorts, and then going back through on Monday and telling fans to come through after his locker room tirade man the Buffalo Bills trades Tafon Diggs when he was thirty one years old. I just McDaniel's comments after the game, the way he did addressed that, the way his teammates have talked about him, it just seems like that's where we're headed here. And you know, we saw the statement from the Miami Dolphins. I'm not saying this from a place of knowledge, but they say that there has to be looking inward in big changes. Well, they didn't make a change a head coach or GM. We know the quarterback's going to be back. Who else would it be? Right? It makes the most sense, And who do you look at for trade partners. We're not going to get there just yet, but if it was me, I would focus on NFC teams. I don't want, you know, I don't think that this guy is going to be ever the player that he was the last couple of years. I'm sure he'll have a honeymoon year there where it works out the first year. But I'm only trying to deal with NFC teams like the Commanders, for instance, Cliff Kingsbury vertical offense that to me makes the most sense. I keep seeing the Chargers and the Ravens floated, Why do I want to improve an AFC roster that I have to compete with next year NFC or bust in my opinion, because you're probably not going to get much for him in terms of draft capital. Coming back, let's go ahead and crack into the tape. After a fun three or four minutes or to kick off the show, and from the jump against the New York Jets, offensively, you had there's gonna be a lot of Tyree stuff in here. You had a flood concept on Tyreek running a corner route which was at best a seventy five percent effort from him, where he winds up in the exact same location as Gillen Wattle's over route from the other side of the formation. So Reek runs the corner and Wattle has the over and they both wind up on the side of the field within about five yards of each other. And Huntley is so late to process all of this and throws it three steps too late for John U which takes him out of bounds on the play. The screen that we run on the next play loses four yards where they have three defenders outflanking our blockers to the spot and another swing screen that is a high and behind throw to Devon a Chian. So the opening drive again every single game this year that TUA didn't play, Cleveland, the Jets, Seattle, Tennessee, New England, Indianapolis.
It started off.
Horrendously unprepared, unprofessional in so many ways, and I just think that's something you have to figure out next year. On the very next drive, another after another run for nothing, we go with this RPO concept where the routes and the pattern are blocking down the field and the third option is Tyreek, who literally walks off the line of scrimmage and goes two yards. Okay, if you're looking at ESPN dots, he moves two yards in the play, doesn't even run a route, just stands there. It's a playoff for him. I thought the story of the game offensively though, outside of my frustrations with effort and design and spacing issues, was again the Offens's ability to hit explosive runs paired with their negative runs. We had four of the former, which was explosive runs ten plus yards, and seven of the latter negative runs. Seven negative runs. You know, he run sixty plays in most football games. I don't know, no math major. But that's what seven times six is or seven times eight is fifty six, right, So almost an eighth of your plays offensively go for a loss. It's a tough way to make a living when you have a quarterback that has to see it before he throws it and is throwing the ball to Hoboken every other snap. And I got to thinking about this and decided to look it up again. Eighty runs for a loss this year was the most in the NFL by nine. Philly had seventy one negative runs. And we also dropped down in our explosive play rate, whether the threshold was ten, fifteen or twenty yard runs. It was pretty uniform across the board. The dip goes from either top five and all of those categories in twenty twenty three down to anywhere between like seventeenth and twenty first with the negative or with explosive runs. This year, that four to seven disparity was the good versus bad plays, and that's kind of what it was all year long, because when we hit those, it's exceptional athletic ability to the perimeter from toront Armstead from Aaron Brewer, exceptional plays at the point of attack from Julian Hill and alec Ingold. Both guards would reach and cut off and seal and the back would hit it with conviction. It's pretty when it works. It was just too few and far between. But on the negatives, I thought the Jets did a really good job of playing on our side of the line of scrimmage. You know, we love to pass off assignments and let guys be unblocked and kind of sift their way through before they find another blocker coming from the backside of the formation or just the running back by himself outruns you to the perimeter. That's a big part of the genius of this run scheme, going back to the Mike Shanahan Terrell Davis years in the late nineties. But what the Jets did was one gaped it and took on our blockers to initiate the contact to get us out of our tracks and get us out of our basically our ability to move them off the football by meeting us where we were. When you get feet stopping, whether it's the offensive lineman, whether it's the running back on outside zone, the entire play crumbles. So you play a one technique to the strength that is the strong side of the formation where you run the football. The one technique is the guy to that side off the outside shoulder of the center, and that limits his mobility because he can't cut off that defender if he wants to play downhill. The best thing you can do is wham him and just basically them get up field and don't block him and let somebody else come back like a split flow tight end and knock him out of the formation. But he would smack that support block, usually that f like alec Ingold or John hus Smith or sometimes Julian Hill. And now the back has traffic at his feet. He has to stop his feet against aggressively flowing linebackers who can play that fast. Because we struggled all game long, and on tape teams know this too. We couldn't hit the play action throws in behind them like you can with QB one and they are running at a sitting duck target because the back has to stop and change directions because you've already been out matching the scheme from jump. And you can point to all seven of the negative runs as some variation of this happening, and a step further, the Jets consistently placed a six technique, which is a player that lines up head up over your tight end and he would just crash the offensive tackles outside shoulder, and it's usually the tight end's assignment. So not only do you see the tackle have to take a different route where he has to avoid that contact because it's going to knock him off of his track, he loses the leverage on the outside linebacker that he's trying to climb up to get to because he has to run the circuitous route around that edge crashing in. And it also pulls the tight ends attention off of his assignment because he's thinking, that guy's gonna go make a play, I better get a body on him. And now we have two guys at the point of attack who were out of their lanes. You cannot run the ball successfully when it looks like that, and they made it basically impossible for Tron Armstead and for Patrick Paul on the other side to find and get to their landmarks. And those are two of the most athletic tackles in the world of football.
Now, I'm not.
Smart enough to tell you how to capitalize on that, because if I was, I would be coaching in this league. Because it's really just overplay. The Jets aggressively overplayed that those looks and we had no counter to that. But I think that's going to be the first thing that Mike McDaniel and coaching staff see on tape and have to get to work to in twenty twenty five. Remember in twenty twenty two how it was two man coverage and they came back in the open against the Chargers and through up thirty six and two a through for four to sixty six and three touchdowns. Like, you need that type of adjustment and you know, gumption to attack that weakness in your game because it was apparent really all year long, but it was really exposed in this final game against the Jets. But see then you also get the sixty one yard run back to the explosives right, and it's counter, which is counter is basically you sell misdirection one way. The running back sells that direction with his footwork, and then he cuts it back the other way, and you basically create a cutback lane.
Through the design of the play.
You can get cutbacks, you know, it's called bending, where you bend back across the formation or across the run flow. You can do it naturally through a counterplay, or rather through your outside zone from how the play develops, or you can design it through counter So the Jets crash this play hard with their slants, because hey, they did it all game long. We talked about it with Robert Sala for four years. It's the same under Jeff Rowbrick. They're gonna slant, they're gonna one gap, they're gonna play on your side of the line of scrimmage, and on the counter we just say, okay, cool, go that way. We'll ride you the entire way and wind it back against the grain, and all of a sudden, your backside contains gone and you have to chase down a four to two running back with cornerbacks excellent, excellent second level blocks on this particular play from Durham smyth from Rob Jones, and then Devon h Chan makes the cut of the year and takes off his most convicted run I've seen him make this entire season. But then what do you get when you don't score the long touchdown run Receivers not making blocks And this is something I give Waddle credit for almost every single week on the show. But he took a playoff and it costs us a touchdown. He misses a block that all he had to do was be a turnstile and get in dj Reid's way. Or maybe it was somebody else, maybe it's a different number, but the cornerback that hawked devon eighth cham could have easily been blocked out of the play from jump and Waddle just didn't put enough effort in. So it takes all eleven and that cost you four points because you kicked a field goal after three negative plays. After that, the very next play is a negative three yard run where we motioned Julian Hill from minus split and this is I've been talking to you guys on social about this and I keep seeing get to get two new guards and it's going to be fixed.
No, dog, It's it's not that simple.
It is a scheme thing because on this on the play after that, we lose three yards and they motioned Julian Hill from a he's like in this minus split, which is a flexed out like slot receiver split right, and they motion him into a nasty split which is not attached to the tackle, but he's close like he could reach him within an arm and a half's length away from the left tackle. But there's a bigger split in that gap, that sea gap right than there is in between your tackle and guard or your garden center. So it's not a traditional attached why tight end. It's the nasty split. And the Jets again they split that gap, and this time they do it with a four eye technique. What's a four eye technique? That guy plays the inside shoulder of your offensive tackle and he does this little the side shuffle step because he knows we're not going to run the ball inside. That's the only way he can make that play. And with that technique he knows from his film study, they're not going to run the ball inside because well, Devon a Chan's in the game, he's not gonna he's not going to run through tacklers inside for touchdowns. And he takes advantage of Toron Armstead taking a zone step inside and he goes out to the outside, and now Julian Hill winds up having two unblocked guys on either side of him. And there's so much indecision because this happens in like a half of a second and it's either do I get a poor effort on a block on a guy that's already beat me across my face, or do I try to go block the guy that is probably not going to even factor in to the play because of the dude that I just let go inside like and then he winds up blocking neither of them. If they just align him attached from the start, he can just turn his hips and wall off that four eye. And if you go back and watch the play on all twenty two, Devon has a mac truck size hole between the right side a gap with alec Ingold as a lead blocker, and he could have turned around and moon walked his way into the end zone it was that open. Instead, it loses four and then we run two consecutive screens that are just basically like, all right, we're kicking a field goal here. It is frustrating to watch, and I know that not everyone watching this game is steeped in film study and trying to figure out scheme, but that is the biggest issue in the running game is the lack of defined assignments off the edge that allow defensive linemen to crash gaps and force our running back to bubble or stop their track or go hit a blocker who they have to have at full speed and clear out space that way. It's the consistent thing you see the most on tape, and again, the guard play has to be better. But if you watch the tape consistently, that's the biggest issue in the running game. Paired with the usage of an undersized running back who doesn't want to bang it up in there, who wants to hit home runs, it was a problem all year long. There is a reason you had the lowest rushing yards over expected with your starting running back this year. Right, that's not a Rob Jones or Liam Miikenberg or Isaiah win thing.
Okay, we got on that.
Let's go ahead and take our first break, come back on the other side and talk more about this run scheme, more about the quarterback play of the offense or to the defense as well. All that next Draft Time podca as your host, Travis Wingfield, brought to you by AutoNation. So we're talking about the run scheme here and what's working and what's not working. And that sequence down around the goal line was a good example of that. But then on the next drive, we hit this twelve yard run with Devon ah Chan on our first play of the second half. That wasn't the next drive where we crack the edge, what does that mean? The receiver comes back in peels and just gets a body on him, and it prevents him from playing all the way uphill and cutting off the outside zone lane.
It makes all the difference in the world.
You have to find a way to influence that guy, whether it's with you, your misdirection, your quarterback, ball handling, you're attached why the line of scrimmage, your tackle on the reach block, the crack toss. You have to find a way to influence that edge. And when we do, we hit explosives, and when we don't, we have huge losses that killed drives. We also took that edge out of the play on a jet sweep to waddle for like eight to nine yards because it happened fast. It wasn't the slow developing. Let me continue my track. It's just turn around hand the ball to waddle. He's running four to three speed. He can beat the edge from that position because he's faster than him. You can take him out of the play. But when it's slow developing, it really bogs down. I'm not sure why I organized this this way, but I have a note here about Snoop's first fumble, the one that we got back was a total breakdown in pass protection. They overload the right side and brought three against two with a nose tackle rushing Aaron Brewers straight up, and it creates this three on two against Pat and Isaiah and they both lock their man down and they turned the furthest man outside free, which is how you're supposed to do it. And when you're hot like that with five and you know five on five, you'd like to have it sorted with one on one matchups. But that's why defenses do this. It's called sim pressure to create situations where you confuse the protection about who's coming and who's dropping, and you create a numbers advantage to one side of the field and you try to spring a free runner. That's the entire genesis, the entire thesis behind sim pressures. But we had the running back to the weak side away from this three by two look and he releases right into a route. So when you get that three by two for the quarterback, you have to know that you have an unblocked man, and when you do, you want him to be in your face so it's not a blindside hit. And that's where he is so you can see it. It crashes in and they get the ball out for a huge sec. It's bad quarterback play, the wrong protection, wrong read of the rush, the wrong execution when hot, wrong, wrong, wrong, You're out three strikes.
It's the way box style, the way block style.
All right. Again, I apologize for the organization of the notes here, just by the Charlie Kelly drop. Thank you Charlie for that. I went back to the run game here for some reason. But it's just it's simple, guys. It's the biggest issue is almost every run play comes with motion attached to it, and it creates these moving, fluctuating assignments that change on any given snap. If you watch a defensive line when they shot, they shift and adjust where their alignments are a pre snap. They're trying to confuse protection schemes or run blocking schemes, but we're doing it naturally because of the motions. And these guys have just struggled to pick it up on the fly all year long. Go watch Julian Hill's tape. Some of his blocks are wear it up, drive the man to Staten Island, out of the meadowlands.
It's a thing of beauty.
Then you have these snaps where he's peeling back or wrapping his motion off the edge, and he winds up not having proper leverage pre snap, and it breaks down with that a real knowledge of his assignment, and he winds up in between two decisions and makes neither block. If you're into the stuff and you really want to learn, I would challenge you to go check it out for yourself. This tape is the most obvious one. Anytime somebody just says guard play or that Greer is less worried about the offensive line than we are, it's just confirming priors based on the result. Okay, Like I'm not trying to be an a hole here, I'm trying to explain this to you from someone that does this for a living. That is not what's happening here. There are losses from these positions, absolutely there are. But it's the confusion off the edge that leads to automatic run throughs and blowing plays up for huge losses. That is why the run game has stunk Reason one, two, and three. If you ask me about it on social please do, because I'm so tired of hearing about guard play and how that's the automatic fix.
It's just not.
Another issue in the game is the ball handling. We ran that little fake pivot misdirection toss where you kind of fake the handoff to nobody and toss it back week I've never loved that play, but Huntley telegraphs it from a mile away and the edge plays at downhill zero crash inside. You don't influence them at all like you do with Tua. And speaking of backup quarterback woes in coverage, there are so many instances where we don't penalize the influenced defender. Like what I'm talking about is when you run a cover two shell right two high safeties and their cloud cornerbacks underneath who want to get depth and try to push those vertical routes as much as they can before an underneath route grabs their attention and they trigger downhill and go make a play around the line of scrimmage and the cloud corner. On this particular play I'm talking about is getting depth, getting depth, getting depth for a twenty five yard comeback route by Tyreek with a safety who's like you can have that, you can take that robb because I'm concerned about getting beat over the top and there's just no route underneath the cloud cornerback, but we do run a fifteen yard outcut to that same side from Jonas Smith that allows the cornerback to keep syncing right into that space. It is just horrible spacing that you cannot win with when you do that. And there's another loss. My organization sucks this podcast. I apologize guys. Another loss in the running game where Julian Hill has the wide nine, but the snap goes off when he's behind the right guard and at the edge just beats Julian Hill to the spot because he's outflanked pre snap, but is being out leveraged pre snap is the entire goal for offenses and defenses, and we snap them into this with snapping the ball.
When we did.
When we did, you know, it's the easiest tackle of that player's life. These ugly, ugly stinkers, they're half horrendous quarterback play we touched on there and then just half getting out called from the offensive perspective.
Out coached.
There were so many plays where the natural cutbacks developed, but we just kept going back to it over and over and let them over pursue it. So it was a frustrating watch and I just want to make a note here at tip of the captain Toron Armstead for giving us everything he had all year long. Man, But he did get beat on a strip sack by Will McDonald with a really nice corner undermove. Pretty rare that you see that from t Stead. He's usually damn near impossible to get on that move. But you can see where he was fighting through for us here down the stretch. A couple more notes here on the offense. The quarterback, I mean, he was just off and it started from the very first throw of the game. He was late to john Us Smith. It took him out of bounces and it should have been a room service five yard completion or maybe more than that. He was high and behind Devon on the third down screen. Then on the third down in the mid red zone, the next drive to Wattle wide open. It's cover zero, so no safety help. Wattle presses up and runs this little pivot back shoulder outcut against inside leverage, which is where the space is, and the ball again goes to Hoboken way over his head. He couldn't even get a finger on it because it was so high. The next drive we run the slant off outside zone toss action that's supposed to influence a defender. Wattle gets that or the outside leverage for an inbreaking route and the ball's way over his head. Again, when you watched his Ravens tape, it was wildly inconsistent mechanics for snoopuntley and one of the most elongated deliveries I've ever seen in my life. And those inconsistencies were magnified in this game. If he were a starting pitcher, it's like three walks and then a double and then like a home run and he's out. Take him out of the game.
It was that bad.
We finally get a clean pocket and a clear declaration of coverage influenced where Tyreek runs the bang eight which is like a skinny post and it vacates the middle of the field and he just does not trust it and tucks it and runs. And you can see Tyreek's attention after that play Wayne a big time, which is inexcusable, but you can see why he was upset. You just weren't going to be anybody in the NFL yesterday with that quarterback performance. He fly out drops a snap cost us yards on that play, four goes and open Tyreek on a rail on the play that JOHNU. Smith fumbled. It was Week three bad. That's how bad the quarterback play was in this game. And man, that corner route to Wattle on the pick, it was there. I just felt like he saw it and then he threw it. And that's really tough way to play quarterback in this league. Man. It was such a vintage Wattle route where he wins the inside release against an outside leverage cornerback, stacks him, and then breaks it outside to create that separation twenty five yards down the field. How valuable it is do that quickly. We get a clean pocket and just wait, like three beats too late. The ball's late and back inside easy pick when it should have been an easy room service completion. Let's just stop right there. I'm not gonna do like I did back in Week seven when I was like I'm done, I'm done. I'm actually gonna pull the plug this time. No more snoopuontley talk right now.
All right.
Individual standouts on the offensive side of the football. Malik Washington's balance, the way he alters his catch attempts for the football, whether it's you know, body hands catch under over for the traffic for the way he sets up his blocks to get to green Grass. I am such a huge fan of his game. What a hit he has been for us. His diving catch. He takes this inside release against outside leverage, but if you angle your route at a certain time that the bea can undercut that. He keeps getting depth and as the ball's on the way, then he angles back to the quarterback to keep that defensive back stacked. It's high level receiver play from a young player, smart player, and then he makes the skills to make that diving catch.
Just really puts all together, Patrick Paul.
There's a couple of snaps where he kind of gets over set and give up the inside post, but to me, it was more of the same in terms of seeing those sweet feet. He's able to transition that weight so smoothly, and there's so much of it. He's gonna be a stud for us man. I'm really encouraged by his work all year. He had a block on a twelve yard eight chan run where he drove Jamien Sherwood, who I think made himself a ton of money this season with how he played as a free agent to be but he drove Sherwood all the way to the sideline and ends it by pancaking him. Does it again like two plays after that, and then on the fifteen yard eighth Chan touchdown run, he moves a point of attack player two gaps over and clears out that spot for him. Speaking of a Chan, his speed to the edge helped us when we did get those looks that we could take advantage of that unblocked man. And I thought he made some of his best decisions of the year in close quarters leading to those big runs that he had. I also cannot get enough of that route on the natural rub. He ran that like a wide receiver. That's a beautiful thing for him. Jonas Smith had the fumble, but really tough catching the sideline on a ball down by his shoe strings, had the touchdown, had some good crackback blocks against the edge, and of course you know eight hundred and eighty four yards eighty eight catches, eight touchdowns like best tied at end Dolphins history this year.
Man River Craycraft.
The adjustment he made that third down conversion on the back shoulder right before the eighth touchdown was a very under thrown ball. He makes a tough catch off of his frame going to the ground. Then it converts on a fourth down on the next drive, which kept us in the game. So River Craycraft, go Kog's baby. Individual misses you could, you know, you can see where Pat was a little bit uncertain about his technique at certain times at right tackle. But I think he has to be in the lineup next year, whether it's right tackle, left tackle with like if Tested comes back, he's got to play next year because he's he's a good player. Isaiah Winn fell off blocks on the first strip sack and was actually the one that strips new puntly, and I thought he failed to get pushed all game long. He had a rough one, you know, after my my rant earlier with Rob Jones, like, look, I'm not stupid. I just wish that we are more nuanced collectively about what the issues are. But yeah, he falls off way too many blocks. He's not good at slanting to a rusher crossing face to stop their momentum. He had another rough game, and you can just you just can't run that back next year. I'm with you guys on that. I just think there's bigger issues at play here. I don't think anybody's saying that because I would actually go after a Tevin Jenkins or a Makai Becton if either shakes free, and try to revamp your scheme, because both those guys can give you more power than any of these guys can. In the interior, Aaron Brewer struggled to get any type of displacement all game long. They attacked him with power and it didn't go well. Jalen Waddle on a Chan's long run took that rep off, and I hated seeing that if he just stays in front of his man's touchdown and it cost you four points eight.
Chan was in the positives. But I also think that, you know, this guy.
Could be Barry Sanders if he saw things and red blocking angles, but he doesn't do a good job of that. He's such a dynamic player and those big plays change games. But damn it, he runs his blockers out of so many advantageous blocking angles.
It's maddening as hell.
And then durham Smyth on the Huntly pick took the outside man and let a free runner with a better angle just destroy the play that also cost us points. Snap counts the offensive line at least four of the guys in the quarterback went the distance, played all seventy snaps, Lynn Liam and wins their platoon thirty five apiece, Waddle ninety percent of the snaps, Malik sixty one percent, Tyreek thirty nine and River thirty six. Must win game, and he's playing two more snaps in Rivercreaykraft come on, bro, Julian Hill sixty one percent, John hi Smith sixty percent, Durham twenty six. I think Julian and John who are automatic comebacks next year Durham.
I can't say the same thing.
A Chan seventy, Ingle twenty four, Hefe nineteen, Jalen Wright played thirteen percent, and Raheem got just one snap on offense, So that seems to be like they're writing on the wall there as well. Last break right there, come back into the defense. On the other side of the podcast, Here Draft Time Podcast, your host Travis Wingfield, brought to you by Auto Nation.
One last all twenty two segment.
We are going to do a lot of college film breakdown, some free agent film breakdown here on the show. I'm excited about the offseason this year for the first time in a long time, a little bit more liberties here on the podcast, let's go ahead and break down the defense here, though one last time. I think my favorite thing I've seen from this defense this year is the way Coach Weaver has involved Javon Holland, I should one of my favorite things closer to the line of scrimmage.
I think it's when he's plays best football.
There's a lot of snaps where he's playing at the second level, and I suppose you'd call that like a linebacker role, which is way better suited for him than playing in the post. And we started seeing a lot more of that via Big Nickel, where Elijah Campbell would come into the game along with Jordan Poyer and Javon Holland over the last month or so and play, you know, five or ten snaps a game where the three of those guys would would be in shells and rotate and just kind of kind of confuse the opposing quarterback. But it would get Javon fitting the run, covering tight ends and backs and sometimes slot receivers like Davante Adams on the pick that they got in the game with Tyrel dots, and it's a good matchup identifier. The Ravens did that and do that a lot with Kyle Hamilton, and I think the Dolphins tamed to play like that is a javon. Probably not, but it's there's like there's a blueprint for it. Now you have it on tape, and from a structure standpoint, it was a lot more of the same, similar presentations that brought so many different looks. I would have let so many snaps on this tape play out before I figured out what they were in because I just they disguise it so well. Now, the issues against the quarterback like Rogers, I mean, this guy's seen like the vast majority of presentations you can offer, and can dictate them early enough to attack them. I mean, really, going back to that first Jets game, we confused all the other quarterbacks back since that game, and there was two good ones and there in Stroud and Purty, but Rogers just it didn't happen against him. Then you have the front with how those coverages work and how it all marries together. We broke this down at length this offseason with various experts in my own film study what's the calling card of the Mike McDonald defenses. Everybody can rush from any position and we have clearly defined rush games. So we can play fast from multiple spots. Well, I thought we destroyed the Jets with our game packages up front once again, Sealer, Ogba Campbell, the te the TT stunts, sim pressure, overload pressure to create matchups. I thought it was a very, very, very good first season for Anthony Weaver coaching this defense. Like the way they mug up Jordan Brooks and Tyrrel Dotson, peel one back and then run the looper from the edge off that linebacker blitz like it's so hard to block it, and it got us some critical pressures early in the game on the money downs. I'm very excited about a possible second year of Weaver as the DC if he doesn't get a head coaching job. I hope for his sake he does, but I hope for our sake he waits one more year. I know his name has been linked to some of the openings around the league, but I think that he's incredibly deserving of that job, of that promotion. But getting him back and starting from this point where we already have a year of tape in our back pocket in twenty twenty five and unfurling more pages of that playbook next season is a very very exciting concept. Now, they did a good job giving us false keys. They hit DeVante Adams on this little drag screen where they got Jordan Brooks to crash hard on a fake screen to bresee Hall, and they got us disconnected on broken plays a couple of times. They did a good job of using overplay and misdirection, like on the play where Garrett Wilson broke Jaln Ramsey tackle one of a couple times for a big play. And if you watch the Jets only two games this year on tape and it was just the two Dolphins games, you'd be like, man, they got and Rodgers back next year, they're going to be a pretty good team.
But that's not the case. Individual standouts.
Despite a couple of coverage breaks where he was kind of stuck in no man's land, I thought Jordan Brooks was once again just an elite player. I have not seen a linebacker since dach Thomas who so consistently shoots gaps just based on what we saw with alignment and the first couple of steps of the play post snap, and even if he doesn't make the play, he usually forces the back to bubble and it creates an extra step advantage for his teammates to get in there and make a play. Then they try to get him one on one in space on Breeze Hall, and he cuts that down for like a little four yard game on a flare route on third and twelve. The very next drive, it's a third and five and they try to go Tyler Conklin on a double move up the seam and Jordan Brooks never leaves his hip pocket and gets the pass breakup. So in two matchups against the Jets, he's won coverage matchups against Breecee Hall, Tyler Conklin, and Garrett Wilson on third downs all those plays and literally their best running back, tight end and wide receiver. You know, he mugs up and he rushes, he drops down the pipe. In Tampa two, he takes those man matchups. He's consistently keying the run plays we talked about. I really felt like this was not just a Pro Bowl season for Jordan Brooks, but like an All Pro type of year.
He's that good.
Now on the five hundredth Rogers touchdown pass, he did give JB a pretty good no look that opened up that window. Sometimes you tip the cap. Speaking of tipping the cap zack stealer ten sacks in back to back seasons. He's one of three Dolphins this century Jason Taylor and Cam Wig to do that even when he's blocked. It is an all hands on deck type of action to get this guy handled. Where they are pulling bodies, they're chipping, they're helping, just trying to find any way they can to get Zach Sealer blocked. It can be funny to watch at times because sometimes it's so few tileents attempt it's like watching a grown man playing pee wee football sometimes and go watch Kalaias Campbell's sack. Zach was a figurative, not literal, a figurative wrecking ball wiping out two jets and pass protection to give him a red carpet path to Aaron Rodgers for that three hundred thousand dollars sack. Speaking of Khalais, I don't think he had a bad game all year. Like you set your watch this guy and shout out to him, because it was so fun to watch him, to cover him, to get to know him, and I felt like he taught me a lot about football. So thank you, Kualis. And if this is it, man, what a career. We'll see you in Canton some day. Manuel Ogbaugh I thought played a really strong edge in the running game, was selfless in his rush lanes and how he was able to pick guys off and maintain gap integrity throughout the game. I thought cater Kohu had a nice game. I thought the progress that he had this year is a big boon going forward. Assuming that he comes he's brought back, I think he will be. He did such a good job in the physicality aspect of the position since his rookie year. But man the way he was able to reroute and affect one guy and then get into space and man match from his own look, he took a huge step in the processing aspect of the game this year in my opinion. And then Javon I made the comment about him playing closer to the line of scrimmage. The pick we had was great eyes, great timing, great execution to get Adams to the catchpoint and cause the deflection and takeaway. But on the Alan Lazar touchdown play, he got punked on that one. He bought the run action hard and Lazard left the dust by like eight yards. You know, he talked about not playing his hardest and before the Niners game, and I doubt he was prepared for that, just based upon knowing the guy, Like what a Shane these last two years of Banks, think he was underprepared for a play that really costs us late in the game. Individual misses. Ramsey body language I thought was bad. He didn't get with on their second play of the game, the second drive of the game, and then he looks at Cater like, what are you doing?
Man? Like you could have been out there too, dude.
On the Brooks pass breakup on third down, he gets toasted by Al Almazard, like I cannot believe Rogers did not see that? But that and then Garrett Wilson kind of got af from two games that year, didn't he Chop? I thought lost the edge against outside zone too many times allow a tight end to work inside of his work on his outside arm. You have to keep that outside arm free if you're gonna play the edge against the outside run.
I thought storm duck.
You know, he had some curious plays or some couple of good coverage plays, but he would like drop and get depth against a blocker on a running play that didn't allow Jordan Poyer to get downhill. So's some weird reps there. Speaking of Jordan Poyer will end with him because what a fitting way to do it. The best way I can describe this season, this is the worst performance of anybody that played a lot of snaps this year was just passiveness.
He was passive all year. He did it against an early run.
He had a curl flat responsibility where the only person that could threaten him was Braylen Allen on a swing route and he just played off and like let Rogers have the throw. There was nobody in his space behind him. It was the easiest pass thing to take away, and he just didn't do it. It reminds me of a quarterback who can't see the field, Like did he avoid this section a single time this year? I think he was in the misses every single game this year. What a terrible year. Also had a couple of missed tackles in this game. Snap counts. Poyer, Javon Ramsey, cater Brooks, and Dodson all went the distance sealer among defensive tackles eighty eight percent, kalay Is fifty five percent, Benitil fifty four and Deshaun Hann forty six percent. Off the edge, e Man played eighty seven percent of the snaps, chopped sixty four, Quinton Bell just seventeen percent, and then in the defensive backfield, Storm Duck played seventy two percent. Sir Ran Neil got snicked six snaps, and Elijah Campbell had three snaps. For this my top tapes were Jordan Brooks number one, Zach Sealer number two, Patrick Paul number three, Maleague Washington makes his first top five at number four, and cater Cohu number five. My top ten tapes this season, Jordan Brooks was number one, Let's go reverse order Sorry number ten, Jalen Wattle number nine, Chop Robinson number eight, Jalen Ramsey number seven, john Us Smith number six, Kalais Campbell number five, Aaron Brewer number four, Tua Toungua Iiloa number three, to Ron Armstead number two, Zach Sealer number one, Jordan Brooks. We have Chris Greer and Mike McDaniel tomorrow. I'm going to talk about their press conference. I'm going to talk about what players talked about in the locker room today on that episode, and we'll see. I have a lot of ideas, MU sure, I'm going to organize it yet, but we'll get there here shortly. In the meantime, you all please be sure subscribe, rate, review, follow me on social at Winkle NFL, the team at Miami Dolphins. Check out the fish Tank podcast with Seth and Juice, the YouTube channel for Dolphins, HQ, media availabilities, and so much more. HQ is going to a bye week every other week production for the offseason. Will keep us in mind there we're not going anywhere. We'll have lots of film breakdowns for new guys on HQ, so keep it locked right there. At last, butt not least, mine Dolphins dot Com until next time. Finds up Caroline Cameron, Danny's Coming Home.
