Dolphins in Depth: Dolphins rebound in second joint practice against Lions

Dolphins in Depth: Dolphins rebound in second joint practice against Lions

So, the Miami Dolphins have their second of two rough p two practices with the rough and tough Detroit Lions today, Thursday, August the 14th. Isaiah Smalls is here to tell us how they did. On Wednesday, the Miami Dolphins struggled offensively and defensively getting pretty much dominated by the Detroit Lions, which most people should realize is probably a top five team in the NFL based on what they did last season. Dolphins clearly are not a top five team in the NFL, but the hope was that they would go into this joint practice and get a little bit of respect. Isaiah, did the Miami Dolphins do that? I think today they earned a a lot more respect, right? Because let me paint you a picture, right? I think one of the uh one of the things that people to, you know, remember is that there’s a lot of injuries, right? And so when you think about all the injuries that the Dolphins have, I ain’t trying to hear that. Look, I ain’t trying I ain’t trying to hear that. I know trying to here. I know they’re down offensive lineman and Tyreek Hill isn’t practicing cuz he’s got no bleak. Is Is Ty uh uh is Jaylen Wadd okay? We don’t have Darren Waller. Austin Jackson is out. Oh, Chop hurt his ribs. Oh, Jaylen is nursing his bruised cab. Oh, now we had uh Zack Cer sitting out. Ain’t nobody trying to hear none of that. Everybody got I hear you. I understand. But I think what stood out to me today is because they had these injuries, right? I wasn’t expecting much. I was expecting more of the same of yesterday. And to be honest, they look sharp, right? Especially off or defensive. Offensively, this is this is what happened. Offensively, at the beginning, they look sharp. It kind of tailed off towards the end. However, I feel like it was the opposite with the defense, right? You know, obviously Ammon Ry and Jameson Williams kind of did their work, right? Like the Dolphins, in my opinion, they need to go get some more corners. What will they do that? I don’t know. But so hold on, hold on. Who did who didn’t hold up? I mean, it was everybody. You gonna see in my stock in my stock report, everybody. I’ve listed the entire quarterback group as a as a stock down because after Jack Jones got, you know, roasted yesterday, they didn’t really have him out there today, right? Okay. Not wasn’t a storm. Was it a storm? Here’s my thing about the Jack Jones situation. Go ahead. Go ahead. And just hear me out. Okay. Yeah, that got history with with Almond Raw. Okay, great. But why is Storm Duck not covering the best receiver that the Lions have? Is Storm Duck all of a sudden not up to the standard? What’s What’s going on? What about Kenneth Sheffield? Sheffield. He was out there as a starter from OTAAS. Made the team as a rookie try out, rookie camp try out. Junk to the starting unit. Cam Smith can’t even do that. But all of a sudden, we we we we play we facing a good wide receiving core. two starters sitting sitting running running the second team. What’s up with that? I think and again this is something that McDaniel has consistently said, right? They like to put players in adverse positions, right? They want to see how you respond to adversity, right? And whether or not and that’s that’s frankly quite what they did, right? They had Jack Jones out there yesterday, saw what he could do today. Not much. This man did not call for Almond Ra. Did he didn’t call for him? St. Brown, you’re talking about Jack him up. Failure, huh? You’re talking about Storm or Jack Jones? Jack Jones. Oh, yeah. He did call. I’m sure I’m sure he caught it. I’m sure you made that call. Y’all y’all need to y’all need to have asked him because that’s that that looked a little personal right there. That looked like that looked like they wanted to see how you responded to getting roasted all day. Probably was and probably wasn’t the best response from him because it didn’t really stop. I think today it was more it was more of a rotation in their corner, right? So, the reason why I give to the entire group is, you know, uh Cornell Armstrong, you know, let up got dusted apparently in the in the red zones, right? by by Almond Raw, you know, with Almond Raw versus versus um versus Storm Duck. It was a little bit closer. Almond Raw still made the play, but he he had to go over Storm again. And then the the big play that is, you know, that I saw from the other few was just J Mo just going deep on on Kendall Sheffield. And then you look and then I look up and all I see is J Mo you know six touchdown and you know Kendall Sheffield behind him now that that 111s 77 that was I believe seven on seven. Okay. Oh no no no no. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. That one I believe was 11s. Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. That one was okay about that was Yeah. You get you get housed in 11 on 11’s account. And again, you know, go watch that play that I put up. It was, you know, Kendall was in his mug, manto man, mono emano, and just routed up. And then if he tried to come help over top, but you could tell it looked like if kind of pulled up a little bit when I was when I was watching the clip because I didn’t even see Iffy in, you know, when I just saw with my eyes. I saw it in the clip and I was like, “Okay, I guess I guess if there looked like he pulled up.” So again, entire quarterback group today is getting the stock down for me because I mean at the at the end of the day and I don’t necessarily think it’s their fault as as much as like I mean there’s levels there’s levels to this talent stuff, right? And you know you we can debate until we’re blue in the face about one is up here, one is down they are down here. Uh, we can debate we’re blue in the face on where the Lions stack up in terms of the teams in the NFL, but we do know that their receiving core is at the very least top three. Top five, maybe. Maybe. Maybe. Yeah. And so, yeah, I haven’t done the math, but Yeah. Yeah. But it’s up there. I mean, I would put it ahead of the Dolphins. So, yeah. I think and I think the the one of the things that I I was just when I was I was talking to my dad about it yesterday and the thing that really stood out to me is of course you hear from the defensive coordinator from you know from the cornerback’s coach that these guys are getting great work in practice the corners are getting great work in practice versus Tyreek versus W. However, as I said last year in my story story, they are the Dolphins have the smallest receiving core in the NFL, right? So, as much as good work you’re getting against these guys, the fact of the matter remains that they’re smaller. And most of the NF and most of the receivers that you will see on that outside are not going to be that height. And so, when you have to deal with a bigger guy, I mean, there’s just things that you don’t necessarily are repping consistently in practice just because you you can use your size a little. And not to call Wadd and Tyreek, you know, small, like, you know, weak or anything, right? Like Tyreek is is is is very strong. Like, I’m not, you know, I’m not I’m not saying that he’s a weak guy, but I’m just saying just as a if you are physically bigger than somebody, right, and you’re playing quarterback and you’re going to try to make a play on them, you can there’s you have more of an opportunity to run through a guy that is a little bit smaller. I don’t think any of those cornerbacks are bigger than Tyreek and Jaylen Wadd. Jason Jason Marshall Jr. That’s the only one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. But you don’t think Storm Duck is? You don’t think he’s taller? Storm Duck is taller than them. Okay. I mean, you can I I I disagree with you. Here is about like an inch. Uh Storm is 610. They’re all 510. Okay. Two inches. And wait, let’s let’s let’s let’s back up a second. We we we know that those heights aren’t 100% accurate. We know. We know where. Well, Storm ain’t 6’1. Let Let’s Yeah. Okay. T Hold on. Tyreek is legit 5’10. They They are Jaylen Waddle and Tyreek. We’re all the same size. I’m the same. I’m 5’10. We’re all the same size. Okay. So, and basically the whole unit is, you know, Dri all all of them the same size. Um Yeah. 5’9, 510. Malik is a little bit smaller. Five 5’8. Um the other one what is which one? Taj Taj is not no 510 anyway. Sorry, my bad. Um, so tell me tell me the positives. Tell me the positives because we we beating up this Dolphins team saying that they got punked against they didn’t get punked. They kind of got bullied against the Bears. They got punked yesterday against the Lions um last weekend. Again, I don’t and maybe maybe maybe they have a a better description of it, but I I don’t necessarily think that they got punked yesterday. I just think that and may maybe they did. Maybe they did. I just thought that it was just one team was just better than the other yesterday. It it was too many Lions reporters like, “Yo, bad.” Yeah. I think one team was away from a joint practice and say, “Yo, they bad over there.” Cuz we know what we looking at. And them dudes over there, they not good. Yeah. But the the positive to me and something that I I wanted to what I I tried to bring up earlier in the pod was that when it mattered most right at the end of practice, when you’re in this situational period, it was quite simply they started at the 50 yard line. You have a minute to score. Right. When they were in that period, how many timeouts you get? I don’t think that that zero timeouts. There were zero timeouts. You had to score. You had to spike. You had to spike it. Spike it. Exactly. Okay. All right. Tell me tell me in that period. Okay. The defense won it as far as I’m concerned. Right. I mean, how many how many So, starters get one rep, backups get one rep, and 13. No, it was just the starters. It was just the starters. The starters, man. What’s going on with this? Okay. Anyway. All right. So, the starters get one rep. And what they do? And so, the the offense four and out. I will say this that the last Miami’s offense four and out. I will say this the last play which was a throw to to Tarth Black to me it looked like a PI to a lot of the other Dolphins writers looked like to Tariq Black. Yeah, there was no there was no Tua. And again and again I want to point this out. Hold on. There was no Tua. Wait what? What did you say? Wait wait wait. I said I said there’s no Tyreek. There’s no Tyreek. There’s no Tyreek. I know, but Tyreek Black is like down down there. I will say like look look that’s what I’m saying. I again the stock report he had a good day today. He was one of my top performers today. I’ll say this. He caught he caught he started his day with a touchdown in the red zone. Right. In what? 70 on seven. 707. Okay. 707. Then proceeded to draw backto back PIs in the red zone. Okay. Right. All right. Then on work. Was it red zone work? Yeah, it was seven. Still 707. Still 707. But we doing red. We started from 20. Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. Okay. Then when we got to the team period, and this is what surprised me. He caught a screen, a rocket screen, a very basic rocket screen. He took that John 20 yards. Okay. And so I bet you the screen was to the left side. To the right side, actually. Oh, who was who was blocking? I couldn’t couldn’t couldn’t see because because the way that the field is is standing and I got a lot of hate on Twitter because people are like, “How can you not see this player this play?” First of all, first of all, first of all, the Lions did not have their names on the back of their jerseys. They need to fix that ASAP. They did not have the name jersey. And I made the mistake yesterday of grabbing the alphabetical order instead of the numerical one. And so there was a few names that I that I’m looking at the numbers and I’m just like, “Okay, I think it’s this.” Boom. And I I’ll put it out. Just just go just write down next time just write down the number and you can figure it out later. Exactly. And so I personally I mean I was impressed with T Black. And so I now so now let’s fast forward to the end of practice. Fourth fourth down looked like a uh a slant to him. It looked and he got pushed in the back clearly. Rest didn’t call it. you know, he w you know, he gets up like this. I look at the other writers, I’m like, that’s PI, right? They said yes. Unfortunately, fourth down play is over. Now, what stood out the most to me, right, was the defense because again, they had every reason to wilt. No, no Zack Cer, no Jaylen Phillips. I mean, it it they they could have folded, right? That’s only two starters. That’s only two starters, right? But that but that’s your pass rush. That’s part of the reason why them corners might have been getting cooked today because they didn’t have no pass rush. How much did Chop Robinson work? Again, opposite fields. I was I was on offense today. I was on offense today. We switched. Okay. All right. All right. And so, but there wasn’t any sort of concern about his workload. Like, it wasn’t that wasn’t one of the things that came back to me. It wasn’t like, oh, he didn’t play as much, you know, as was the case with Waddle yesterday. Waddle today full workload. Um, and so the thing that stood out to me was as they’re driving, right, the the def the the the defense stepped up, right? You know, Minka and Matthew Butler combined for a sack, right? Uh, Storm Duck had a great uh PBU on uh on a pass atte, you know, Raymond was by him, was kind of a little bit behind him. The ball was a little bit underthrown, but it gave Storm the amount of the enough time to kind of just jump up one-handed, tip the ball, right? So, that was a great play. Like I said, the sack and then the final play, right? Because they, you know, again, when you have Jarro Goff, you have Almond Ross. Brown, sometimes that connection is just perfect. They connected on 20 yard on a 20 yard pass that got the ball, I think, to like the 15 yard line. Then after that, locked down. Locked down. And I was I was I was pleasantly surprised the and the the period ended with uh G aiming for the end zone and uh iffy almost coming down with the pick. He should have he he beat himself up afterwards. You know, I asked him about the play afterwards. You know, how did it feel to kind of get that PBU on your team? And his response was, I mean, it felt good, but at the same time, I’m pissed because I wanted the pick. And so, when you see that, right, and granted, again, I I’m on the I’m on the other side mainly watching the offense, right? But, you know, you look over, you glance over the defense and it’s like, dang. Like, corn is getting roasted, guys are getting, you know, you talk back to the off, you talk back to the people that were watching the defense and they’re like, uh, kind of more of the same from yesterday. Not really, not as bad, but definitely kind of bad. And so to me, I mean, I think the offense defense off the Dolphins offense to me it was about even with with the Lions with the Lions defense about even the defense Dolphins versus Lions offense that swings a little bit more in the Lions direction, right? But again, there’s elite players over there, right? And so I say all this to say it was a much better performance because guys actually came out and competed. And hold on, let me actually let me back up. I haven’t even said the play of the day yet. D. Escridge made a phenomenal catch earlier uh today on DJ Reed. Jumped up. First of all, did not know he had hops like that. Jumped up over him and was able to secure the the ball in the back of the end zone. It was one of those plays that you look at, you’re just like, whoa, where has that been? But then also you could tell that it galvanized the team which I think it was important right from Tua. Yeah. From Tua from Tua. The entire entire offense seemingly ran down and was celebrating with him. Right. Because it just was one of those plays that again I had the Lions fans behind me. They shut up. I’m be honest. Zip. And it was one of those plays that’s like, hey, our you know the Dolphins guy just made a better better play. It w it was. But I I say all that say much better showing much better showing today. You could see that guys were were were were hungry to make up for yesterday. And that’s important, right? I I think that’s that’s that’s very very important. I don’t want to overreact to the to the joint practices, which I feel like is sometimes a tendency, right? But I think at the same time, right, it’s important to see how guys react with their back up against the wall. Absolutely. Right. and and they acted as as a team that like, you know, had a chip on their shoulder and and I think that that’s important because So So how was the run game offensively? It wasn’t that good. It was okay. It was It wasn’t that good. Again, there was no Devon Aan. There’s no Devon at all. Not Not I didn’t even see him today. Um and so I So then it was the Jaylen Wright show. Jaylen Wright show he had maybe one or two big big runs. Um and by big I want to say let me let me temper that expectation. He had one one one first down run. Yeah. Okay. One one that was like seven or eight yards and then one that was like a first down run. Okay. Again, it wasn’t with with no two. It’s always um I’m sorry, with no a chain, it’s always difficult to kind of gauge the running backs, but it wasn’t, you know, the or to gauge the run game as as a whole, but it wasn’t it was okay. And then with with Zach Wilson under center when they did some 11 on 111 in red zone, um Shane came in, Aaron Shanklin, the new guy, came in and had what it looked like a touchdown. They they said that he only got to the two yard line. They swapped it out uh Shane Flynn for Mike Boon. Boon ran a a screen two yard touchdown untouched. Screen at the two. Yeah, at the two. At the twos. I never seen that play before, but it was okay. Look. All right. You liked it or you didn’t like it? I mean, it was a touchdown. It don’t matter if I liked it or didn’t like it. That’s not answering the question anyway. I mean, I I don’t I think sometimes running a screen I first of all, when you’re that close to to pay dirt, I don’t like going throwing the ball behind the line of scrimmage. I like to go forward personally. Personally, that that’s a personal preference. Okay. Um, so obviously this is going to be a Saturday, believe it’s 100 p.m. game. um what are you expecting from the Dolphins in regards to who plays and who doesn’t play and who who works and who doesn’t work. So McDaniel told us earlier today that he’s coming into he came into today’s practice thinking the starters aren’t playing just point blank period. However, he gave a caveat. He said that however ultimately depends on the performance of today. So did they earned a day off in your mind Isaiah Smalls? I think they did. They did. I think they did because they showed more fight. I think they showed more fight. They showed Especially at the end of the at the end of of of practice with that defense and the situational period. They showed more fight. They they should have had a pick at the end of that, right? So, I think based off of that alone, you know, guys are already starting to be banged up. It’s not worth it. It’s not It’s not worth it. Okay. Now, so you’re basically saying we’ll have the Zack Wilson and and Quinn Yu show and Quinn basically hasn’t had many slaps snaps this week. No, virtually zero snaps this week. Yeah. And so what that will look like, you know, remains to be seen. I think it’ll be interesting. I think Zach Wilson, you know, similar to how he looked in the game. He’s not afraid to take that deep shot. And I’m I like it. I mean, personally, like I would I would love for him to be able to read the field, but you know, um I agree with you. Iron out those accuracy issues, but you know, I agree. I agree. I agree. I think you know when I he have everything from reviewing the film you know of last week there was a few passes that he short armed that should have been touchdowns for sure and because he pass short on him because his feet weren’t set feet weren’t feet not set that thing going to spray um so it’ll be interesting to see how they play. I don’t disagree with you especially after two days of physical practices clearly the starters are getting a lot of rep. It looks like McDaniel’s trying to change his approach because usually the third game is the dry run for the guys who are trying to make the team. So maybe the second game is the dry run for the guys who are trying to make the team and the third game is going to be the the audition the the dry run for the for the for the especially at home because you kind of Yeah. You can’t give you can’t give your final home preseason game make that scrub the scrub game. You can’t do that. I mean, look, stranger things have happened. Stranger things have happened. All All right. Um, we we do have a new offensive lineman. Um, Germaine Eidi, uh, who was struggle city obviously. Struggle City in in the in the Bears preseason game. Struggle City uh, in practice yesterday. Um, suffered a season ending injury is now placed on IR. Torn tricep to be specific. Torn tri torn tricep. Okay. Torn tricep. And uh Kush. What’s the name of the guy who got signed? Uh um he’s former he’s got experience with the he’s he’s a former West Virginia standout, Myiar High product. Uh, the name escapes me and my computer’s running very slow at the present moment. So, I got it. I got it. I got it. I got it. Uh, uh, yand yandi kush. I can’t say that right. Oh, they don’t have him on the uh what’s it called? On the uh roster. Yeah, on the roster. I have my roster over there. I’d have to grab it. Um, actually he played with the he played with the the Patriots. Yes. Early draft pick of the Patriots, former Myiar High standout, West Virginia uh standout. Um, he has battled some injuries throughout his career, including last year, which which basically got him waved. I think he had a shoulder last year based on what I was reading or um, but he’s here now. He’s the sixth offensive lineman to have suffered an injury. Six offensive linemen and the bulk of them have been tackles with the exception of Aon Meyer. Uh a um Andrew Andrew Meyer, what can you expect from the offensive line on Saturday? Not much. I mean, just to just to be frank, you know, the backup offensive line has not looked great in general, whether you’re talking about in practice, whether you’re talking about in joint practice, whether you’re talking about in the game. And to me, that’s a a cause for concern just because offensive linemen to me is are one of those positions that you you can never have too much of because injuries happen all the time, but specifically in a position where you are squatting essentially and banging your head up against an opposing defender, right? So, I mean, I what what did say last year? Luckily, I get the ball out quick. them boys have get the ball out quick. So, uh it it’ll it’ll be interesting to see what happens. Um that is Isaiah Smalls. He is there in Detroit. He’s actually going to be covering the game for the Miami Herald. As you know, Dolphins in depth. We are here just about every day we have practice. Uh no practice tomorrow so we will not be back but we will give you a postgame recap on Sunday and hopefully um it will be something that’s favorable to you Dolphin fans because you have been through a lot with this franchise. So on that note we are out and we will see you Sunday.

The Dolphins bounced back from Wednesday’s poor showing against the Lions, with the offense holding its own and the defense improving. Still, work remains, and backups are expected to see plenty of action in Saturday’s preseason game. The Dolphins In Depth podcast recaps Thursday and looks ahead.

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