What does a Miami Dolphins victory on Sunday against Jacksonville look like? We take a look at both sides of the ball and explore what points of emphasis could be big in producing a winning effort in Week 1 of the 2024 season.
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It's the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. This episode is brought to you by FX's American sports story, Aaron Hernandez. From executive producer Ryan Murphy comes the first installment of FX's American sports story. The limited series charts the rise and fall of NFL superstar Aaron Hernandez and explores the disparate strands of his identity, his family, his career, his suicide, and their legacy in sports and American culture. FX's American sports story, Aaron Hernandez, all new Tuesdays on FX. Stream on Hulu. We're driven by the search for better. But when it comes to hiring, the best way to search for a candidate isn't to search at all. Don't search. Match with Indeed. Ditch the busy work. Use Indeed for scheduling, screening, and messaging so you can connect with candidates faster. And listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsor job credit to get your jobs more visibility at indeed.com/lockdownnfl. Just go to indeed.com/lockdownnfl right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast indeed.com/lockdownnfl terms and conditions apply need to hire you indeed. You are locked on dolphins. Your daily Miami Dolphins podcast. Out of the locked on podcast network, your team every day. All right, Miami, welcome to another episode of locked on dolphins. It's your team every day. Here on the lockdown network, I'm your host, Kyle Krebs, a lifelong Miami Dolphins fan. Host of locked on dolphins, co-host of locked on NFL scouting, author of touchdown Miami on sub stack and the NFL draft lead for the 30/13. You can find all of our shows here on the lockdown network on YouTube or wherever you listen to your fear podcast, Tiffany Cap to our every dayers because it is your team every day. We don't just say it. We live it here on the locked on network. Today's episode of locked on dolphins is brought to you by prize picks. Go to prize picks.com/lockdownnfl and use code in all lowercase locked on the NFL to win $50 instantly when you play $5 the Dolphins hosting Jacksonville at 1 p.m. at Hard Rock Stadium on Sunday afternoon. We did the crossover yesterday with Tony Wiggins of locked on Jaguars and even before that earlier this week. The impression that I wanted to leave about this football team is this is a team that has talent. This is a talented football team, the Jacksonville Jaguars. The chemistry of things coming together is one of the questions for them. There's new identity pieces in the same way that there are for the Dolphins. When the Dolphins have the football and look at keys to victory on both sides, we touched on some of this yesterday on the crossover Thursdays, well, but I want to go deep dive kind of into the personnel or the Jacksonville has up front. Trayvon Walker, Josh Hines Allen, they're not particularly deep on the edge. They're deeper on the interior. This is not the game that I think the Dolphins are going to find their short yardage third in one run between the tackles type of success. Maybe they'll surprise me, but this feels like the kind of game where you have long and rangey linebackers, but linebackers who you could probably play some games with with a lot of misdirection. I think the motions, the jet motions, the orbit motions, the backfield motions, that for me is going to be a really big piece of the puzzle as we try to figure out what are Jacksonville's linebackers doing with those motions? Are they bumping over a gap? Are they rotating and see sawing the safeties to flip the strength of the play? Probably a little bit of a feeling out process early on to kind of get a feel for if we want to motion away from where we're running. Are they bumping the linebackers and pulling somebody from a deeper alignment down into the fit? How do you take advantage of that? What kind of surfaces do you run to? A block in these two dudes on the edge is essential to the success of the Miami Dolphins. That doesn't mean that you have to get outside on them all the time because again, the wide zone scheme, you're designed to create a stretch in the front and if just one guy wins a backside cut off and the linebacker overruns it or if the linebackers bump the other way because of the motion, you can press the hole as the running back and then stick your foot in the ground and read those gaps one by one down the line of scrimmage until you find the vacancy that is left behind based on the other things that you're doing with your play mechanics. So this feels like the game where the Dolphins and the 49ers and the Shanahan offenses, they have these wide zone concepts that offer multiple players thrown at the end man at the line of scrimmage. So maybe you have a tight end over there and then you're going to have another tight end split flow across the backfield. So for Miami, this might be Germs might than Alec Ingle or Julian Hill and Derms might or Julian Hill and Alec Ingle or Grant DuBose as a wide receiver, Chase Claypool tried to do this kind of stuff when he was brought in last year. And you get an extra like support block on the end man of the line of scrimmage before that second player who's effectively chipping on the end, but it's in run blocking and mountain pass protection. And then climbs up to the second level to create more width and push. I'm looking for that. It might be a tight end and a offensive tackle, but whatever it is, I want to give a little extra attention in the run game with inside support and leverage on these two very physically gifted defensive ends and Trayvon Walker and Josh Heinz out. And if you do that, I think you can create the extra bump that you need to either help the tight end game control so he can run outside or alternatively create the expansion that then allows you to stick your foot in the ground and run inside of that. That's a big key to victory for me is how do you scheme up extra push on the edge guys, is this is not the game I don't think to run crack toss and have Braxton Barrios cracking down on Trayvon Walker. I don't think that that world ends very well for you. So you do kind of expect the dolphins are going to have some kind of a new wrinkle in the mix as well. Last year, it was the exit motion, the cheat motion that's not illegal. I don't like Florio, but they're going to have something new, whether that's from Devan H and or John who Smith or schematically with a new motion. I trust they're going to have their wrinkles, but their core principle plays the biggest mismatch that I see is those guys on the edge with how freakishly long they are. And if you leave them in isolation against soft running surfaces against either offensive tackle, they could probably handle the assignment. But to really give it the conviction that you need to really run with authority and have the confidence to run the ball, you'd like to give a little extra support to those guys. I'm not saying say here and double team them on every play, but if I'm going to lock horns and block Trayvon Walker, then I want my support player, whoever the other skill, the F, the adjuster player, the flex player, whether he's in the backfield or whether he's on the other side of formation, he's coming across in split flow at the snap as he runs through create that contact and knock to help me further secure him and create a little bit more space. In the secondary, they got a lot of length. It sounds like, at least Josh Heinz Allen said during the week, kind of the game that we want to play is we want to force two and a half to throw the ball. We think we can play that style. I assume that means you think you're going to be physical. And if that's the case, you can put all the emphasis in the world on trying to play methodically offensively. But if you want to play a lot of man coverage, which it sounds like the coverage matrix for this team with Ryan Nielsen is more man coverage than you would what you might expect. And you want to play man coverage against Tyree Kill and Jalen Waddle and you want to press and disrupt timing, okay. I'll take my shots on Ronald Darby and Darnell Savage down the field. And if that's what you're going to give me and I have a lot of confidence in Jalen Waddle and Tyree Kill to win those reps, then we're going to take our shots down the field and we'll take explosive plays if you're going to continue to give it to us. Now, if we get you out of that, that's where I think you go back to the run thing. So Mike McDaniel said talk to a couple of times this off season about overplay. Offensive approach is all about overplay. What are they giving you? Take advantage of what they're giving you as a means of punishing them for taking something else away. And then when they adjust, then you go back to doing that thing they were trying to take away in the first place. So that's my run game pass game dynamics. Now, if they want to play soft, if they want to play from depth, I kind of look at everybody they have in the secondary Cisco's a bigger safety, Antonio Johnson's a bigger safety, Tyson Campbell's a big corner. You got linebackers that are big guys, but not necessarily like super quick Twitch short area spaces. If you want to play depth against us, then yeah, then I will dank and dunk. I'll take a lot of hitches. I'll take slants and we'll just take completions as they come. That's kind of the core staples of what I kind of expect to see offensively. Defensively, aggressiveness, name of the game, we'll see. I got some thoughts here on defensive notes and defensive aggressiveness coming your way next here on this episode of lockdown dolphins, make sure that you stick with us. When you're hired for your small business, you want to find quality professionals that are right for the role. And that's why I check out LinkedIn jobs, LinkedIn jobs helps to find the right professionals to your team faster and for free because LinkedIn is not just another job board, LinkedIn helps you hire professionals. You can't find anywhere else, even those who aren't actively searching for a new job, but might be open to the perfect role in any given month. Over 70% of LinkedIn users don't visit other leading jobs sites. So if you're not looking on LinkedIn, you are looking in the wrong place on LinkedIn, and 86% of small businesses get a qualified candidate within 24 hours. So hire professionals, like a professional on LinkedIn, post your job for free at LinkedIn.com/lockdown-the-fell that's LinkedIn.com/lockdown-the-fell to post your job for free terms and conditions. Do apply. I love five hour energy. After a big win for my favorite team, I love diving into the tape. But after hours of making content, I can need a boost. There's nothing like a watermelon five hour energy shot to make sure I finish the job. With zero sugar and a convenient portable size, it's the perfect pick me up for getting stuff done. If you go to fivehourenergy.com, that's the number five hourenergy.com and get some five hour energy product today. You can use my promo code locked on FB to receive 20% off your order. This offer is only valid until September 30th on one order and cannot be used with other promotions. It's not good on subscription orders, go to fivehourenergy.com today, defensively going against Jackson. Go. I have some thoughts about the wide receivers. I have some thoughts about the players that you need to take away. Kind of expect a lot of 12, 12 personnel, Doug Peterson's done it at times. Ben Ingram, Bretton Strange was a second round pick last year. Luke Farrell is a traditional inline type player. They've gone for more size at wide receiver. I do think there is, especially early for Brian Thomas in his career, there's a little bit of redundancy with the skill sets of both him and Gabe Davis. They're both guys that win down the field. The difference is Brian Thomas is actually dynamic, but he's a rookie in his first game. Are they just going to go authentic 11 and try and spread out? I'd be surprised. I kind of am feeling that this might be a big nickel situation, a base defense and big nickel type of game plan. I'm expecting to see more of that than you might see on a usual week. If that is indeed the case, Benito Jones, welcome back to the fray, buddy. You're going to play. We're going to ask you to stack up Mitch Morse. I think that's a totally fine assignment to hand Benito Jones to keep your linebackers clean. Keep double teams and don't give up space in the line of scrimmage. The names that I think are really important for the Dolphins to match talent with. Who are you comfortable with covering vertically down the field? If Evan Ingram and Evan Ingram to be totally fair, his average yards per catch last year was like nine yards. He was not a vertical player. He was more of a horizontal player than underneath player. And then they went out and they got a lot of vertical players in Brian Thomas and Gabe Davis. That's what both of those players do best is play vertically down the field. Who do you trust at the catch point in those situations? Is if you're going to play, man, and I don't know how much man I would play. I probably prefer to play more zone and play fire zones and sit and run simulated pressures behind zone packages behind it. But if you're going to play, man, who do you trust to play the catch point vertically against size? Is it Ramsey with his new contract in tow? Is it Katerkohu? Is it Fuller? Kendall Fuller. My gut instinct says take Jalen Ramsey and play him, lock him in man coverage opportunities against either one of the dynamic vertical big body down the field receiver types. Expect him to be very sticky in those situations. Fuller, I think foot speed to match with Christian Kirk. And if you play big nickel, you have three safeties on the field. You can kind of still shade and leverage somebody over the top and give a little extra support and help to who I think their most dynamic player is. And you have Javan Holland who in big nickel, which is three safeties, is the terminology if you're not familiar with it. That gives you an opportunity to move him into the slot, lower to the line of scrimmage. Jordan Poyer did this at moments last year. Last couple of years, he's been more of a nickel and second level type of presence with good run support ability. I think that's an important piece of the puzzle. If you're going to have a DB down there's the seventh hat in the box, somebody who has high integrity and run support is important. I think your best player there is Holland. And then you have May and Poyer sitting on the roof, Poyer can do it. But I want to match physicality for physicality down the field and do the Stefan Gilmore plan that the Patriots always did, which is, hey, if we're going to play main coverage in key situations, we're going to take the second best player that you have offensively and we're going to take our best corner against it, and then that way we're going to give two bodies to give extra leverage against the best player than that being Christian Kerr. I think underneath the interior quad of the two safeties high, whoever they end up being, you can rope the nickel in there if you need to, and your two linebackers then being responsible for Travis ETN in the passing game Evan Ingram in the passing game. And if Christian Kirk is in the slot is I think the winning determination for you defensively in this game. I would probably, from a pure calls perspective, play more zone to try to triangulate and leverage those middle of the field receiver types and force more low percentage throws down the field with newer players with you as a quarterback. I think that's the biggest difference between the two teams with the new dynamics that exist on both sides is Miami with their receivers has a longer track record of playing together than Trevor who's now coming into what year this is year three with Doug Peterson, but Brian Thomas and Gabe Davis are new. I think that's the biggest thing and if you can take advantage of that early on, I think that placed your advantage as far as crafting a winning formula for this game. Now how aggressive should you be from a pressure standpoint? That's a good question. I'm glad you asked. That's where we're going next here on this episode of locked on dolphins. Make sure that you stick with us. If you're looking to get into the action this weekend, make sure you play on prize picks. Prize picks is America's number one daily fantasy sports app with over five million active users prize picks is the easiest and most exciting way to play daily fantasy sports. Unlike in other apps, it is you versus the house and the numbers in prize picks, not you against other people. All you do is pick more or less on two to six player stat projections and you can watch your winnings roll in in the month of September, one Caleb Williams passing yard gets you one win on prize picks every week of the month. 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Mike Curtis emailed me to say, I just wanted to thank you for your network. We just refied with Steve Carter. It was so incredibly easy. I can attest to it. I got my loan done with Steve Carter. Who else? Richard Gordon emailed me and said, thank you so much for promoting intercap lending. We used them earlier this year. Steve was amazing and Steve is amazing. Helmet 385, 885-28, 385, 885-28, tell him to lock down, send you intercap lending. NMLS, number 19-0-465. For more information, visit intercaplending.com. We talked about this, I think it was on Wednesday, but the Jaguars as a team were very feast or famine at times. There were times when they had strong successes as far as ball security and they won those games. There were a lot of times where the turnovers came in bunches and they lost those games. Jack's have built it. I consider Trevor Lawrence and what his pros and cons are, what he has shown and established himself to be as a player. I do think this is the kind of player that you want to be able to pressure. He had 26 turnover-worthy plays, that's 3.8 percent during the 2023 season. Each of his three seasons in the NFL, that number has been over 3 percent, 20 turnover-worthy plays in 2022 and 26 turnover-worthy plays in 2021, his rookie season. He actually had a higher turnover-worthy play percentage this past year in 2023 than he did playing for Urban Meyer during his rookie season when he had 668 drawbacks. When you put it through that perspective, putting pressure on him is something that I think you want to do and try to probe to be able to find without doing so at the expense of bodies and coverage. I don't want to spend a whole lot of time living in the world where you're sending 5 or 6 rushers. If you want to do add-ons because they're keeping the backs and tight ends in protection, okay, totally get it, that's fine. You can green dog, which is when I have the back in protection as a linebacker, but he stays in to protect, well, there's no sense me playing main coverage against him if he's just in pass pro, so now I rush the passer and add on to the front. You want to do that kind of stuff? Totally fine. You want to get it. But where are your simulated pressures coming from, where you're showing 4 players, those are not the players who come. Somebody from somewhere else is amongst the 4 rushers where ideally it's away from where they turn the center you manufacture a free run. I think about this being stack linebackers in this game because I do think this is an offensive line with who they have up front, they're probably going to want to try to challenge you physically. If you're in base defense, you've got your nose tackle on the field. I feel pretty good about their ability to space the front. But if you're having what can turn into run blitzes and have linebackers, have a designated gap that they know they're going to come through, and when you're in your third and middles, your third and fours, third and fives, doing some of that same thing and having a guy on the edge potentially to the backside away from wherever they put their tight ends, assuming their tight ends are on the ball, if they're off the ball, it's usually a pretty good indication that they're going to be coming across the set at the snap. That's probably where I would try to cook in this game. I would not try to make my living getting a lot of add-on pressures and simulated pressure looks when coming from a lot of depth. So stack backers, you can be four or five yards off the ball, but you have a direct pathway as compared to a nickel. As they spread out and your nickel is the fourth guy, he's got to come from all the way halfway between the hash and the number. If they spread the formation, like that's such a far way to come or a safety. He's got to try to line up when he rolls down. No, I want to get on top of Trevor Lawrence quick and I want him to feel it. So for me, I'm thinking linebackers, David Long and Jordan Brooks, maybe the most pristine opportunities to get your add-on pressures and then drop an athletic edge guy out to keep the numbers in coverage as close to seven as often as you possibly can. Those are my thoughts. I think it is important to remember. It is one game, win or lose. If we win, we're going to hop on the post game show, we'll have a good time, we'll enjoy club dub, first with Lawrence, one of the season, we'll laugh, cheers, have a good time. If they lose, it's not the end of the world, right? It's a marathon. And I know that's in an instant gratification world, not the easiest pill to swallow. You want to be able to win all the games and leave no doubt and answer the questions and build a resume that you're comfortable with all throughout the season. But there will be adversity for this Dolphins team at some point this season and not just in the midst of a game that they transcend and win and they're going to go 17 and all, right? It's just not going to happen. There's going to be moments where there's going to be guys banged up, there's guys not playing, where they're in a tough spot and they lose a game and it's not going to feel fun. But I guess my message for Dolphins fans coming into this season is don't ride the roller coaster and live and die every week, week to week. I'm not saying that because I think they're going to lose. I picked them to win. I picked them to win myself. I picked them to win with Joe Marino and locked on NFL scouting. But I do think this will be a game that has some ebbs and flows. And if they come out on the wrong side of it, just know that this whole process is going to play out. There's things that you think you know about this team based off what this team did last year that is going to prove to be totally different. Two of the big things about the Dolphins after year one in the system is they couldn't run the ball very well and they had no screen game. They were staples for the Dolphins, particularly when they were healthy in a lot of ways. And one of the most productive rushing offenses in the league and a lot of that responsibility falls on the backs. It's a good thing to have an even deeper running back backfield issue. So I hope that's the thing where you can come into this game. You can enjoy this game. I'm hoping for a healthy game first and foremost and I'm hoping for a win. And whatever we get, we'll work through it, we'll break it down together. We're going to have Greece on the postcast. If you're on the podcast feed, you'll see a postcast show that's from Greece, who is part of our postcast initiative, where they're going to go live right after the game to try to bring you an immediate reaction to the game. I'll still have my post game show. So don't be surprised if you see a postcast. You don't hear cow crabs on it. That's part of the plan. But my post game show will drop shortly after the game on Sunday afternoon as well. We will talk about whatever happens. We will break it down. We'll explore why it happened on Monday and then starting on Tuesday, Wednesday, we're going to turn the page. I guess on Tuesday, this week, because we're at home on Thursday for week two. We're going to look up and a week from today, we're going to be breaking down the week two game and we're going to be off for 10 days. And we're going to have to have play two games. We'll see what the dolphins give us along the way and we'll break it down as it comes. I'm Kyle crabs. I appreciate you guys. Check out the show. Make it a great rest of your day. I am out of here. You can keep it locked in here on the lockdown network. You can find us on YouTube over every listed for your podcast. Make it a great rest of your day and I will talk to you after Sunday's game. Go fans. You've heard us talk a lot about FanDuel, America's number one sports book. While we have something a little different for you, now through September 22, all FanDuel customers can bet $5 and get a three week free trial of NFL Sunday ticket from YouTube and YouTube TV. Even with a YouTube TV based plan, you'll be able to watch every regular season Sunday afternoon out of market game. All you need is a Google account and current form of payment and you can cancel anytime. Just visit FanDuel.com to download America's number one sports book. Today's episode is brought to you by Game Time. 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