The Miami Dolphins dropped their first regular season depth chart of 2024. What are they telling us? And, more importantly, what are they not telling us? Plus, what the heck is an 'F' and why is Jonnu Smith listed behind Alec Ingold there? We get into all of that and more.
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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 need Indeed. Alright, my, yeah, may welcome to another episode of Lockdown Dolphins. It's your team every day here on the Lockdown Network. I'm your host, Kyle Krabs, a lifelong Miami Dolphins fan, host of Lockdown Dolphins, co-host of Lockdown NFL scouting author of Touchdown Miami on Substack, the NFL draft lead over at the 30/13. You can find all of our shows here on the Lockdown Network on YouTube or wherever you listen to your favorite podcast, typically cap two or every day, because it is your team every day. We don't just say it. We live it. We're on the Lockdown Network today's episode of Lockdown Dolphins is brought to you by FanDuel. Now through September 22, all FanDuel customers came at $5 to get a free, three-week trial of NFL Sunday ticket from YouTube and YouTube TV visit FanDuel.com to get started. Dolphins dropped the depth chart yesterday. We'll get an injury report this afternoon. We'll probably have a show reacting to whatever we find on the injury report, which is probably going to be excessively long, because any bumps and bruises the team is going to divulge them as a part of their injury reporting policies across the league. We kind of touched on it yesterday. Following up on some injuries doesn't sound like there's a lot of concern with, unless you're on an injury designation list, it sounds like Miami is going to be a pretty good shape to have those guys actually go. But the depth chart that the Dolphins released on their website had some interesting stuff, not necessarily a ton of huge surprises. There's some stuff that maybe if you take it super literal, you can read into, but it was the designation of a position that I think had everybody buzzing the most. And it was the F position, not the FB for fullback, but the F position. Everybody say, what the heck is an F? It was Alec Engel, Jonu Smith, Tanner Conner. Does that mean that Jonu Smith is the backup fullback, Alec Engel? Is that true? Not necessarily. The way that the Shanahan language works is F is the fifth eligible, because the base is two wide receivers, a running back, quarterback, a tight end, and then F, whatever F may be. F is an indicator of your personal grouping. An F could be a fullback, in which case there's two backs, and 21 personnel. An F could be a second tight end, 12 personnel. An F could be a third wide receiver, which would put you an 11 personnel. And whether it was us talking about 12 and 21 personnel groupings and short yardage runs like we did last week, or whether it's talking about the diversification of the offense and Mike McDaniel saying the versatility of that room signifies the diversity of your offense. There's been these context clues along the way, and now we have a formal designation of it in the depth chart. The F is short for formation adjuster, and as the official title in the playbook for the F position, and if the Dolphins want to go in 21 personnel, the sixth eligible, the F would be Alec Ingold. If the Dolphins want to go in 21 or in 12 personnel with two tight ends on the field, the F would be Johnny Smith. So it's less like a vertical hierarchy, and it's a little bit more of a different personal packages and different down and distances may dictate what calls you make, and that's going to determine who out of this group is actually on the field. Now that's not to say that Johnny Smith might not line up in some instances as a full back in the backfield because he's capable of moving around, and I'm sure the Dolphins have a lot of plans for Johnny Smith that we don't really know about yet, and we've seen some flashes of it with the jet motion touch pass in the red zone in the preseason. We'll see if there's layers there I anticipate that there are, but you could theoretically go with a jumbo package with the sixth offensive lineman and have Patrick Paul be the F, because he's the sixth eligible, but he's a tackle reporting as eligible when he comes onto the field to give you a jumbo surface in the blocking it. It could be Braxton Barrios could be the F, Odell Beckham could be the F. Technically, whichever one of the Von H and or Jalen Wright or Rehean Moser, whichever one's not at H back could be the F. But I don't think it's a coincidence that you had a full back, your flex tight end that moves all around, and then the player that's done both throughout his time in the preseason and that being Tanner Connor, his third on this pecking order in this spot. Also for Miami, this is the concrete evidence of this room providing you with kind of the keys to all the different formations that the dolphins want to be able to with different personnel group is depending on their plan of attack. The rest of the death chart offensively, Tyree Kil, Jalen Waddell listed it starting wide receivers, not a big surprise there. Quarterback to it, Tonga Veloa, Skyler Thompson, the two, two running backs listed as different positions. That's Rehean Moser and the Von H and with Jeff Wilson and Jalen Wright behind them respectively. At tight end, it's Durham Smythe with Julian Hill, again, the John who Smith role designated as a separate role with Alec Ingold and John who Smith. So it's all right. You can almost make the argument that there's enough ambiguity between the two that Alec is like your rundown, formation adjuster and John Smith is your past down formation adjuster. And they can do just enough of like the other thing with Alec, whether he's in protection or is releasing on in the routes or John who blocking in the run game in space that like that there's enough of that overlap there. So that was kind of the whole point of the takeaway of the 12 and 21 personnel show was you got to blur the lines more when you're in those game situations to be able to have the threat of both to present a big enough menu. I think that kind of suggests, hey, we've got to prefer a guy depending on the situation, but the guys can both do both. And then on the offensive line to run Armstead, Robert Jones, Aaron Brewer, Liam Eichenberg, Austin Jackson, left to right to project its starting offensive line in accordance to the team's death chart. We're going to get into the defensive side of the ball next, including one surprise that is maybe not a surprise, but we'll need to see what the body of work looks like when we actually play against Jacksonville. That's coming up next here on this episode locked on dolphins. Make sure that you stick with us. You've heard us talk a lot about Fandal America's number one sports book, but right now we have a little something different for you now through September 22nd. All Fandal customers can bet $5 and get a free three-week trial of NFL Sunday ticket from YouTube and YouTube TV. Then with a YouTube TV base plan, you'll be able to watch every regular season Sunday afternoon out of market game. All you need is a Google account and a current form payment that you can cancel at any time. Just visit Fandal.com to visit and download America's number one sports book. 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 eat 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 five hour energy dot com, that's the number five hour energy dot 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. The code is not good on subscription orders. Go to five hour energy dot com today. Defensively, sealer Benito Jones, Kaleis Campbell, your kind of base interior odd man front when you go with your base three, four package. So you're assuming it's sealer Jones Campbell on the interior gaps with Jalen Phillips and manual, I but currently listed as the starters. I think Jalen Phillips's presence as the starter, maybe a little bit of a surprise. Maybe it's more of a formality again, it's just depends on how literally you choose to take the death charts because it's not a surprise that he's at the top of the list, but with his current situation and then talking about how they want to manage him, is there a need to manage him? What kind of workload are we looking at? What will chop Robinson take? Chop Robinson's behind Emmanuel Agbas as compared to being behind Jalen Phillips. Is that a surprise? It's hard to say. But then you go David Long Jordan Brooks, your two stack inside linebackers with a base of Jalen Ramsey, Kendall Fuller, Javon, Holland Jordan, Poir on the back end, Kate or co who designated as the starting nickel. That feels pretty cut and dry, right? I think the challenge that this team can present is you see it on paper and everything makes sense, but you go back to versatility being the name of the game and the NFL in general, being a more you can do league. And for Kaleis Campbell to have the ambiguity, to play in the B gap, play on the center and play in the C gap for Jalen Phillips to have the ambiguity to walk up inside inside gaps and line up and rush off the edge or Jordan Brooks to pressure a job from space or walk up and mugging into your gaps as well, Emmanuel Agbas ability to reduce down inside. Bob Robinson at Penn State, one of the things he did best was move around to get up into the gaps and line of scrimmage. Really, there's the only player I would look at in the starting lineup and say he doesn't have a lot of positional flexibility is Benito Jones and he said so himself at training camp when he was made available to the media, he said, you know, the nose tackle role is kind of is what it is. You don't got a lot of overlap and you just got to understand you got to be a tough ombre and sit in there and then occupy gaps. So while I think the the the offensive death chart illustrated it with the F, I think the defensive death chart gives no illustration of the overlap that exists. And I think that's a good thing, particularly early in the season when you know a lot of the roles within the defense based off of what we saw the defense do last year in Baltimore, but who's doing one? Who's lining up in the nickel and they're going to invert to cover two and you're going to end up rotating out and being a deep responsibility in the corners who lined up from death is going to buzz down and play the flat or maybe the outside linebacker is going to drop out and he's going to take the flat and the corner is going to shift in the middle of the field and that nickel player is going to try to cut something quick. What's going to happen when you got six guys up on the line of scrimmage and one of the guys that's mugged up in the inside gaps is a linebacker the Jordan Brooks or Jalen Phillips and they're going to turn around and they're going to bail out of there, but they're going to dictate what way the center turns because hey, this is a defensive lineman here in the A gap. We got to block him. He's got a really explosive first step and then oh, Loma Holy is not even coming. And then you bring the third pressure player away from what the center turns and Jalen Phillips drops out and he's taking a hot responsibility with a quick throw. Hey, those are all the games that this defense is going to be capable of playing. So you look at the depth chart, everything logically makes sense. But it's not as simple as that when you get out and front identification being, I think the next front here for us on this show to really get into because you hear the conversation about fronts being married to coverages and how it all fits together and then we talk about a little bit front identification for the dolphins wide zone running scheme. You can get two identical looks with different personnel in certain spots and it's going to dictate what the front is, whether it's a king or queen tag or something else. There's a whole list of things that they do with a numerical system and code words based on what the personnel groupings are, what the safety rotation is, if a player is a linebacker or a defensive back on the second level, like all of that, I mean, they account for all of that with their front identification calls and that in turn dictates what your combinations are in the run game, what your landmarks are in the run game, who you're going to leave unblock in the run game because you always have an unblock defender by design. And then your pass protection works the same way. If you got Michael Parsons out there and he's lined up on the edge, you know darn well you're going to block Michael Parsons. But what happens if Michael Parsons is lined up at Mike linebacker and it's third and 12 and they got guys that are capable of dropping out, you're still going to want to account for Michael Parsons in the protection scheme. So there's front identification J2 Sullivan refers to them as spinners, players that you account for regardless of where they line up on every snare. The dolphins can play these kinds of games and their ability to cause misdiagnosis sees, that's probably not right, I don't care, correct me in the comments, you guys correct in everything anyway, so it's fine, incorrect diagnosis of your fronts is going to lead to more user error on the opposing offense and that should interior lead to more assignment breakdowns and free runners and explosive plays for your defense and negative plays for the opposing offense. But that's a frontier we really have not explored. But I look at that depth chart and I say, yeah, this all is logical, but what happens when you're not in a base three, four, why does it come out in a lead and personnel? What happens when it's third made? At least on offense, you've got an F you've got a position that is the flex position. You don't got that on defense. I think that's a good thing. Now, a few odds and ends I want to tackle here, including the strength of schedule in accordance towards sharp. We're going to finish with that here on this episode of Lockdown Dolphins. Make sure that you stick with us. Passion driving patients are not just the formula for winning championships. It's also what keeps your ride or die alive. Ebay Motors says everything you need to maintain your vehicle and level it up to peak performance from superchargers, roof racks, exhaust kits, LED headlights, and more, whether in the speed, power, or style. Ebay Motors has you covered with over 122 billion parts for your number one ride or die. You'll always find exactly what you're looking for and with the Ebay Guarantee Fit, your part is guaranteed to fit your ride every time or your money back because with Ebay Motors you're burning rubber and not cash. 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So if anybody has any tips, I'll gladly take them on how to work through the last couple sentences and really stream them together. Now, getting back on track here, we have courtesy of Warren Sharp, sharp football analysis if you're not familiar. That's a great job, looks at a lot of different ways, how the league works, some analytics. The Warren Sharp release that just came out was an update of the 2024 strength of schedule, but not based off of last year's wins. It doesn't really help you a lot when some of these teams have 60%, 50% new on their rosters. Ton of turnover, a lot of personnel changes, coaching staff changes. Who cares what their win total was last year? Instead, Warren Sharp looks at strength of schedule with the Vegas odds for win totals for all of the teams. And some teams far outperform expectations for their win total lines, but the vast majority are within one or two wins plus or minus whatever their team total is for the season. If that wasn't the case, Vegas wouldn't make the kind of money that it does on everybody betting on all the games. The Dolphins implied strength of schedule based off opponent projections for over under on the season is actually, believe it or not, the ninth easiest strength of schedule for the season. Is some of that boosted by two games against the Patriots who have an implied win total of four and a half on the season? Yes, absolutely. But look at teams in the bottom half and you have a number of Dolphins opponents. You look at power rankings across the league and Miami, more often than not, has about five four or five games against teams that are ranked higher than them and the rest are usually against teams that are ranked lower than them and that kind of falls in line, but at least Warren has the math behind it for implied line. So the Dolphins, their team total for Vegas this year is nine and a half. If you listen to the show this week, you probably know I'm taking the over on that. But for Miami, the opponents that they face having what is the ninth easiest strength of schedule I think is is that much more of an affirmation for me that you look at some of these teams and everybody's hot for the Jets, right? And the Cleveland Browns last year won 12 games with four different starting quarterbacks and all these injuries to their offensive line. Those games in particular, I mean that's three of your last five. I look at those teams, I look at the Rams, I have more questions about today than I did two months ago with the trade of Ernest Jones, they didn't really bring in a lot of veteran players in the post June 1st window. They're undergoing a very significant youth movement defensively. I look at those four games in particular and you perceived those based off of the projections from Aaron Rodgers going into the Jets with the Jets defense, but then what the Rams were last year is a tough out in the playoffs is a 10 win team. The Browns is a 12 win team saying, well, they're getting their starting quarterback and some of their offensive line back, but that's where for me, there's enough of a dissonance between who those teams were and who those teams are and we'll see with the Jets. There's a lot of time between the now and the first time those two football teams play each other late in the year. Miami catches him twice and last what five weeks. So I just thought it was very intriguing that for all of the discussion around the schedule and a second play schedule and look, you know, case in point with Buffalo, the three games that those two teams are different. Miami gets the Raiders, the Bills get the Chiefs. Miami gets the Browns, the Bills get the Ravens and the Bills get the Lions and the Dolphins get the Packers. I look at two of those three and I think their market advantages for Miami as a part of the puzzle for Miami trying to chase down that team from Western New York. So just something to put in the back of your mind is we get ready for this season and we know we're preparing for what is a very high expectation season for a lot of people for the Dolphins. Some of the numbers, at least the numbers for the number one source for team success, which is the books are undefeated in the grand scheme of time, seem to suggest that Miami sets favorably. We would like to think that that is the case and the Dolphins will take advantage of it in addition to taking some steps against the top teams that they will play. That's going to do for us here on this episode of locked on Dolphins couple of things to look out for. We have crossed over Thursday tomorrow with Tony Wiggins of locked on Jaguars. This is about the time last year that often's had some contract work done with Alec Ingle or Durham Smythe, Blake Ferguson, I believe, Zack Sealer. We'll see what comes in the next couple of days if the Dolphins do any contract work as well. If we do, we'll probably going to show in on that as well. So busy rest of the week as we set the table for week one. I'm Kyle Krabs. You can keep it locked in right here on lock on Dolphins. I appreciate you guys for check out the show. As always, you can find us on YouTube or wherever you list your favorite podcast. Make it a great rest of your day. I'm out of here. A Prime members, you can listen to this locked on podcast and free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. Today's episode is brought to you by Game Time. Game Time is a new feature called Game Time Picks that makes getting tickets for your favorite live events even easier. 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