Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00Welcome back to Newswire, another night of NFL preseason games, one that we'll focus
00:07on here in just a few minutes.
00:09Dolphins and Falcons will be played at Hard Rock Stadium.
00:12Adam Beasley is covering the Dolphins for Pro Football Network, also covering the National
00:16Football League.
00:17I feel like, Adam, it has been...
00:18I'm going to take a shot at this.
00:19I'm going to take a shot.
00:20I feel like you have covered, in some way, South Florida and the Dolphins, I'm going
00:25to say, for 12 years.
00:30Is that too...
00:31Am I underselling you on that?
00:33Is that right?
00:34Yes.
00:35That's close.
00:36Without going over, you'd be good, and the price is right.
00:37I've been here since 06, so 18 years now.
00:42I did some news work with the Miami Herald for a while, but I have definitely been working
00:47media in this market for way too long.
00:49Yeah, 18 years.
00:50I said 12.
00:51Look, I undersold the guy there, but I've known Adam for a long time, too, at least
00:5410.
00:55Okay.
00:56So, Dolphins going into the season.
00:58They've made a lot of different headlines, and there's some more even going on right
01:01now with injuries.
01:02We'll get to that in a minute.
01:03But let's start off with the players who left in the offseason, and honestly, some players,
01:09I think, could potentially have an impact, and some, I think, were more adieu about just
01:13getting replacements for them, including Shaq Barrett, who we didn't show here, never ended
01:16up playing at all for them.
01:18But Van Ginkle went to the Vikings.
01:20Wilkins was the big one who signed that contract with the Raiders.
01:23Zavion Howard was fantastic for many years.
01:26He left through free agency, and then the Dolphins pivoted by signing Barrett, who it
01:33says that he's in addition here, but he retired already, Frank.
01:36Odell Beckham Jr., Jonathan Harris, I mean, these are not a ton of names that people know,
01:42except for like Calais Campbell, maybe, and a couple of other players.
01:44Did they do enough on defense, Adam, to keep up with how good their offense is going to
01:48be?
01:49Yeah, they never were going to be able to replace one for one.
01:52I mean, I don't think Christian Wilkins, he's just too dynamic and versatile of a player.
01:55He meant too much for their defense for any one guy to replace.
01:58I definitely think the Campbell addition has helped, but what they're trying to do is replace
02:02the aggregate, have enough different parts that kind of makes up for what he brought.
02:09They're going to have a lot more of a rotation.
02:11I mean, their offensive tackles, and Sealer's back this year, Zach Sealer, but he and Wilkins
02:15played an obscene amount of snaps last year, and I would assume that would have come down
02:19for Sealer, certainly.
02:21They're going to need to fill all those snaps for Wilkins.
02:23I think you're going to see probably, they're going to play, it's going to be an odd man
02:27front, so I count defensive ends and nose tackles all in the same batch, and each of
02:32those three positions, three end positions, the nose tackle, I think they're going to
02:35have probably seven maybe guys play in that rotation, at the very least six, and just
02:41keep throwing bodies in there.
02:43Yeah, and that's the thing, as you mentioned, the aggregate, we've heard that term on Moneyball
02:47before, and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
02:50But the aggregate also was accomplished in the draft, where the Dolphins very clearly
02:54early on had the idea of, hey, we are going to have to get an edge rusher.
02:59That is the key in the NFL, getting to the quarterback.
03:01So they drafted Chop Robinson, and naturally there's going to be some other bit players
03:05that they will fit in, Jalen Wright being one of those, but let's focus here on Robinson.
03:10You know, I'm following along here, as training camp is going, I got to tell you, I haven't
03:14seen his name mentioned all that much, so maybe I'm just not reading the right material
03:19or seeing the right things here.
03:21How has he looked so far?
03:22I guess the Elon algorithm has jacked up for you, because we've been writing about Chop
03:27Robinson a ton.
03:29He's had, I would say, he's definitely had the most impactful training camp of all the
03:34rookies, I think, bar none.
03:37He's been pretty active in the backfield.
03:39He's not going to be the big edge setter.
03:41I think that's why they went out and signed Campbell and brought back Emanuel Agua after
03:44Barrett retired, to your point.
03:47If you're looking for a guy who can give you 30, 35 solid pass rush reps a game, Chop Robinson
03:54more than fits that bill.
03:55I mean, they're going to need him, particularly early on, because both Dylan Phillips and
04:00Bradley Chubb are both coming off of reconstructive surgeries.
04:03We don't know the timelines for either.
04:05If I were a betting man, I would say Phillips has a much better chance of being ready for
04:09the opener than Chubb.
04:11He got hurt a month before, and he just seems to have really taken to his rehab well.
04:16But even still, even if you're able to get both Chubb and Phillips back for week one,
04:20they're not going to be playing the number of snaps early on, at least.
04:23You're going to need to have another strong pass rusher, and Chop's been really good.
04:27Now, certainly it helps that he's gone against Patrick Paul a lot in practice.
04:31I don't think Paul's going to be in their plans to play, even as the number three or
04:37even four tackle early on.
04:38I think this is going to be a pretty true redshirt year for him, and we've seen why.
04:43But I think of that matchup, you've got to be the most encouraged, obviously, of Chubb,
04:47because he's been beaten a second-round pick pretty recordly in practice.
04:51All right.
04:52So now, before we get to the season outlook, let's talk about tonight, Dolphins play the
04:57Falcons.
04:58Based on the reports that I've seen, the receivers room has been decimated, at least to start
05:04with.
05:05They brought in a lot of receivers from outside the room, and I've watched those press conferences
05:09with the head coach.
05:10I got to tell you, they're very strange, to say the least.
05:14I don't know what to make of them.
05:16Who do we expect to see play tonight on the side of the Dolphins?
05:19Anybody of interest?
05:20You're going to see meaningful snaps from the likes of Willie Snead, Malik Washington.
05:25I don't even know if they're going to play River Craycraft tonight, because usually the
05:29first preseason game is truly a backup's game for the Dolphins.
05:33If there's some of these position battles, like interior defensive line safety, where
05:38they need to have clarity as early as possible, those guys will play.
05:41But if you know you're on the team and you have a pretty good idea of what your role
05:44is, you're not going to see the field much tonight.
05:46So yeah, what they need, or they haven't had yet, what they need at some point soon is
05:52have Tyreek Hill, Jalen Waldo, and Odell Beckham Jr. all on the field at the same time, because
05:56they have to have at least some kind of sense what that trio is going to look like.
05:59I know they have a vision for all three of those guys.
06:03The Dolphins kind of stagnated last year because teams knew on third down just to double Tyreek
06:08they'll double Jalen, and there's no other answer.
06:10That's all they can do.
06:11Beckham's brought in to break that logjam and to really open things up.
06:15And they've got John and Smith as well, who they hope can take advantage of some one-on-one.
06:19So all those names I just told you, unfortunately, you're probably not going to see them tonight.
06:24It's just how McDaniel runs his preseason.
06:26Yep, and that's the way it's gone for years past, too.
06:29Their season win total, Adam, is nine and a half, with a little juice toward the over
06:32here.
06:33I feel like this is a really good number.
06:35Early on in the season, we would have thought Miami would have flown over this number last
06:38year, and they kind of landed right around it.
06:40What do you anticipate this year?
06:41Yeah, I think the division winner is going to have 10 wins.
06:44It had 11 last year.
06:46I think it's even tighter.
06:48I think 10 and 7 absolutely could get it done.
06:49And I think that nine and a half suggests they're going to be in the hunt.
06:52They're going to be close to that.
06:54It all depends on, to your point, how they handle that preseason juggernaut they've got
06:59of teams.
07:00The last six opponents are all going to be in the playoff hunt.
07:03Dolphins need to start faster.
07:05They're going to have a real tough December and January.
07:07Yeah, it looks like the toughest schedule in the NFL the last couple of months.
07:09Adam, great to catch up with you.
07:10Thanks again for coming on Newswire.
07:11I really appreciate it.
07:12Anytime, Greg.