00:00If you can, Omar, let us know what does the schedule look like here for the rest of the week
00:04for the Dolphins as they get set for Cincinnati?
00:07Definitely, they will be practicing today.
00:10You'll probably see the return of Kenneth Grant, your 2025 first-round pick.
00:16That's definitely going to benefit this team because they were a little bit thin on the interior of the defensive
00:21line.
00:23Hopefully, Grant is ready to have a good season and build on what he did as a rookie.
00:27And also, you'll probably likely see the return of Caleb Douglas, the top receiver on this team.
00:33He was sidelined with an ankle injury in the, I believe it was the San Francisco game.
00:41It'll be interesting to see whether or not he's still got that speed, mobility, ability to create the separation.
00:47And then in the weeks that he was out, Malik Willis was forced to develop chemistry with other guys.
00:55And we'll see how it benefits the team completely.
01:00So that's what's coming up here this week for the Dolphins as they get set to take on Cincinnati in
01:07a game that, Omar, this might be the one, man.
01:11This might be the one for the Dolphins that they get.
01:16I just think, you look at Cincinnati, they're beat up right now.
01:20They're coming down to play in what should be very hostile conditions for them, right?
01:26It's going to be hot as hell on Sunday morning or Sunday afternoon when that game finally kicks.
01:33And it just, it feels to me, Omar, like this is the one, man.
01:37If you're going to get one, this might be your best opportunity in the first half of the season to
01:43get one here.
01:44They definitely need to get one.
01:46I think you're right.
01:47They're going to have very limited opportunities based on what the schedule looks like right now.
01:52Obviously, things can change.
01:54You know, anytime a team loses a key starter like Jabbar Chase or who else?
02:01Who else?
02:02Oh, Justin Jefferson.
02:03It changes the dynamics of the game.
02:06Tee Higgins.
02:07No, no, no.
02:08I'm saying Justin Jefferson last week.
02:09I was talking about Justin Jefferson's last week.
02:11But Tee Higgins, yeah, I mean, Joe Burrow, he's the man, but he's also got the best weaponry arsenal in
02:18the NFL in terms of his two receivers and Mike Isecki, who, you know, we had here.
02:25But, you know, you never know.
02:28The Dolphins, in my opinion, have to stop beating themselves to even give themselves a chance.
02:32But you're right.
02:33The home advantage of the 1 p.m. kickoff, that's certainly going to benefit them.
02:40I went to Napa, as you know.
02:43I know.
02:44I know you did your wine tastings, yes.
02:46Yes.
02:46And that 10-day experience, you know, I grew up here, so I'm used to humidity.
02:52And I know, you know, it's nothing to me.
02:55But being out there 10 days and feeling what probably what I would call ideal weather felt like, and then
03:05getting off a plane and having that humidity come on you like, oh, like it was a weighted jacket.
03:14It's, it's, you could definitely understand what teams say when they talk about coming here and playing in that 1
03:21p.m. kickoff.
03:22And ever since that Napa experience, anytime my plane lands, it happened when I came back from Minnesota.
03:28Anytime my plane lands in South Florida and I walk on that tarmac, whoo, that humidity just comes on you.
03:35Yeah, it does.
03:37It certainly does.
03:38And we've seen guys down here look like they're about to melt when they are, where they are on that
03:44sideline.
03:45One other piece of news I wanted to get to, Lane Johnson announcing his retirement yesterday.
03:51He is for the Eagles, Omar.
03:55And, you know, unfortunately, I guess maybe just everyone is just tied to the Dolphins in some terrible way.
04:03They, they, they had to, you know, bring back up again, that the Dolphins traded up and took Deion Jordan
04:09instead of Lane Johnson.
04:12And I spent the morning there driving, I'm driving in, listening to, you know, the ESPN, the sports center all
04:17night.
04:17And they're talking about, you know, they got all the ESPN guys on talking about how Lane Johnson's a generational
04:24talent and one of the greatest to ever play the position and this and that.
04:28And I'm like, oh my goodness, of course, man, it's just, it's just so Dolph, everything has to have some
04:34sort of bad tie into anything that, that Dolphin organization.
04:38A lot of years, man.
04:40Could have had TJ Watt.
04:42You chose Charles Harris.
04:43Could have had Justin Jefferson.
04:45You chose Austin Jackson.
04:46Could have had Aaron Rodgers.
04:48You chose Ronnie Brown.
04:49I mean, but every team can say these things.
04:52The one thing that I, I, I do believe is that now that Chris Greer is gone and I, I,
04:59I really had no confidence in Chris Greer taking advantage of early picks.
05:04Now, could he find you an undrafted player that, that, that turns into a pretty decent NFL player?
05:09Yes, but he could, he would also squander his first and second round picks, which obviously is, is, is costly.
05:18But, you know, based on what John Eric Sullivan has done in one draft and, and yes, it was a
05:24bountiful draft.
05:25He had a lot of draft picks.
05:26So hopefully you get a lot of hits, but looks like this team has about four hits on it.
05:32When, when, when you talk about Caden Proctor and, and you talk about, um, the, the Chris Johnson and you
05:38talk about, um, uh, Jacob Rodriguez and, and, uh, there should be another hit.
05:44Oh, let me ask you really quick while you're going through the draft, like Caden Proctor, how would you assess
05:49his place so far?
05:50We don't hear much about him.
05:52Oh, I guess it's a good thing.
05:53Yeah.
05:54Usually you don't want to hear about, because it's, you're talking about making mistakes, usually not the other way around.
06:00Uh, how would you assess his place so far?
06:03Oh, Mark's, I haven't heard anything about the guy.
06:05It's truthfully been pretty sensational.
06:08Uh, and the, the concerns that I had about Caden Proctor coming into the draft effort, fitness.
06:15I mean, he's a big human.
06:17He's a really big human, um, six foot seven, 360 pounds, but can move.
06:25Like, I remember the last big guy like that was Jamie nails.
06:29Um, for those old school dolphins, I used to cover Jamie nails back in college at Florida A&M.
06:34He was a rattler.
06:35Um, he was a large human at, but he couldn't really move like that.
06:41Caden Proctor can move, can really, really move.
06:44And, and it, it made me wonder why they put him at guard.
06:48Um, I thought it was just because they thought it would be an easier transition for him in the NFL,
06:52where he doesn't have to worry about the speed rushers on the outside.
06:55But truthfully speaking, I think his future position might be guard because one, your pocket's clean.
07:03Nobody's bullying him to the quarterback.
07:06And two, he could, he actually moves people, knocks people down.
07:11He can pull, he could do every single thing that a guard could do and do it at a high
07:15level.
07:16Uh, the, the, the key is just mastering and learning his assignment, which is the, which is what all the,
07:22these rookies are doing.
07:22And, and which is probably why you're seeing this team improve.
07:26You're seeing the rookies do their job better.
07:29Now, hopefully the veterans can do their job better, but the rookies are doing their job better.
07:34And, and they're showing you Jacob Rodriguez, Caleb Douglas, Chris Bell, um, Chris Johnson.
07:40Chris Johnson has been playing outside of the opener.
07:43I mean, he is, he's playing at a, um, what's the kid's name at, at, in New England?
07:49Um, uh, Adrian Gonzalez, Adrian, what is it?
07:52Gonzalez?
07:53What is it?
07:54Adrian Gonzalez.
07:55Is it Adrian Gonzalez?
07:56It's Gonzalez for sure.
07:57It's Gonzalez for sure.
07:58I don't know if it's Adrian, but, uh, he is, he's reminding me a lot of Gonzalez in terms of
08:05just the fundamentals.
08:06Now, if you put him out on Christian Gonzalez, if you put him out on the boundary, I think he's
08:11going to be an elite player.
08:13The, the difficult thing about what he's doing is he's playing nickel, which is probably there, there are three quarter
08:21positions that I'm told are probably the hardest thing to do in the NFL.
08:25One is nose tackle, um, cause you got to consistently take on two blockers.
08:29That's what Jordan Phillips is doing.
08:30You got to not just take on, but occupy two blockers.
08:33They can't move you, um, nickel cornerback, which is a position where all you're doing is facing guys running option
08:41routes.
08:41So wherever you are, they're running, running away from you at the opposite direction.
08:45That's hard to play, but Chris, uh, Chris Johnson's doing it.
08:48Um, and I think he's, he's improving every single week.
08:52And then obviously quarterback quarterbacks, one of the hardest positions to play.
08:56Um, the, a lot of people say tight end is, is difficult to play as well because you have to
09:01do so many different elements of the game.
09:03Um, but even, even Will Kaczmarek, I mean, stellar blocking now, obviously he's not that much of a pass game
09:10weapon.
09:11But then they haven't really utilized their pass game that, I mean, from the tight ends that much.
09:17And then the only other thing I would say almost, we're getting, we're getting texts already that, you know, Proctor
09:21better than Bain and all that.
09:23Yeah.
09:23Yeah.
09:23I mean, so far he has been.
09:25Yeah.
09:25But it's four games.
09:26I would maybe, you know, Bain's been hurt too.
09:29Yeah.
09:30I would pump the brakes a little bit on that.
09:32I think, you know, four games is too, uh, too early to assess anyone.
09:37And that's for all the people also calling Malik Willis a massive, massive bust here.
09:41So like, uh, you know, Malik is not a bust and Malik has a ton of talent.
09:46I I'd love to address that later in this hour.
09:48Malik has a ton of talent.
09:49Um, the one thing I'm not aware you're at on Malik Willis though, because yesterday it's like, well, you know,
09:56he's got enough around him and, you know, I don't believe that he does, but you know, whatever.
10:01We'll, we'll get into it.
10:01No, no, no.
10:02I said, I, I said, I don't want any excuses about what you put around it.
10:05Okay.
10:05I'm going to make an excuse on his behalf.
10:08Um, what does that mean?
10:10I mean, here's the, we talked about this yesterday too, with Malik Willis, if the quarterback, you know, if you
10:15end up with the first pick, second pick, third pick, and the quarterback is there, the generational talent at quarterback.
10:21And I don't know who that's going to be because no one jumps out at me right now in the
10:25college game as, you know, some sort of surefire.
10:28It's Mr. Baker.
10:30Right.
10:30It's Mr. Baker.
10:32Yeah.
10:32It's Mr. Baker.
10:33And, and, and Mensa, those are the two top quarterbacks.
10:36I mean, but you don't know that you have no idea.
10:38So, you know, I'm pretty good at my job.
10:41I think I'm, I think I'm pretty, I think I'm pretty good.
10:44You do value quarterbacks.
10:46That's what you do.
10:47Absolutely.
10:47Which is how you ended up with Tua.
10:49Yeah.
10:49Yeah.
10:50There you go.
10:51Awesome.
10:52Is that why you defended him so much?
10:53Cause you wanted to be right about your, uh, your pick.
10:55No, I, I actually believed into it till he lost his ability.
10:59In fairness, man, it is very tough to evaluate quarterbacks.
11:02That, that transition from the college quarterback to pro quarterback.
11:07Nobody knows, man.
11:08It is a, uh, it's almost like a, uh, like a coin flip.
11:11It's a roll of the dice, baby.
11:12It's a roll of the dice.
11:14It's like a game.
11:15Omar, you are transparent.
11:16You defended Tua forever until he lost his ability.
11:19Then you admitted it.
11:20And getting back to Chris Johnson after week one, you said, if he can't handle the nickel
11:23position, we need to get him out of there or else he's going to lose his confidence.
11:26Now you're saying, you know what?
11:27He's doing pretty good.
11:28Yeah.
11:29I, uh, he's, he's doing pretty good.
11:31Uh, that's the one thing that I I'm really impressed about Jeff Halfley and his staff.
11:35They're keeping these guys confidence high.
11:38Um, they're, I mean, this whole season is about the rookies and their development.
11:41So let's, uh, and the second year players in their development, let's, let's be honest
11:45about it.
11:45And I, it's, it's happening pretty good.
11:48Um, now I just, as I said yesterday and, and wrote in columns, I want to see problem solving
11:54because I, I, I don't begin.
11:57And I say this all the time, people, I do not begin evaluating coaches until they've hit
12:02a four game losing streak.
12:03And we are, we're there, do we not, not that this was surprising, but we are, I had a four
12:09game losing streak.
12:11Now, once you're there, how do you keep it together?
12:15How do you problem solve?
12:16And obviously, you know, I still haven't really figured out what the agenda for this season
12:21is other than player development.
12:23But, but the one thing that is the, the agenda, Omar, and the team, the agenda, according
12:29to Jeff is learning, helping this team learn how to win and building the right culture.
12:35That means required them being, them being owned for is like the least surprising thing
12:40ever.
12:41Like that was, I mean, you look at the teams that they played and maybe the, nobody, nobody
12:46thought the teams that they played would be tough.
12:48And everybody, Vegas was the worst team in the NFL last year.
12:51Let's, let's be real.
12:51Yeah, but, and they didn't have their top player in the game.
12:55Vegas got better.
12:56The Dolphins did not.
12:58And then the other three teams that they played.
13:00Yeah.
13:01They were pretty heavy underdogs in, uh, in those games.
13:03So it's like, again, it's to me like the least surprising thing ever.
13:07And you go into that Vegas game to start the season.
13:09You're like, well, you know, hopefully they get this one.
13:11If they're going to get one, it's going to be this one.
13:13And they didn't.
13:14And Vegas ends up being, you know, pretty, pretty respectable, but yeah, you played a very difficult
13:19schedule up to this point.
13:20And like, that's why I think like, if you're going to get one, you got a Cincinnati team
13:25that's got, you know, a slew of injuries.
13:27They're coming into play in this heat where we know teams from that, uh, that part of the
13:31country have struggled, uh, you know, notoriously.
13:34So let's see, let's see how it goes on, uh, on Sunday.
13:37See if the Dolphins can't get, uh, their first win.
13:39Omar's.
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