Dolphins in Depth: Can Dolphins hang with the Chiefs?

Even though the Kansas City Chiefs didn't make the playoffs last year, they are still considered one of the perennial contenders for the Super Bowl and the Miami Dolphins will host them today, host them on Sunday at Hard Rock Stadium in game three of the regular season. Isaiah Smalls joins us from the Miami Herald, Miami Herald Dolphins reporter. I am Miami Herald Dolphins columnist Omar Kelly. Isaiah, how arduous of a challenge do you think the Kansas City Chiefs will be in this Sunday's contest, the Dolphins home opener? I think it's going to be a very difficult challenge as you stated. You know, although the Chiefs did not make the playoffs last year, they are back with a vengeance. They have a new star running back in, Kenneth Walker III, or the second Kenneth Walker, Kenneth Walker, that's his name, Kenneth Walker. Somebody who's like Isaiah III, Isaiah C. Smalls III, I think it'd be disrespectful. I'm not being disrespectful. KW9, how about that? You know what I'm saying, KW9, that's what we're calling. Look, he's very talented. They are trying to take that pressure off of Pat Mahomes and feed him. I think he leads the NFL in touches and in yards so far, rushing yards, excuse me. So look, it's going to be a big challenge. Obviously, this is a very young team. They're going to be down their top receiver in Caleb Douglas, who suffered an ankle injury towards the end of the week two game against the 49ers. And so it kind of requires the rest of the receiving unit to step up. You know, Jalen Tolbert will probably be active for the first time and he likely will slide right into Caleb Douglas's role. Obviously, it will demand, the moment will demand more of Kevin Coleman, who has yet to record a catch. Chris Bell, who's also dealing with a little bit of knee soreness and just kind of not necessarily a setback, but just remnants, total normal remnants from, I think he said a little extra fluid from the surgery. And so he, you know, more will be required of him as well. And then also it will be requiring more of the tight ends, like Greg Dolcech has to come through, you know. Will Kazmarek, Seydou Traore, if he gets a chance to play. Like the moment when one man goes down, it just requires everyone else to raise their game a little bit. I think this is one, the tight ends have been a position that have been underutilized in this Dolphins offense. I'd love to see them become more featured components of this offense, even though they are two tight ends set. You make an excellent point about the wide receivers having to step up, but you ignored the fact that Malik Washington is probably the leading receiver on this team, probably the number one target, and probably will have to play multiple positions moving forward with Kevin Coleman handling a little bit more of the slot role. But you're right, Jalen Tolbert's going to have to step up. Hopefully Chris Bell is healthy. Ryan Miller, 77-yard touchdown. Still the biggest passing player of Malik Willis' career. So it'll be interesting to see how they respond. Now, the Dolphins will be getting a Kamway, why do I keep calling them Kamway? Chop Robinson back. Wow, that's lofty expectations. Good God Almighty. You know why I often make that correlation? They both rush from the right tackle side. They both have a good bend to them. They both have similar stature, builds, haircuts, but they're certainly not the same type of player. This is going to be one of those games where Kansas City, they've got an inexperienced offensive line in there. They've got Justin Simmons battling some injuries. They've got a young, inexperienced right tackle playing, young, inexperienced left tackle playing. Do you think that that's possibly the one area where the Miami Dolphins can exploit some sort of weakness? I normally, yes. Anytime you face a young team, specifically in those positions, you want to make sure that your guys exert that pressure. However, if there's been one issue with this Dolphins team so far, it's that they have been unable to exert pressure from the inside, from outside, really from anywhere, honestly. Brock Purdy had a very comfortable day on through two incompletions. Brock Purdy's a great quarterback, but he's no Patrick Mahomes. Patrick Mahomes to me, and this is, I might get a lot of hate for this, Patrick Mahomes to me is my go. That is the best quarterback I have ever seen. There's stuff that he does with the ball in his hands that I have not seen before. Not even Brady can do some of the stuff that he has with the ball in his hands. That is my go. Honestly, my biggest question and the story that I have coming out later today is about the communication on the defensive side of the ball. Obviously, we saw a few lapses of communication on this past Sunday against the Niners. To me, of course, communication is always important. I'm not, just because I'm harping on this, it doesn't lack any importance. When you face a team that is as experienced as the Chiefs, to me, it really highlights the need for just expert communication. That's the story I tried to get from some of the guys. How are you working on that? Is it just over communicating in practice? That's what I gained from a lot of these guys. It's just, you talk more in practice, and you try to make the calls extra loud. It should not be silent. I think that's something Willie Gates told me. It should not be silent when they're out there. The key to getting it to translate on game day is to just over communicate in practice. Hopefully, when it comes game time, you're not unfamiliar with the way that the call is being made, the way in which, if a motion happens, okay, guys, let's check. To me, as I said, the connection that Mahomes and Kelsey have, it's like sometimes they're just in one another's minds. When the play begins to break down, as will happen on Sunday, just the fact that Kelsey just manages to find the open space, guys have to really key in on, not just him, but also Rasheed Rice, who's a great slot receiver. I'm going to be very interested to see how these guys respond after those lapses in communications on Sunday. Yeah. I mean, here's the thing. The lapses on communication can certainly be blamed on the young nucleus of the safeties and young linebacker and a young green dot player, but also new scheme, new coaching staff, new concepts, the lack of familiarity. Even last year when we were going through what we were going through early in the season in terms of the growing pains, fundamentals, technique, communication, those were issues that led to Miami's slow start. These kind of breakdowns and these kind of communication issues are what leads to plays for every opponent. Now, the major question I have is who defends Travis Kelsey? Travis Kelsey and Patrick Mahomes, they've got this sort of synergy where it's an unspoken communication. Jeff Haffley talked about it. When you play together with somebody for so long, that's kind of the groove that you're on. Certainly, both of them are Hall of Fame players led by a Hall of Fame coach. Who gets that assignment Isaiah? I mean, who is the sombrero on as we used to say back in the day? I mean, I'd have to guess it's Chris Johnson. I mean, if I had to guess. Why do people think Chris Johnson is going to be responsible for covering a Hall of Fame tight end? I mean, who else? Chris, who else? There's a young, there's Jordan Brooks. There's Willie Gay, who actually played with the Kansas City Chiefs and covered Travis Kelsey at some at practice. There's Jacob Rodriguez. There's some safeties. You know, I wouldn't, I've thought about this and I don't know how much I would explore it, but tell me why wouldn't I play three safeties on the field at the same time in this situation? That's not bad. Yeah, especially with the way that Michael Taft was was tackling on on Sunday and the extra responsibility that these coaches ask of the safeties. Yeah, to play the run and everything. I mean, I wouldn't be mad at it. Yeah, it's certainly something I think whoever it's going to be. I guess Chris Johnson is because look like he is a player that they obviously highly regard. They definitely believe in and, you know, he's definitely had his growing pain so far, but. I don't think it was that much of an issue last week. No, I don't think so either. I don't, I don't think he, I don't think so, but I don't know who else would it be. I mean, he surely definitely missed a few tackles. You know what, Jason Marshall has a size to possibly play. Jason Marshall can't play out the slot, which is weird. You know, he, I did the math so far through the first couple weeks of the season. I'm a little bit more than a quarter of Kelsey snaps come from the slot. So I don't think Jason Marshall Jr. I don't think they're going to put him back in there. It's going to be Chris Johnson and you're going to have to see how that goes. And if, if a lineup switch has to be made, then a lot of switch will be made. But I mean, you can't, the rookie has been playing in that role. Now you can't just go away from him now, just because it says superior opponent. I don't think that that's wise for his confidence. It's a hall. It's not a superior opponent. It's a hall of fame opponent. Oh, you're completely correct. You're completely correct. But that's, but not a game plan for that opponent. And, and, and that goes into my belief, theory, perception concept that Chris Johnson should be playing on the boundary and, and only on the half. So hopefully, hopefully it pans out and works, works well for them. Miami has a huge disadvantage, especially from the offensive line, where you're, you're basically going to be responsible for, for blocking Chris Johnson, Trish Jones, who was one of the premier defensive tacklers in the league. How confident are you that they can handle that responsibility? I think it, this will be their first test in that regard, as far as I'm concerned. I mean, look, look, they matched up against the supreme edge rushers and Max Crosby, Nick Rosa, one and two respectively. But Chris, Chris Jones represents a different type of beast. I think it was a wise question that Joe shot asked Malik Willis about, you know, where does the pressure most affect you? Like, where does it come from? Is it the edges, the interior, but I think what I am going to kind of take away from not just that situation, but just from what I've seen Chris Jones do over the last, you know, several years is that, I mean, yes, you, you, you want to kind of double team, right? I think that wouldn't be a, a, a bad decision. I think the coaches, one thing is that I like about what I've heard this week is that they kind of took responsibility for what we saw from Austin Jackson. They said like, look, we had them go one-on-one a bunch of times, and that probably wasn't the smartest thing. So I, if, if I, you know, had to guess there, I'm sure they're learning from that experience. And this week it will be a lot more double teams on the elite players like Chris Johnson. But as I said, last podcast, I'm looking forward to see what he can do against the the edge rusher. I'm looking up his name now. Carlisle. Yes. George Carlisle, the defensive end for the chiefs. Look, we know that AJ kind of struggled against the elite talents that are Nick Bosa and Max Crosby, but you know, Carlisle is a, is a good player. He's not great, but he's not bad either. So he's a good player. And to me, I think this is a good opportunity for Austin Jackson to potentially get back on track and show that, look, man, I might not be what I used to be, but I can still affect the game in a positive way because last week it simply wasn't good enough. Week one simply wasn't good enough. And he knew that. I don't, I don't think I'm telling him he's seven year veteran. He, he knows that. And I think he, he, he wants to get better. And the question is, will he have the opportunity to get better? And, but if he does it, I think, you know, if he doesn't make the most of this opportunity, I think, I mean, I, I don't know what to think, honestly, because again, I want, I want to say, you know, bring in some competition, like, but it's like who out right tackles starting right tackles. Don't grow on tree. You, you got the, I'm sorry, you got options last year. The dolphins had to move on from Keon Smith and they put in a cold strange and it's no, they had to move on from James Daniels. I mean, they move on from, from Keon Smith after James Daniels went down. Keon Smith started the first two games. It was identified that he wasn't going to cut it and they put in cold stranger to help the offensive line stabilize. I'm not saying that Austin Jackson is the problem with the offensive line. I really don't think so. Cause I think that the caliber of opponent has to be factored in who he was playing, but he didn't look good on a lot of those one-on-one assignments where basically Bosa was just rocking his thing. But you have options, Caden Wallace, Godric, you've got Jarrett Kingston. Right now, this is an opportunity where young players, Austin Jackson is not part of this organization's future. And if you can find out whether one of these young players can, can become an NFL starter, why wouldn't you go for it? Why wouldn't you take that shot? And so everybody's got to earn their keep on this team. Let's get into the predictions, Isaiah. I'm going to start out. I'm going to go with a 34, 10 dolphins loss. I just think that the Kansas city is probably one of the more talented teams that they'll face on their seat on their schedule. Yes. This game is at home. The humidity will probably be a factor, but it's actually not blazing hot down here in South Florida. So I'm not sure that you've got what it takes to get, make Patrick Mahomes uncomfortable. But I will say this. We saw improvement from special teams last week. We saw improvement from the run defense last week. We saw improvements from the run game last week. We did, we saw special teams cover a little bit better. You didn't, you didn't see a cover? Yeah, but then they dropped the punt. Like the punter dropped the punt. Yeah, the punter dropped the ball, man. Yeah, but there's a reason why Tabor told us, like, he had never seen that before. Yeah. I mean, things happen. It doesn't, it really doesn't. It happens to this team in this unit. It fluked situations. We saw improvement. They, they, they weren't, the opponent wasn't beginning the drives at the 50 yard line, at least. Yeah, but that was unacceptable. That was, you know what I'm saying? Like that was totally unacceptable. You're right. You're right. They weren't starting driving the 50 yard line, but instead, hey, here's a nice drive start on the 25. Fair. The point I'm making is we saw progress in certain areas. If we can see consistency from those three areas, and let's say we dialed up better, better pressure. We dialed up fewer broken assignments, steps in the right direction, progress. That's what I'm looking for from this team. Consistently play with that hunger, that desire, that physicality. Win the line of scrimmage, or at least go even on the line of scrimmage, and then make clutch plays on third downs. A lot of people are overlooking the fact that this team sucks on third downs right now. Sucks on third downs on defense, sucks on third downs on offense. Let's, let's take a step in that direction, and I think we can have a chance to pull off a victory later on this season. Yeah, for my prediction, I'm gonna go with the first 40 ball of the year. I'm going 41 to 13. Look, I think this Chiefs team is on a mission. They want to prove that they are still the cream of the crop of the AFC. The Dolphins, unfortunately, stand in their way on Sunday. I, obviously, I think the Heat could play a little bit of a factor, but I don't think it's gonna matter too much. You know, Pat Mahomes won a Super Bowl in this building. You know, his first Super Bowl in this building, and I think it'll be like coming home, man. So, yeah, unfortunately, I'm gonna have to- February, though. It don't matter. It don't matter. He's still smart as champagne when he walk in that, that locker room, I'm sure. So, I'm gonna go with 41. That's true. There should be some good memories here in this locker room facility. That is true. The confetti did fall on them here. 41-13, Chiefs. So, yeah. That's not a pretty prediction, but hey, it's a rough season. Dolphins In Depth is here for you, Dolphins fans, to cover everything that you need to know about your Miami Dolphins podcast provided to you by the Miami Herald. It is our last day with our producer, Pierre. Obviously, thank you very much, Pierre, for everything that you contribute to the podcast, to all of the Miami Herald podcasts, and to all the Miami Herald platforms. You will definitely be missed. You already did, Pierre. I appreciate you so much, man. Like, a lot of conversations we had off-air. I appreciate you keeping my head on stage. So, thank you, thank you, thank you, man. Yeah. On that note, we are out, and we will be back. We don't know when, but we will be back.