Falcons scrimmage/camp notes - offense

Highlights, lowlights and observations from the 10th practice (day 14) of Miami Dolphins training camp Tuesday, better known as the first joint practice with the Atlanta Falcons:

-- The practice was held on perhaps the hottest day of training camp so far and went on for a little bit more than two hours.

-- The most noteworthy developments unfortunately involved two players, one from each team, carted off the field with leg injuries — Dolphins wide receiver Braylon Sanders and Falcons rookie cornerback Clark Phillips III.

-- The overall theme on this day for the Dolphins offense, though, was another disappointing performance following the rough outing in the scrimmage Saturday.

ACHANE, EZUKANMA RETURN
-- We'll start off, as usual, with the attendance check, with was highlighted by the return of wide receiver Erik Ezukanma and rookie running back De'Von Achane.

-- Another bit of good news was safety Trill Williams no longer wearing a red (no-contact) jersey, though safety Brandon Jones still had it.

-- The only players who were not spotted at practice Tuesday were cornerbacks Jalen Ramsey, Keion Crossen and Ethan Bonner.

-- As head coach Mike McDaniel had indicated before practice, tackle Terron Armstead did not take part in any team sessions.

-- Linebacker Jerome Baker wore the orange jersey as the top performer from Saturday.

SANDERS' BIG PLAY BEFORE HIS INJURY
-- The first head-to-head competition involved one-on-one work, and the highlight in the matchup between Dolphins receivers and Falcons defensive backs was Sanders' long touchdown over cornerback A.J. Terrell — one of the best players in the NFL at his position — on a perfect deep pass by Tua Tagovailoa down the left sideline.

-- Not surprisingly, Tyreek Hill gave Atlanta defenders fits during that session, though Terrell had him very well covered on his first rep.

-- In the pass-rushing session involving linemen, Robert Hunt and Dan Feeney generally performed well among Dolphins offensive linemen,

-- Those who didn't fare so well among Dolphins linemen were Liam Eichenberg and Connor Williams, who lost one rep after sailing the shotgun snap over the head of the assistant behind him.

PASSING GAME OUT OF SYNC
-- The team periods included red-zone and two-minute work, but none of the three Dolphins QBs really had a great day.

-- Based on some very unofficial stats, Tua completed 12 of 19 passes with one interception; Mike White was 6-for-11 with a pick; and Skylar Thompson completed only one of his three attempts with one pick. Doing the math, that 19-for-32 with three interceptions for approximately 193 yards (unofficial), which would produce a team passer rating on this day of 37.6. That's not good.

-- Dolphins quarterbacks were sacks a combined four times, but two of those could be attributed to coverage.

-- Tua's first pass in 11-on-11s was a nice completion to Robbie Chosen, who again was a factor in this practice, though he followed that with a low throw to Jaylen Waddle that he failed to come up with.

-- Sanders was injured on a play where he dropped what looked like an easy pass from White with Terrell in coverage. It wasn't clear whether Sanders was injured before or after the drop.

-- The Dolphins didn't have any long completions in 11-on-11 work, though Tua had a good gain (maybe 20-25 yards) on a completion to River Cracraft.

-- White's biggest gain also covered about 25 yards and came on the first play of an 11-on-11 when he hit Tyreek Hill down the middle.

-- The Dolphins had a really bad sequence offensively that started with Tua being sacked (coverage sack), followed by an incompletion when Waddle was tightly covered near the sideline, followed by two false-start penalties, the second against Isaiah Wynn.

-- White's best throw was a dart to Braxton Berrios for about 15-20 yards in between defenders in the middle of the field.

-- Tua's interception came during a red-zone drill when he tried to hit Freddie Swain at around the 5-yard line, but there appeared to be mixup and the two or three players closest to the pass were defenders, including linebacker Troy Andersen, who made the pick.

-- Tua followed that with a pass for Cedrick Wilson Jr. in the back of the end zone that sailed over Wilson's head and a pass over Waddle's head.

-- Rookie tight end Julian Hill had the most unusual play of the practice for the offense, a catch near the goal line among defenders after White's pass was batted at the line of scrimmage and bounced high into the air.

-- Achane had a determined run up the middle in a second-and-goal situation, lowering his shoulder as he was about to make contact with the Atlanta defender.

-- Thompson got the next red-zone series, but it ended immediately when he was picked off by DB Breon Borders, a former member of the Dolphins practice squad, in end zone on a pass intended for Ezukanma.

-- The last play on offense for the Dolphins was White's pick in a two-minute drill recorded by safety Micah Abernathy on a pass intended for Berrios over the middle when White failed to spot him in a zone in the middle of the field.

 

Here's the whole thing:

I’ve watched a lot of BAD Miami Dolphins offenses during my tenure covering this franchise since 2007. Cam Cameron’s legendary one-and-done season was my entry point with this franchise, and I still have flashbacks of that 1-15 season in my nightmares.

The Chad Henne era lasted three years, and featured a ton of check-downs, and then it was followed by Ryan Tannehill and six seasons of watching Miami’s 2012 first-round pick get sacked 8-10 times a day in practice and annually lead the NFL in sacks taken.

My point is, I’ve lived through the struggle all Miami Dolphins fans have become familiar with until Mike McDaniel and Tua Tagovailoa ended the era of offensive ineptitude last season, producing the NFL’s sixth-most productive offense. That’s why these last three practices, which featured a dismal performance in the Hard Rock Stadium scrimmage and two lackluster joint practices for the offense against the Atlanta Falcons, won’t faze me.

I've seen the abyss. This isn't it. McDaniel’s offense isn’t struggling. It's not embarking on a sophomore season slump. It’s experiencing some growing pains heading into Friday night’s preseason game against the Falcons, which likely won't include key starters like Tyreek Hill and Tagovailoa playing many snaps, if any.

"Some of the overall philosophical details of technique we were having to sell on guys. Now they can answer the test. Now they know when it’s not good enough. Now they have an expectation," McDaniel said earlier this week. "I would say I’m very pleased with where we’re at right now, it’s just an incomplete story. In terms of being from Year 1 to Year 2, I expect it to be much better. I feel like it is. But that means nothing if we just take steps backwards for the next two weeks.”

TIME TO EXPERIMENT FOR THE DOLPHINS OFFENSE
With exactly a month to go before the regular season opens on the road against the Los Angeles Chargers, there’s no better time to experiment with the offense — testing its limits — than now.

That’s why we’ve watched series after series of Tagovailoa lining up with Freddie Swain and Chris Coleman, two of the many undrafted receivers the NFL’s top-rated quarterback has lined up to work with this camp. There’s a constant rotation of left guards and tight ends working with the first-team unit as Miami’s coaches audition for starting spots, and roles.

During this week’s practices we witnessed far less motion to the offense than I’m used to seeing. Why? Maybe because fans in attendance have started to film every possible second of practice, sharing it with the Internet. Do the Dolphins look ready for the start of the NFL season? Not the offense. Not even close. But this is the time to test the offense’s boundaries, and the limitations of what’s possible. This isn’t an excuse for the last three days. It’s an explanation.

ARMSTEAD'S ABSENCE A FACTOR
Terron Armstead has participated in less than a dozen 11-on-11 snaps as he works his way back from a knee scope this offseason. The Pro Bowl left tackle won’t even sniff the field during the preseason, and considering his troublesome medical history, that’s absolutely fine.

Anyone whose eyes have seen practices at Miami’s Baptist Health Training facility can see that Robbie Chosen is one of the team’s top playmakers, but nobody can explain why he’s sparingly worked with Tagovailoa until injuries to Erik Ezukanma, Braylon Sanders and now Jaylen Waddle started to water down the receiver unit.

If the Dolphins really were focused on putting on a good show instead of fine-tuning the offense, helping it evolve from year one to year two, they would have started camp with Chosen higher on the depth chart, in my opinion. We’d be watching tailbacks like Jeff Wilson and De’Von Achane work in their roles, not a rotation.

“The whole point of training camp is coming out here and getting better and improving each day on the things that we focus on,” said wide receiver River Cracraft.

A couple of the interceptions Tagovailoa has thrown the past three practices were in situational periods, third-down situations with time expiring and his options limited as his team was in need of a touchdown. Does that make it better? Not really, but players like Tagovailoa use failure as fuel.

“There were things that we wanted to try. So when you do go into the game, should you try it again? Should you not try it? That’s at your discretion,” said Tagovailoa, who led the NFL in a number of important statistical categories last season. “I think it’s good because you learn so much from those things. But outside of that, you just continue to keep moving forward with it and keep playing.”

That’s why these last three disappointing practices could end up being beneficial for the Dolphins in the long run, and not a warning sign that the offensive ineptitude this franchise has featured for two decades — until last season — has returned.

 

Miami Dolphins running back Jeff Wilson Jr. (hand) suffered a hand injury during training camp practice on Wednesday. Wilson probably isn't going to play in Friday's preseason opener against the Atlanta Falcons, even if his injury isn't considered serious. The Dolphins are rolling with a committee backfield in 2023 between Raheem Mostert, Wilson and rookie De'Von Achane. A hip injury slowed Wilson down in the middle of his first year in Miami, but the team brought him back. Given his familiarity in head coach Mike McDaniel's system, the 27-year-old back should have a consistent role again in 2023. Wilson will have to hold off Achane this year, but fantasy managers should consider him to be the 1B to Mostert's 1A. View him as an RB4/flex in fantasy.