How well does he have to perform if he's going to be an interior lineman for the Dolphins for him to actually pan out as a guy that is worth that value if that's the value of pro-bowl, all pro-level guards on the trademark?

Yeah, like guards are just not necessarily valued super high.

So like a guy, like if he was playing left tackle...

An elite left tackle, you'd probably be able to get a first-round pick for him at his peak if you reach that elite caliber.

But Quinton Nelson, I don't think he's in his prime currently, but he's still obviously one of the best guards in the league.

What you need to do, you need to be obviously consistent as a pass blocker.

You can't get beat inside.

What does Caleb Douglas mean to this offense, and what do you grade him so far? What, three games into his rookie season?

But I don't think that Halfley and the bunch are walking into this Jets game with that on their mind, right? They feel like they can get a win at MetLife.

Oh, 100%.

And this is the message that they've been echoing since this summer.

It might not be all about wins and losses, but they very much want to win.

Talking to him today, he made it clear.

I'm not discouraged.

I'm disappointed in there as a difference.

But,

Mm-hmm

... those were winnable games.

Maybe not on paper, but in reality, in the fourth quarter, the, you know, second half, those were both games the Dolphins could have won.

But they can't move the ball efficiently through the air, they can't move it consistently through the air, and ultimately, man, your offense has to move the ball to score [laughs] if you wanna win games.

It's very simple, right? Uh, Jeff Hafley admit the other day on Monday that while Malik Willis, you know, needs to play better, so does the entire offense, specifically everybody involved with passing the ball.

And that is the quarterbacks, that's the receivers, that's the tight ends, that's the line, that's the coaches.

Nobody involved in throwing the ball for the Miami Dolphins has been good enough to start this season, point blank.

Right.

Doesn't look like he's playing this Sunday, but has there been any other talk about what that relationship was and how that kind of helped prepare him for, uh, for the league?

Man, this would, this would be a great, uh, this would be [laughs] a great opportunity, right, like, this week to get his opinion on it.

We haven't spoken to him much about it.

Uh, you know, besides the fact that, oh yeah, you know, we worked out on the same field there.

But like, you know, I, I, I said it back then and I'll say it now, like, you don't take pictures with bums.

You don't take pictures with guys [laughs] that you think are bums if you're Ja'Marr Chase and, and, and Tee Higgins.

So, uh, you know, it, I think, uh, and, and to just f- flapping it or flashing it forward toward Douglas' role with the Dolphins, man, I think they've really missed that ever since the, the 49ers game.

It's early

But I do believe if you're Brian Dayball and you can't get this offense clicking, especially with no Brian Burns on the other side, and you let Jameis Winston... outduel cam ward after you let it all be known that you left new york for tennessee because you loved cam ward in the draft and you wish you had him instead of jackson dart you have to win this game this weekend and um and i don't want to get too you know it's not like they're coaching for their jobs this year but dayball at the very least is probably coaching for his future as a head coach in his league if he can't get this offense uh churning the right way in tennessee

Offensive coordinators always have the shortest leashes in the NFL, man.

That's the first person that everybody wants to blame when things are going wrong.

So if things keep going wrong, I wouldn't be shocked there.

I'm going to take it a little further north.

I'm going to stay in the NFC North, and I'm going to go Dan Campbell and the Detroit Lions right now.

Obviously, got thumped by Buffalo.

But what fan base outside of that, though, that you feel like is going to get let

Yeah.

In Jacob Rodriguez's case, you look at the linebackers that went in the first round, Sonny Stiles, Arvel Reese, those were combine darlings.

Those were guys who would blow your mind when you see them do the bench press and run the 40 and run the shuttle.

It's like, how does this guy move like that? Jacob's not necessarily that, but that's not to say he's not a good athlete.

He's still a sideline and sideline backer.

He's still somebody who reads the game well, which is, I would argue, just as important, if not more important, than athletic ability.

You can be as athletic as you want.

What are you expecting from him, and how impressed were you from that week one win against He kind of exercised some demons against the Texans.

What have you seen from this defense, and is it starting to take the shape of what Jeff Halfley is looking for? So

what's interesting about this defense is that The roster as a whole is pretty thin, and I don't think that's a big secret.

But there's a real strength at linebacker and just the front seven overall.

Obviously, it's led by Jordan Brooks, and now Jacob Rodriguez, the second-round rookie, who's going to wear the green dot on Sunday.

They love his development over the summer.

It was enough so that he closed the gap so much and even maybe surpassed Tyrell Dodson to a point where the team felt comfortable letting go of their second-leading tackler, from a season ago.

It's a guy who had 120 tackles last year and said, we're good with the rookie.

What have you seen from this defense, and is it starting to take the shape of what Jeff Halfley is looking for?

Should people be worried? Should people be nervous about what's going to happen at Allegiant Stadium on Sunday?

I mean, it depends on what your expectations are.

If you want the Dolphins to finish 13-4 this season, then yeah, maybe you should be nervous for the season.

But if you know what the season is about, then hell no, you should be excited.

You should be exhilarated, thrilled.

This is all about development in 2026.

And your rookies are developing right away.

You know, we'll

How much on a scale of 1 to 10 do you believe that Malik Willis will actually play well enough this year to where next year they're not drafting a quarterback in the first round?

I think I'm at about a 6 right now.

So I think 5 is probably the fair baseline, right? Like neutral.

I haven't really seen much of him, but I'm giving it a 6 because I do like his demeanor.

I like his leadership qualities.

I think that his teammates believe in him and will play for him.

And the one time that we've gotten to see him play, like really play in a game situation, looked awesome against Washington.

And I feel like Jeff Halfley has been public and open about his, let's say, measured expectations for what the Dolphins could be this year.

And for you, Marcel, would they make that statement and pay a guy who led the NFL in tackles last year, who was the driving force for a defense that otherwise did not have much talent? What did that tell the rest of the locker room for Miami?

Yeah, and you know, Theo, I think that Sully made two statements with three moves this offseason, right? So this starts with back when he first arrived and, you know, once he got his feet under him and learned the roster, figured out the direction, he told us straight up, Devon A.

Chan, Aaron Brewer, Jordan Brooks, those are our three pillars we want to build around.

We are going to get those guys signed and we are going to get them signed in that order.

That's exactly what happened.

That is exactly what happened.

And I think that the trust, the players' trust in him, especially after A-Chan was signed, you could see it because Brody missed practice to hold out.

Where? How? What is this

What'd you take away from what Team USA presented?

What makes me, I guess, the most encouraged, most proud of this national team, what did last night, it's the same thing that's made me proud of them this entire tournament.

And it's their ability to dictate the pace and be aggressive.

You know, they're pressing to get the ball back.

They are decisive with their passes.

They're crisp and decisive with their runs.

And product hasn't necessarily always been there, but they're still scoring goals at a great clip.

You got something to do

Mm

...

it was a number that made me stop in my tracks and rethink how I was gonna live my life for the next couple weeks.

So, like, it's a lot diff- And then here, I got all of it.

So, like, [laughs] it's, it, it's, it's, it's a- That's, that's equality.

Fairness is a sliding scale.

So like, yeah, I do think that you should, you should slide the scale so that, you know, a team in a tax-heavy state like California or, or New York is not just completely outbid by a team in Miami or Houston and Dallas.

[laughs]

What do you think is going to be the biggest challenge Jeff is going to have to face taking over this team? Yeah.

I'll tell you what, I had a friend of mine who works in sports journalism, journalism as well, specifically NFL, who texted me and was like, am I crazy for thinking the Dolphins aren't going to be as bad as everybody says they are? And like, I was like, look, I don't know if they're going to be.

horrendous per se but what i told her was like the number one thing working against them right now besides their lack of depth is the schedule that they've got to play this year and like you gotta play whoever's on your schedule but my god the people on their schedule it's like the avengers man like i i mean this when i say if they lost 10 of their last 11 games I don't think anyone should bat an eye.

And that has nothing to do with the Dolphins themselves.

I wish I had it pulled up and ready.

So I'm going to try to pull it up in the background here.

But off the top of my head, you got to play the Bills twice.

So what, what would be your, your weakest position group or as of right now?