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Hey, welcome to the Stink It Truth Podcast. I am Mark Slurth alongside Mike Evans. Thank you so much for making us a part of your day. Stink It Truth Podcast here. Hey, let me just tell you right now, it's the leftovers edition. So last weekend I did Cincinnati versus Miami. We've already done Cincinnati. So let's talk about the Miami Dolphins and the rebuild that they are on right now. Well, let's try to keep this upbeat, right? I mean, I love what they're doing, Mike. Okay, great. Let's start right there. What do you like most? I love, Jeff Halfley is awesome. Their head coach is incredible.
Listen, I understand that they're struggling, right? I understand what's going on. But you think about this team. They have got probably 13 rookies. And most of them play. They've got three rookies that start on defense with Rodriguez, with Johnson and with Taff. So three rookies. And they're great young players. Great. And then everybody else on that defense is young. And sometimes on the offensive side of the ball, they'll have six rookies playing on offense. So you're going to have some issues, right? You're going to have some problems when it comes to when it comes to, you know, dealing with all the rookies that are playing. I understand that, man. That's going to happen. But attitude.
effort, all those things are really good. And it starts with the culture that Halfley is building. Like he understands that we're not going to be very good right now, but we're going to play the game the right way. So I'm sitting in my room Saturday night. It's after I do the meetings and dinner. You know, we do a production meeting, right? So I'm sitting in my room grinding away and it's about 1045.
And Halfley texts me. And he's like, I'm getting texts all over the place. Halfley texts me. Hey, that's Halfley. Yeah. And he's like, because I had asked him a question earlier in the day. He goes, hey, man, sorry. It's taking me a while to get back to you. And he answers the question. And then he's like, what are you doing? And I'm like, I'm just kind of grinding on stuff, on prepping this game. And he goes, well, what's your day like? And I go, I walked into a meeting room at 7 a.m. this morning by myself. And I sat there until 2, just grinding on tape. And I said, I watched two and a half, three hours of Joe Burrow.
I watched your guys' defense, and, you know, and I watched, there's a couple things that I just went back through. And I just prepped, then I worked out, and then I went and met with the Bengals, and then I had production meetings, and now I'm back in my room just kind of grinding. Because it's so cool that you put the effort into it, that you study it, that you look at it. And then, of course, he's like, we're just kind of talking about his defense. And I said, hey, listen, man, love what you're doing on the defensive side of the ball, but I love how your corners play.
and your corners are big time in the tackling and the run game. And so then he texted me back and goes, I'm so glad that you see that. People don't see that. And he goes to me, and I'd never heard this before, Mike. So this was like, this is the stuff I love, right? I like this stuff I love. He goes, to me, having a corner that will tackle in this league is like having a wide receiver that will block.
It just is. It's the tone setter and the attitude that you create. And I was like, wow. And then I was like, well, I probably shouldn't tell you what I saw of Joe Burrow because that dude is all balls, you know? And then I started, you guys, listen, I already know. I already know. Can we just keep that? Do we keep that to ourselves? But it was like that part was really cool. And I know they're not very good. You know, the biggest issue right now that I have watching and studying the film is Malik Willis.
And I love Malik. He's a great kid, a great kid, hard worker, you know, all that kind of stuff. But Bobby Slobik told me in a meeting, man, we need to calm down his eyes and his feet. And when you watch him, his feet are all over the place. He does not have pocket presence. He does not have great pocket awareness right now. And I don't know, like, does that develop? Do you get better at that? I suppose you can get better at anything, right? But there's part of me that just like the juxtaposition.
of Joe Burrow, who's got elite level pocket presence, who is just so calm and feels so comfortable and can slide and move without ever actually looking at the rush and will take one in the teeth to deliver a football. And then you've got this frenetic nature of Malik Willis, who's all over the place, looking at the rush and looking for escape lanes. And I will give him a ton of credit now. I will give him a ton of credit. I think that Bobby Sloak, their offensive coordinator, I think they need to work on him with nothing but footwork stuff.
Because his feet are all over the place. And I think that would tie him in mechanically to be more accurate. But let me tell you something. The way he started that game, like there was a moment where I thought to myself, are you sure you're right-handed? Like it was that bad. It reminded me of the Tim Tebow times. Oh, don't put that on Malik. It was that bad. But let me tell you something, man. He didn't play well. And statistically, he was terrible. He threw some picks and they were awful decisions in the whole night. He missed a bunch of throws. But did that do battle his ass back? He battled his ass off and he actually gave them a chance to win that game.
which they were so outclassed and they were actually in that game. I wonder, I wonder when it comes to quarterbacks and developing that stuff, it's just you either have it or you don't. I wonder because you think about how many quarterbacks, especially those that have been drafted in the first round, how many don't make it, right? I mean, it's a huge number. The majority of them don't make it. Why? They all have the skill set, right? They have the talent. There's got to be something that holds back so many of these quarterbacks from reaching their potential. And if it was something that you could just teach how to get your footwork settled or get your mechanics dialed in or be able to have that pocket presence, you'd think you'd be able to teach it, right?
I look at all these quarterbacks who just aren't able to live up to their billing, their hype. It makes me wonder, you got it or you don't. And maybe he doesn't have it. I will say this, you know, in the games that he played last year in Green Bay, he was exceptional. He was exceptional. But I know that they just drilled his feet to the nth degree. It's all feet, feet, feet, feet, feet, feet, feet, feet. Right? Feet, feet, feet, feet, feet, feet, feet, feet.
Reminds me of old special teams coach I had, Richard Smith. I used to just go, Richard Smith's still floating around. I love Richard Smith. Richard Smith was our special teams coach. The first year I got to Denver in 1995. And I used to just sit in on special teams meetings, even though I wasn't on anything, except PT field goal, which we never do, you know.
I go in there just to listen to him butcher the English language. Dude, he was like the tigger of NFL football coaches. Give me some examples. So he'd be like, run down on kickoff. He'd go, look at you. You're running down the road. He goes, you're running down the field completely oblivious to what's going on. Bolivious. Bolivious to what's going on and who's blocking you. Not oblivious. No, I'll never forget. We're playing a preseason game in San Francisco and we let go of a dude named Cock Diesel. We used to call him.
cock diesel cock diesel all right cock diesel was like that dude's forehead was made of rebar and cinder block like that dude felt no pain and we've got kickoff return and we have got we got a db running down and cock diesel just blows him up and i'll never forget richard smith rewound it like 15 times and it was just like right and it hit it goes boom you know just like his helmet hit the back and it was just like boom boom boom and we just kept rewinding it goes it goes I'm not going to give you guys a name, but he goes, look at Cock Neasel. And every time he's like, as he's going, Cock Neasel is fucking you. But he would just, I mean, absolutely butcher, just butcher the English language. It was so much fun to go to his meetings. All right, back to the Dolphins. All right. Here's my big question, because it sounds like Halfley's got.
a culture that has been put into place, and it seems like these guys are buying into it, but you know how it works. If the weeks go by and the losses continue to pile up, how do you keep that same spirit? Is that really maybe the story of this Dolphins season the rest of the way? If the wins aren't going to come, how do you keep these guys, how do you keep that culture, you know, solid, maybe as the L's pile up? Right. You got to have the right guys. You got to continue to play hard, right? And you got to make some plays on the defensive side of the ball. I'm telling you, I was really impressed with Ollie Gordon. Ollie Gordon comes in as a six-round draft choice a year before. He was like,
relegated to third down and ones, you know, third, second down and one kind of conversion. So he wasn't very good. Dude, he's been exceptional last two weeks. Exceptional. He's 6'2". He's 225 pounds. In, in, that was a 2023. He led the NCAA in rushing yards at 1700. I think he was, where was Ollie Gordon? Okie State, I think. Yeah, Okie State. Like, and he is for big dude, great vision, great feel, unbelievable quickness, like foot quickness and lateral quickness and jumping over piles. And I mean, he's just been exceptional.
Had nine carries for 100 yards the week before. And in this game, you know, went over 100 again. And it was cool because Jeff Halfley said, I was like asking him about Ollie Gordon. He goes, the only thing I said to him is, hey, man, that was great. Congrats. Can you do it again?
and he came out against a Cincinnati team that's got Sexy Dexy, and they've got Jonathan Allen, and they're stout on the inside, and they didn't shy away from running. Most teams just get outside of those guys. Most teams just run it at the sea gaps. You don't say we're going to stay away from that, and they did some of that pin pull stuff, some jet sweep stuff. That's smart. That's smart coaching, but you know what? They were like strength on strength. We like our inside three guys. We like Brewer inside. We like Savai Inaya inside. We like Caden Proctor inside, the rookie from Alabama. We're not going to shy away from this. We're not afraid of you, and they did. They ran some inside runs, and they popped a bunch of them.
So, like, that stuff is great. Hey, listen, if you can run the ball like that on a week-to-week basis and you can settle your quarterback's vision down, his feet down, and get him to just, you got a chance to win some games. Real quick about Halfley. You're clearly impressed by Halfley. Any young coach out there that's established that we all know that maybe Halfley reminds you a little of? Ooh, that's a great question.
Does he remind you of a Matt LaFleur? Does he remind you of a Mike McDonald? You know, that kind of. Yeah, he's got that. He's got some Mike McDonald presence to him. You know, he's not overly excited, but he's demanding. He wants it done the way he wants it done. I tell you what, I was impressed with their Friday practice. I was impressed. They're not going to win a lot of games. They're just not talented enough to win a lot of games. But they're going to be one of those teams. And Cincinnati was very aware of it. Cincinnati was like, one of the great things, Al Golden, their defensive coordinator, told me this. He was one of the great things that happened for us.
was Dallas lost on Thursday night to an 0-4 Tampa team. And it was, for us, it was a great reminder for a whole organization that, hey, listen, man, everybody's got talent. Everybody can go out there and win a game. So let's button things up. And you know what, end of the day, that was a 31-24 game. Miami had a chance to win that damn thing. All right, I know you want to wrap it up. I've got one more thing to say. Ty, if you could bring the camera in on me here, right here. All of you who are not happy with the current name of your fantasy football team, feel free to change it. Cock Diesel.
It's a good name. That's a good name. Cock diesel. Cock diesel. Oh, you got this week. I got cock diesel. Cock diesel. Hey, let me just tell you guys this earmuffs. If you're not like, like, I don't want to, I don't want to be just too, but cock diesel is fucking you up for everybody involved. Thank you so much for making us a party day, Richard. I love you, man. I love you. Real quick. Richard Smith once asked me to come out in deep snap and I looked at him and he goes, Kate, I want you to come out in deep snap just before practice. And I went, uh, no. And he was like,
No, he's like, seriously, I want you to come out in deep snap before practice. I said, no, seriously, no. He goes like, what do you, what do you, I go, I go, dude, I'm horrible at deep snapping. He goes, if you learn how to deep stab, you could add, you could add years to your career. I go, I'm in year seven. I've been starting for seven straight years. I'm okay. I'm going to be okay on this one. I'm going to be okay. I'm not snapping. You got a problem with that. Go talk to Shannon. I was like, cause I ain't doing it. I promise you. Can you imagine me all crippled trying to run down on punt cover? Give me a break. Get out of here, kid. Get out of here. For everybody involved, thank you so much for bringing us a part of your day.