The weather continues to cooperate as the Dolphins went heavy on 11-on-11 drills, providing plenty of plays to dissect from Thursday's work. Here are the highlights:
Practice 2, July 27, 2023
Top Moment
Kader Kohou's journey from the Ivory Coast to Texas A&M-Commerce, and finally the NFL, would be a great story regardless of his production. After a sterling rookie campaign, Kohou is enjoying a strong start to training camp.
He intercepted a Tua Tagovailoa pass in the opening 7-on-7 drill of practice while covering wide receiver Tyreek Hill. Kohou put himself in position under the pass, got his head back to the quarterback and secured the pick. Kohou added two more pass breakups and was in position to contest a handful of other plays with tight coverage.
His 28 run stops (a PFF tackling metric) ranked sixth among all cornerbacks a season ago. His versatility and penchant for finding the football consistently show up on his game tape and work on the practice field.
Top Quote:
If Kohou doesn't don the orange jersey on Friday, it might be linebacker David Long Jr. The newcomer was all over the field during his second practice as a Dolphin, doing what he does best – diagnosing plays pre-snap and getting into the backfield with anticipation and quickness.
During his time with the Titans, Long was one of the best second-level defenders in every category. How does he make plays against the run, in coverage and as a rusher? Long told us after Thursday's practice.
Being here in the spring, taking a lot of the stuff home, there’s a lot that goes into the defense. A lot of it I’m used to. It’s carried over. At the end of the day, it’s football. Once you get a feel for it, once you get back into the groove, it’s like riding a bike. Dolphins LB David Long Jr.
Long's residence in the backfield Thursday created chances for his teammates, a unit that applied relentless pressure and made a handful of big plays against Miami's high-powered offense.
More Top Performers
The aforementioned pressures of Miami quarterbacks were spread across the unit. Emmanuel Ogbah had two potential sacks. Christian Wilkins and Jaylen Twyman added one apiece while Raekwon Davis put forth another dominant day with multiple pressures and run stuffs. Mitchell Agude, Cameron Goode and Josiah Bronson all joined the pass rush party with pressures on quarterbacks.
Salvon Ahmed showed his explosive nature for the second-straight day by picking his way through congestion and coming out the other side clean for a long run. Jeff Wilson followed a wall of blocks for a chunk of yards on his most-impressive run of the day.
The biggest gain of the day was a 65-yard touchdown toss from Skylar Thompson to Braxton Berrios, who caught a pass of roughly 40 air yards and finished the final 20-25 with run after the catch.
Social Roundup
For more analysis on Dolphins training camp, download the Drive Time Podcast with Travis Wingfield – available on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
