By now, you’ve likely read from multiple sources that the Detroit Lions had an absolutely dominant day of practice on Day 1 of joint practices with the Miami Dolphins. Chances are, though, you’ve mostly read those opinions from the Lions writers you know and love.
But what did the Dolphins reporters on hand think of practice? Remember, Miami just completed joint practices with the Chicago Bears last week. They have a frame of reference and perhaps a different outlook on how things went down on Wednesday morning.
So I’ve collected a bunch of resources from Miami writers to see what they thought of the Lions and if it was just as dominant as local reporters said. If you want to read some of those observations yourself, here are the resources I used:
Amon-Ra St. Brown “is like that”
If you haven’t already seen the full minute of St. Brown highlights, go watch that now. Then enjoy these Dolphins writers fully understand why St. Brown is a two-time All-Pro.
Stock Down: Defensive back Jack Jones: From the very beginning, Jones was chirping. The only issue was that he didn’t back it up. St. Brown consistently torched the fourth-year corner who seemingly sought out the matchup against the three-time Pro Bowler. It didn’t matter the period — 1-on-1s, 7-on-7s, 11-on-11s — if St. Brown saw Jones across from him, he cooked. Even worse: St. Brown did it in a multitude of ways. He caught deep balls. He caught a 5-yard touchdown. And he did damage with his fair share of grabs in the intermediate as well.
— Overall, Amon-Ra St. Brown was simply a matchup nightmare for the Dolphins’ secondary. He was able to get in space and was open whenever he needed to make a play.
Even Travis Wingfield, the Miami Dolphins’ team beat reporter, had to give it up for Jared Goff and St. Brown:
Thought Miami’s D matched the physicality of the Lions, but Goff and St. Brown were basically perfect. They didn’t get much on the ground but Goff was throwing handoffs and St. Brown catches everything.
Dolphins offense ‘frustrated’
Let’s start with some comments from Miami quarterback Tua Tagovailoa:
“I think today offensively was a very frustrating day in regards to what we wanted to do, what we said we wanted to do. We just weren’t able to get things jump-started. So that was very frustrating today.”
Tagovailoa specifically pointed to the Lions’ pass rush as something that just threw off the timing of everything for Miami’s offense.
“Our timing in the pass game was well off of what our pass (protection) looked like,” Tagovailoa said. “That’s just not a good recipe for success in this league, and against good teams, you know, things like that are going to happen.”
As for observations from Miami reporters, it was a disastrous day for the Dolphins’ offense.
∎ Tua Tagovailoa was sacked on the first play of 11-on-11 portion of practice. Several followed.
∎ The 7-on-7 portion of practice did not go well early for backup quarterback Zach Wilson. Wilson threw interceptions on his first three passes as the Dolphins receivers struggled with getting open against the Lions defense. The receivers also had several drops.
Before we get to specific plays, let’s just say it was a really rough outing for the offense.
Quarterback Tua Tagovailoa didn’t throw a pick after his rough three-INT joint practice against the Chicago Bears on Friday, but he also didn’t have a touchdown
Back to the Dolphins’ official reporter:
Hey, honey, chin up. The Dolphins did some good things
Apparently, the Lions’ offensive line (particularly the second team) struggled against some Dolphins defenders. Defensive end Derrick McLendon, linebacker Jordyn Brooks, and starting defensive tackle Zach Sieler were particularly disruptive:
Smalls:
Not only did McLendon consistently win his reps during 1-on-1s, he got some extended run with the starters during the situational period at the end of practice when Robinson went down.
Also—and I can personally attest to this—running back DeVon Achane is good and was a problem for the Lions’ linebacking corps.
Smalls:
Overall, the offense didn’t play great. Achane, however, showed a bit of life During 7-on-7s, the third-year tailback caught a ball from Tagovailoa for a nice chunk of yards. Then, during team drills, he had a nice misdirection run that would’ve picked up significant yards.
Video content
Enjoy this 10-minute video of former Dolphins linebacker Channing Crowder (you may know him from The Pivot podcast) hyping up the Lions:
And here’s the Dolphins’ SI affiliate breaking down practice:
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