- 2 months ago
The NFL Network reporter joined Gelb, Appel and Crowder to go around the NFL and break down his Miami Dolphins outlook for 2026.
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00:00All righty, welcome back in. It is Hockman, Crowder, and Solana.
00:03Zach Yell, Channing Crowder, and Josh Chappell here with you on this Monday.
00:08Cameron Wolfe does a sensational job as an NFL reporter for ESPN and the NFL Network,
00:13and he joins us on the Toyota of Hollywood Hotline.
00:15Shop over 2,000 Toyotas on sale at one location.
00:18Toyota of Hollywood on 441 between Hollywood and Sheridan.
00:23ToyotaofHollywood.com.
00:24Cameron Wolfe, appreciate the time. How are you?
00:27I'm great, man. How are you fellas doing today?
00:29Well, we're doing fantastic.
00:31So, as the Dolphins are set to embark on their training camp with this new regime,
00:35what are people saying around the league about this new leadership team
00:39and the general manager in John Eric Sullivan,
00:41and then also the head football coach in Jeff Hathaway coming over from Green Bay going to South Florida?
00:47Yeah, I think there's some intrigue of the unknown.
00:50You know, there's a reality at the last few years, this Dolphins team was very visible,
00:55very much in the headlines.
00:56And Tyreek and Waddell and Tua and even McDaniel.
00:59This group is pretty much obscure to a lot of people nationally.
01:03So, it's learning who they are going to form themselves to be.
01:06I think nationally, obviously, there's some low expectations for this season as far as win record.
01:11But you finally get to restart.
01:14You get to restart things differently.
01:15And from the culture standpoint, I think there's a lot of positive reviews coming into camp,
01:20especially with the guys they paid going into our practices here next week.
01:26And Cam, immaculate suits on TV, brother.
01:29I'll give you credit, you know.
01:30Appreciate you, brother.
01:32You know how to dress, and you don't miss arm day.
01:34I don't know how your legs look, but you don't miss arm day, for sure.
01:37Hey, just in case I got to stand next to you in the box.
01:40I can't look tiny, you know.
01:42So, people watching.
01:44Kip, how do you like this?
01:46Hold on, Crowder.
01:47I think what the kids say these days, Cameron Wolfe would mog you, I believe, is the right way to
01:51say it.
01:52Mog?
01:53Yeah, I'm an old man.
01:55I don't know about that.
01:56I just fish and hunt.
01:57That's all I do.
01:57I don't know about these new age terms.
02:01I can carry a cedar block now.
02:05But, Kip, how do you think about the – what do you feel about the Malik Willis approach,
02:09where they're not going with the young guy.
02:11They're not going to run with Quinn Ewers.
02:13They went out and, you know, saying it's not big money, but they paid Malik Willis.
02:17I understand they were with him.
02:19They saw him.
02:20He was actually the scout team quarterback playing against Halfley's defense.
02:24How do you – what do you think about the approach of coming in,
02:28and I'm calling it like a prove it contract with Malik Willis.
02:33How do you feel about them doing that to Malik Willis, bringing him in, where we know it's a rebuild.
02:38They have $150 million in dead money.
02:42We know what it's going to look like, but they're trying to see if Malik Willis is that guy.
02:46Yeah, Shannon, to me, the biggest question I have going into camp is,
02:50do we have enough around Malik to truly evaluate him, right?
02:54Because, like you said, they gave him a good bit of money, $45 million guaranteed over the next two years.
02:59That's not just we're going to do a Band-Aid until we draft our quarterback.
03:03There's real belief that, hey, maybe we can have something here so we don't need to draft a quarterback.
03:09And so I think there's real belief here.
03:11I just don't know if we have enough to truly know.
03:15Are we going to know at the end of the season as a yes or no that he is or
03:20isn't the guy?
03:21You don't want to be stuck in the midground.
03:23I know some Dolphins fans will say that's what happened with Tua in these many years where you just were
03:28in the middle, so you just got stuck.
03:30They're going to probably draft very high this upcoming year, and they're going to have a decision.
03:34Do we take one of the top quarterbacks?
03:36Do we take a Jeremiah Smith, a Leonard Moore, or one of these other positions?
03:40And the only way to find that out is to give Malik every single rep and give him every opportunity.
03:45So I know he's got a live arm.
03:47I know he's super athletic.
03:49I know he showed spurts in six games, but can he do it with a roster that's just, frankly, less
03:55talented than Green Bay, a scheme that's maybe less advanced and protecting the quarterback than what they did in Green
04:02Bay?
04:02So I'm curious.
04:04I don't want to say that I think it's going to fail or secede, but I think it does give
04:09us something to look forward to or root for this year and to seeing, can Malik survive whatever this year
04:16one chaos is and Jeff Halfley's team?
04:19Is that, Cam, the thing for the Dolphins this season, how Malik Willis performs, or is it the development of
04:26the younger guys starting last year with that draft class, the Kenneth Grant class, who they brought in this year?
04:31Is it more about the young guys and their development, or is it more about Malik Willis and how he
04:37performs?
04:38I say it's about evaluating who your core pieces are, right?
04:42And there's nothing more important than quarterback.
04:43So it starts there to me.
04:45Yes, you want to know if Patrick Paul is going to be a long-term left tackle or Chop Robinson
04:49gets it together and be those pieces.
04:52But let's be real.
04:53We talk every day on TV about the quarterback.
04:56Y'all talk every day on radio.
04:57You're going to talk about the quarterback.
04:59It's going to start and end with the quarterback.
05:01And so, yes, there's other important pieces, but I'd rather know for sure if Malik Willis is the guy or
05:07not than have four wins versus six wins or eight wins.
05:11All of that's going to be trivial compared to, is this guy good enough to lead us beyond this one
05:16year?
05:16So that's what my eyes are going to be stuck on in training camp.
05:19And when it gets pulled off to other things, cool, but I got to know what that quarterback is doing.
05:24That's number one and number two and number three.
05:26Cameron Wolfe here with us.
05:27It's a great job, NFL Network and ESPN.
05:30Some old pals that are no longer here, Tua Tunga-Vailoa in Atlanta, and then Mike McDaniel, now the offensive
05:37coordinator with the Chargers.
05:38What are your expectations for Tua, and then what are your expectations for McDaniel this year?
05:44I'll start with Tua.
05:45Tua's in a really interesting situation because talking to people in Atlanta, I actually think he's got a slight uptick
05:52on Michael Penix to win the starting job in Atlanta.
05:55And I think when you look at the way they're building, they have a lot of playmakers in Atlanta, sort
06:00of how Tua had in Miami for times.
06:04Their head coach, Kevin Stefanski, is a real accuracy, timing-based quarterback.
06:09As we know, those are Tua's strengths, not necessarily Penix's strengths.
06:12So Penix is going to have to show he's healthy, and he's going to have to be able to get
06:17himself established in the scheme really quickly, or my expectation is Tua's a week one starter.
06:22Now, as we know here, he's got to survive the year health-wise.
06:25That's the biggest question, and maybe it doesn't matter because he gets hurt at some point.
06:29But it's a real chance for him to try to rehabilitate his image.
06:32You know, he has some personal feelings on why things didn't end well with Mike McDaniel and the Dolphins last
06:38year, and he gets a chance to maybe try to redeem himself.
06:41If not, you know, he's probably going to be back on the street and having to find another team.
06:46So it's a real make-or-break year for him on a minimum.
06:48As far as Mike McDaniel, I think he's got a real opportunity to bloom in L.A.
06:53You know, you get to have the ability to run an offense, run a scheme without the pressure of leading
06:59an entire team.
07:00And I think some of Mike's biggest struggles in Miami were less about building a strong offense or strong quarterback
07:07play and more about what he does to lead the rest of the team.
07:09He's going to have to figure that out over time if he gets another head coach job, but I think
07:13he's going to be great for Justin Herbert.
07:15They're already working on fixing his footwork, helping him get better timing.
07:18And to me, the Chargers are one of those teams, you know, amongst maybe four or five teams in the
07:23AFC that I could see getting hot and making a Super Bowl run in the right situation.
07:26So both of those guys in different situations, but an opportunity to, you know, get a redemption off of how
07:32it ended in Miami.
07:33And Cam, was McDaniel a mistake?
07:35Because I met Halfley last week.
07:38And just how he talks and how he holds himself and just, you know, I'm old school, like a little
07:44testosterone.
07:44We use, you know, the violent word and it got some, got some bleep in you type stuff.
07:50And to where McDaniel, like I've had great coordinators that I knew couldn't be head coaches.
07:55And then, you know, head coaches, they can be coordinators.
07:59Like it doesn't go both ways, but was it a mistake when, when they brought in McDaniel and put all
08:04those weapons around him and there was no success off of it?
08:08Tanner, I don't think it was a mistake to be honest.
08:10I mean, it's obviously failed, but I don't think it was a mistake because at the time I thought it
08:15was really important for them to get, use every opportunity they could to see what they had in Tua.
08:20I think at that time there was uncertainty and now we know, and I think you needed that time to
08:25know.
08:25And I think McDaniel was good for Tua.
08:27He did elevate him.
08:29We saw him at his peak.
08:30It gave fans a taste of what they thought they could do.
08:32They just couldn't sustain it.
08:34And so I always think it's worth the shot.
08:36And the reality is they, they got rid of Brian Flores and they went the opposite way.
08:40That's often what happens in coaching.
08:42You know, you had a tough discipline.
08:43Some people said too tough.
08:45Some people said too mean and you go the other way where a guy, maybe some people said too nice.
08:50Maybe people say not enough discipline, but he had maybe the offensive skills.
08:53You're always trying to find that right blend.
08:55And Jeff happily may be a blend of both of them.
08:58He's still likable.
08:59He's fun to be around, but he's got a discipline and a hard nose nature that, yeah, you're not going
09:03to get away with being late.
09:0420 minutes of practice for half the season.
09:06So I think that what I'm seeing right now is good, but you know this, Shannon, you're zero on zero.
09:12You know, we're going to see how it rolls if they're on four or, you know, fans start calling for,
09:16calling for them after they score 12 points, you know, in three straight games.
09:20So, but I do like Jeff Halfley and how upfront, how straight, straightforward he is.
09:26All my conversations with him this off season have been direct.
09:30He's never tried to skirt a question.
09:32He's always given me, this is my real plan.
09:34This is how I really see it.
09:36And he's never been selling hope or delusion.
09:39I think that he's real realistic about what's ahead of them this year, but how he wants to build it.
09:44So that's all I would want from my coach.
09:46Just a guy who knows who he is, is confident in his plan.
09:49And we're going to ride.
09:50We're going to ride on Sunday and see what they got and be ready for a bumpy ride.
09:54It might be bumpy early, but nothing good worth getting to doesn't have some bumps in the beginning.
09:58So I'm with the ride, but I don't think the Mike journey was a mistake just because it failed.
10:05Cam, who is the team or who is the player in the NFL that not enough people are talking about
10:10right now that you think could exceed expectations?
10:12And then on the flip side of that, who are people talking about too much that you think will fall
10:17short of those?
10:20That's a great question.
10:21I think there's a lot of talk right now about A.J. Brown, the New England Patriots right now.
10:27I think they're going to have to prove it another year.
10:29That was a really good, fun story, a good success period.
10:33But I think that we were crowning them as one of the elites, and I think they still have a
10:38lot to prove.
10:39You know, there was a rocky offseason for their head coach.
10:41You add a receiver that's come with some baggage in the past to really save an offense, an offensive line
10:48that they're essentially running it back.
10:49I think that could be a team where, you know, I wouldn't be shocked if for whatever reason they missed
10:54the playoffs this year, if things didn't go their way.
10:56I think that's a team that I would say maybe be a little easy on, you know, I want to
11:02see it a little bit more in the scheme.
11:03As far as a team that maybe we're not talking enough about or that can maybe thrive, I think the
11:09Houston Texans are a team that stands out to me.
11:11I think, you know, we saw how it ended with C.J. Stroud, and he threw four interceptions, and everybody's
11:15kind of writing them off.
11:16We just saw Sam Darnold, you know, win a Super Bowl.
11:19The year before, Jalen Hurts won a Super Bowl.
11:21These are quarterbacks that have gone up and down who have had their fair share of fans wanting to get
11:27rid of them, but also, you know, leaned on a defense and leaned on timeliness.
11:31I think the Texans could be one of those teams that surprise people and are in it in the end.
11:35I would say the same about the Bengals, the way they've got their roster together.
11:40I wouldn't be shocked that, you know, even through missing four playoffs in a row, if they got it together
11:46with the way they built that roster.
11:47So, the AFC, to me, is wide open, and I think that teams that maybe we're high on could end
11:53up low, and a couple of teams that I think maybe are a little lower on people's board could end
11:57up higher in the end.
11:59And, Cam, quickly, somebody needs to slap the phone out of his hand, which I would do if I was
12:04his friend, but Brandon Ayuk, what happens with that, bro?
12:07Oh, my goodness.
12:08So, one of his friends need to grab his damn phone and throw it in the lake.
12:11He's never playing again.
12:12Man, you know what's crazy about that?
12:14I was talking to someone yesterday, and from what I understand, people have tried.
12:19And that's the scary part for me.
12:20I don't really know Brandon Tuberwell.
12:23I don't know where his mental is.
12:25But from what I understand, there's been people trying to get to him for months and trying to talk to
12:30him and try to maybe tell him to chill out.
12:33And clearly, it has not worked.
12:35So, you know, I think early on there was some thought maybe he was doing this to try to force
12:40the 49ers to release him and just kind of act a fool to just put their hands up.
12:45But now it's going a little far where I think he's actively hurting his chances of ever getting anything real
12:51in the league.
12:52And there's some people that doubt that he even plays this year, just the way he's kind of gone off
12:56the deep end.
12:56So, yeah, I'm with you, man.
12:58Man, somebody's got to get through to him.
13:00You kind of see these cautionary tales, and you just hope that something stops it before it hits rock bottom.
13:06But I'm not going to lie to you.
13:07It is worrisome seeing what we've seen this offseason.
13:10Absolutely.
13:10Last one for Cam Wolf.
13:12On paper, the Rams are the best team in the league.
13:16It feels like it's not a matter of if but just when that Aaron Donald comes out of retirement.
13:21Do you think it's a foregone conclusion that at some point it's inevitable he'll join the Rams this year?
13:26I'd say more likely than not.
13:28Based on all the elements I'm hearing, he's been working out, from what I understand, for weeks, close to a
13:34month now,
13:34trying to get himself back in football shape.
13:36Now, only his body can tell that.
13:38You know, for whatever reason, it doesn't go well or he has a setback, he can change his mind.
13:42But all indications that he's doing that because he wants to come back, he's just trying to make sure his
13:47body agrees with him.
13:49And they're going to give him this time.
13:50You know, I don't know that this happens today or this week,
13:53but it may be something where if he gets his body ready by the middle of August, they can give
13:57it a go.
13:58So it sounds like the Rams want him back.
14:00He would love to be back in the right situation.
14:03They got to get money right for him.
14:04You can't, you ain't coming off the streets for peanut.
14:06But if they get all those details together, yeah, I'd expect them week one in Australia against the 49ers.
14:13I want to come back, but my body doesn't agree with me, Cam.
14:17Right.
14:18Exactly.
14:19Your mind can tell you all you want, but if that back, if that back's still tight after three plays,
14:25then, hey, man.
14:26Three plays?
14:28I got one fourth down and one.
14:30That's all I got left.
14:31You know, it's a low bar when Channing can't even help the Dolphins these days.
14:38He, of course, is Cameron Wolfe.
14:39He joins us on the Toyota of Hollywood Hotline Shop.
14:41Over 2,000 Toyota's on sale at one location, Toyota of Hollywood on 441.
14:45Between Hollywood and Sheridan, ToyotaofHollywood.com.
14:48Cameron Wolfe, appreciate it.
14:49Thanks so much.
14:51Appreciate you, fellas.
14:52Have a great rest of your show.
14:53There you go.
14:54Cameron Wolfe joining us from ESPN and the NFL Network.
14:57It is Hockman, Crowder, and Solana.
14:59Gelvin Appel in for Hockman and Solana on this Monday.