Latest news with #Dolphins
Miami Herald
4 hours ago
- Sport
- Miami Herald
Pundits skeptical of, or fed up, with Dolphins, challenge McDaniel. And personnel notes
A six-pack of Dolphins notes on a Wednesday: ▪ Among on-air pundits, there's little conviction about this team heading into the start of training camp next Wednesday. Some are fed up after 25 years of mediocrity. ESPN's Damien Woody described the Dolphins' offense as 'empty calories. They do a lot of eye candy, but ultimately it means nothing, nothing. When was the last time the Dolphins won a meaningful game? When was the last time Tua Tagovailoa made plays out of the structure? They don't have any of that. They don't play physical. They don't capture the line of scrimmage. When I look at this team, captains no longer on the roster. They need to play the game the way it's supposed to be played.' ESPN's Field Yates lamented that 'this is a team whose football business is often mediocre.' ESPN's Mina Kimes said the defensive backfield is among the worst in the league and the cornerback group is probably the worst in the league. Former NFL executive Louis Riddick said on X: 'The Dolphins [are] the very definition of uncertainty going into 2025. Have zero idea what this team will look like, play like, come together like chemistry wise. Zero. Fascinating to me.' He added, on 'NFL Live,' that 'Mike McDaniel has got to make some adjustments. This team was not good enough. Bottom quarter of the league, pass block win rate, run block win rate.' ESPN's Booger McFarland also continues to put pressure on McDaniel. 'This offense is not the same,' he said. '… I'm going to start at the top with Mike McDaniel. We give him a lot of the credit when the offense hit the scene, 'boy genius.' He came out and was new and innovative. Now that the league has started to catch up with you, what exactly are you going to do? They've got to become more physical, need a bigger back — nothing against De'Von Achane... It's not just Tua Tagovailoa. Mike McDaniel has to become more innovative as a play-caller and head coach.' ESPN's Ryan Clark said the issue is that even though the Dolphins dress up plays with presnap motion, other teams have figured out that 'once they snap the ball, they always end up in the same spot. What is that adjustment going to be to give me something different post-snaps than I've seen throughout your tenure, Mike McDaniel? This offense has to evolve.' ▪ The Dolphins likely will add a veteran starting cornerback at some point in the weeks ahead, with Rasul Douglas, Asante Samuel Jr., Stephon Gilmore, James Bradberry and Mike Hilton the top options. (They have maintained dialogue with Douglas.) For now, Artie Burns and Kendall Sheffield remain the only additions who have played in the league. Some notes on Burns: The former Miami Hurricanes and Miami Northwestern standout had four interceptions in his four years and 32 starts for Pittsburgh but struggled badly at times with the Steelers after being drafted 26th overall in 2016.... But after a year with Seattle, the 6-0 Burns has been pretty good in pass coverage in a limited role in three years with Seattle, which included some time on the Seahawks' practice squad. In 2022, he played just 16 defensive snaps for the Seahawks and didn't allow a catch in one target. In 231 defensive snaps for Seattle in 2023, he allowed a decent 89.4 passer rating in his coverage area (13 for 20 for 159 yards and no TDs). In just 51 defensive snaps last season for Seattle, he yielded three completions in seven targets for 29 yards and no TDs, equal to a strong 55.1 passer rating in his coverage area. When he's active for games, Burns is helpful on special teams. He has played at least 181 special teams snaps three times in his career. ▪ If you missed it, NFL analytics guru Warren Sharp made a strong defense of Tagovailoa, based on data, on X in recent weeks. Among his points: Tagovailoa has been the league's eighth-best quarterback when trailing in the second half; is the NFL's only QB to rank in the top five in EPA (expected points added) and success rate each of the past three seasons; ranks second in yards per completion and completion rate over the past three seasons; and is second in completion rate on passes of 15-plus air yards. He noted that Tagovailoa, Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes and Lamar Jackson are the only quarterbacks with winning records each of the past five years (counting only games they started). ▪ Per the Dolphins have the NFL's fifth-easiest schedule this season, with a combined opponent win percentage of 47.4 last season and an average projected opponent win total of 8.24. ESPN, BetMGM and other websites have the Dolphins ranked between 21st and 26th in Super Bowl odds. ▪ There has been clear progress in eliminating the tardiness and lack of discipline that were an issue last season. McDaniel has made clear it won't be tolerated. Asked about McDaniel's message, cornerback Kader Kohou said: 'We kind of need to get a new identity. There's not going to be a lot of slack. Everyone has to be on their [bleep].' And what about the soft label that has stuck to the team? 'We're not soft,' Kohou said. 'We just have to win more games and win the big ones.' ▪ Quick stuff from new guard James Daniels: He has been impressed watching second-year linebacker Chop Robinson: 'Chop has a lot of stuff in his bag.'... The biggest difference in the culture between Pittsburgh (where he played the last three seasons) and Miami? 'Music is always played in the building here,' he said... He said rookie guard Jonah Savaiinaea 'is always texting me, always texting other players asking for advice. It's not an easy offense. I'm proud of his development.' But he also remains unsigned, because second-round picks are taking a stand in a demand for guaranteed money in the fourth year of their rookie deals. If this doesn't get resolved in the next several weeks, then Liam Eichenberg would become the favorite to start at guard opening day opposite Daniels, presuming he's ready after last season's Achilles tear.
The Independent
12 hours ago
- Science
- The Independent
Dolphins learn to wear sponges ‘like a clown nose' to hunt fish
Dolphins in Australia have developed a unique and ingenious hunting technique, involving the use of sponges to flush out fish from the seafloor. These bottlenose dolphins don a sponge on their beak, akin to a clone nose, allowing them to safely shovel through rocky seabed channels. This method stirs up barred sandperch, making them an easy meal. However, new research published in the journal Royal Society Open Science reveals this inherited behaviour is more challenging than it appears. The sponge, while protective, interferes with the dolphins' sophisticated echolocation system, their primary means of navigation and sensing through sound. 'It has a muffling effect in the way that a mask might,' said co-author Ellen Rose Jacobs, a marine biologist at the University of Aarhus in Denmark. 'Everything looks a little bit weird, but you can still learn how to compensate." Jacobs used an underwater microphone to confirm that the 'sponging' dolphins in Shark Bay, Australia, were still using echolocation clicks to guide them. Then she modelled the extent of the sound wave distortion from the sponges. For those wild dolphins that have mastered foraging with nose sponges, scientists say it's a very efficient way to catch fish. The wild marine sponges vary from the size of a softball to a cantaloupe. Sponge hunting is 'like hunting when you're blindfolded — you've got to be very good, very well-trained to pull it off," said Mauricio Cantor, a marine biologist at Oregon State University, who was not involved in the study. That difficulty may explain why it's rare — with only about 5% of the dolphin population studied by the researchers in Shark Bay doing it. That's about 30 dolphins total, said Jacobs. 'It takes them many years to learn this special hunting skill — not everybody sticks with it,' said marine ecologist Boris Worm at Dalhousie University in Canada, who was not involved in the study. Dolphin calves usually spend around three or four years with their mothers, observing and learning crucial life skills. The delicate art of sponge hunting is 'only ever passed down from mother to offspring,' said co-author and Georgetown marine biologist Janet Mann. ___ The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
USA Today
a day ago
- Sport
- USA Today
Breaking down the Dolphins' 90-man roster at the start of training camp
When the Miami Dolphins officially begin training camp next week, 90 players will spend about a month vying for spots on the team's regular season roster. About three dozen won't make the cut. On Tuesday, Aug. 26 the Dolphins (along with every other team in the NFL) will trim their roster from 90 players to 53 ahead of the start of the regular season. While several of those waived players will later return as members of the practice squad, a larger number will be jettisoned into free agency. For now, here are the 90 players (plus a couple who don't count) set to begin training camp on the Dolphins' roster (sorted alphabetically): Quarterbacks (4) Tagovailoa is the incumbent starter and that won't change. All eyes in camp will be on new backup Wilson and Ewers, a seventh-round pick in April. Running backs (6) Achane and Wright are expected to lead the way in the 2025 backfield while Mattison and Gordon compete for a role. Wide receivers (12) Despite plenty of offseason drama, Hill returns in 2025 as part of the Dolphins' one-two punch with Waddle. There's no shortage of competition to fill the remainder of the depth chart. Tight ends (6) After trading away Jonnu Smith and allowing Durham Smythe to leave in free agency, the Dolphins acquired Waller in a trade to improve what is arguably their weakest position group. Offensive line (15*) The Dolphins' starting lineup already seems mostly set with Paul, Savaiinaea, Brewer, Daniels, and Jackson likely to be the top five. Defensive line (9) The Dolphins will inevitably rely on youth in their defensive front after waiving goodbye to Calais Campbell and Da'Shawn Hand. In their place on the roster are three 2025 draftees. Linebackers (15) The trio of Chubb, Phillips, and Robinson still haven't seen the field together after Chubb missed all of 2024 and Phillips was sidelined early in the year with a season-ending knee injury. On the inside, Brooks and Dodson are the favorites to start. Cornerbacks (11*) If tight end isn't the weakest group on the roster, it's the cornerback room. After parting with Jalen Ramsey and Kendall Fuller, the Dolphins are likely to add at least one veteran to the mix before the season starts. Safeties (8) The return of Fitzpatrick to Miami brings experience and pedigree to a group that didn't have much at the start of July. Melifonwu, Davis, and McMorris will battle to start alongside the five-time Pro Bowler. Specialists (4) The Dolphins didn't make many coaching staff changes in the offseason, but they have a new special teams coordinator in Craig Aukerman. The former Titans assistant reunited with Tennessee's former punter Stonehouse, setting up a battle with Bailey for the punting job.
Miami Herald
a day ago
- Sport
- Miami Herald
Kelly: History says plenty of Dolphins rookies will be put in position to start
The Miami Dolphins have Jonah Savaiinaea penciled in as one of the team's starting guards from the day they drafted the University of Arizona standout in the second round. Whether he's on the left or the right will be determined in training camp, whenever he signs his deal and shows up. Kenneth Grant, Jordan Phillips and Zeek Biggers will each play 400-plus snaps this season if healthy. All three college nose tackles will be given an opportunity to cement themselves as Miami's starting defensive linemen because that unit's bare with the exception of Zach Sieler, who might participate in a training camp hold-in, limiting his practices while he and his agent pushes for a new contract, and nose tackle Benito Jones. And there's literally nobody standing in Jason Marshall Jr.'s way of becoming a rookie starter at cornerback for the Dolphins. That means five of the Dolphins' 20 rookies who report for training camp on Tuesday have a legit chance to become day one starters for Miami. The recent addition of Pro Bowl safety Minkah Fitzpatrick makes it highly unlikely that Dante Trader Jr., the Maryland standout Miami selected in the fifth round, becomes a rookie starter. He'd have to beat out veterans like Ashtyn Davis, Ifeatu Melifonwu, and Elijah Campbell for one of the top four safety spots on the depth chart. That's not impossible, but it's also not likely. It's more realistic that Trader becomes a core special teams contributor considering he excels playing the third phase of the game in college. Marshall Jr. has the best runway to become a day one starter out of all late-round selections because Kader Kohou is the only established cornerback more securely fixed to the 53-man roster. Marshall, who had an uneven collegiate career at the University of Florida, will compete with veterans Kendall Sheffield, Artie Burns, Cam Smith, Ethan Bonner, Isaiah Johnson, Ryan Cooper Jr., and fellow rookies B.J. Adams and Ethan Robinson for one of the three starting cornerback roles in Miami's secondary. Last season the Dolphins carried six cornerbacks on the 53-man roster. Rookie tailback Ollie Gordon II, a 2024 fifth-round pick, and quarterback Quinn Ewers, the Dolphins' seventh-round pick, will have a shot to unseat a top backup at their positions, and whether or not they achieve that will likely depend on how quickly both digest Miami's playbook, and how they perform in the exhibition season. Coach Mike McDaniel has been known to elevate rookie tailbacks up the depth chart quickly, going back to his days as the run game coordinator with the San Francisco 49ers, so don't be surprised if Gordon finds a role in the backfield rotation. His size (6-foot-2, 225 pounds) and physical running style could become beneficial to converting short yardage situations, which is an area the Dolphins have struggled for three seasons. From a defensive tackle standpoint, the Dolphins have benefited from plenty of rookie contributors over the years. But most have gotten off to slow starts. Christian Wilkins, a first-round pick in 2019, recorded 56 tackles, two sacks, forced a fumble and recovered one in the 729 defensive snaps he played in 16 games. However, that 2019 defense was a disaster considering that was Miami's tanking season. Davon Godchaux, a fifth round pick from the 2017 draft class, was the rookie contributor on the defensive line before Wilkins' arrival. Godchaux, who is entering his ninth NFL season with the New Orleans Saints projected as a starter, contributed 40 tackles and forced one fumble in the 500 snaps he played over 15 games. It should be pointed out that he only started five of those games in the final season where Ndamukong Suh was with the Dolphins. There was also Raekwon Davis, a second round pick in 2020, who contributed 40 tackles in the 539 snaps he played over 16 games (12 starts). Davis started 48 games for the Dolphins over the next four seasons, but never contributed more than the 40 tackles he recorded as a rookie, and has produced just two career sacks. As for offensive linemen drafted by the Dolphins this decade, they've had varying outcomes. But few of them thrived as rookies. Laremy Tunsil is the one immediate success story. He served as the starting left guard on one of Miami's better offensive lines in 2016 before moving to left tackle the next season. Tunsil, whom the Dolphins traded to Houston in 2019 for a treasure chest of draft picks and players, has been selected to five Pro Bowls, and is expected to serve as the Washington Commanders' starting left tackle. Since then Isaac Asiata (a 2017 fifth-round pick), Michael Dieter (a 2019 third-round pick), Austin Jackson (a 2020 first-round pick), Robert Hunt (a second-round pick in 2020), Solomon Kindley (a fourth-rounder in 2020), Liam Eichenberg (a second rounder in 2021), Larnel Coleman (seventh-rounder in 2021), Ryan Hayes (seven-rounder in 2023), and Patrick Paul (second-rounder in 2024) have all struggled. Jackson, who started at left tackle as a rookie and was eventually moved to left guard his second season because of his struggles, eventually settled in as a productive starting right tackle. But his blossoming took place in his third season. Hunt was the closest to an immediate success, and is having the most impressive career of the nine offensive linemen drafted since 2017. Eichenberg has struggled in most of his 52 starts for the Dolphins the past four seasons. It explains why he's started games at all five positions on Miami's offensive line, but he seems to be settling in as a valued backup. Paul was groomed all last season to replace Terron Armstead as Miami's starting left tackle, but the 337 offensive snaps he logged on the field as a rookie produced an uneven performance. Miami's hope is that Paul, who is 6-foot-7, 332 pounds, will blossom in his second NFL season as he begins to settle in at left tackle.
Miami Herald
a day ago
- Miami Herald
Meta delivers eye-popping AI announcement
Catastrophic forgetting. Don't worry. I am not talking about politics. Catastrophic forgetting is a "lovely" feature of deep neural networks. They overwrite old knowledge when learning new things. There are different ways to mitigate this, but the problem persists. If this problem were solved, we wouldn't have new papers with new mitigation methods. The most recent one is from July 11, titled "Catastrophic Forgetting Mitigation Through Plateau Phase Activity Profiling." Science still doesn't know how human memory works. I don't even need to discuss different theories about how memories are "stored" in the brain to prove my point. Related: Microsoft wants to help you live longer Quote from a study, Beyond the Pump: A Narrative Study Exploring Heart Memory, should be enough: "Studies indicate that heart transplant recipients may exhibit preferences, emotions, and memories resembling those of the donors, suggesting a form of memory storage within the transplanted organ." What is the next big advancement for AI, artificial hearts? I've already written that there is no intelligence without consciousness, and you can't get consciousness by "building" intelligence. It does not work that way. Alas, I have to admit, forgetting is something that Homo sapiens does have in common with neural networks. Humans forget things too quickly. This is why our civilization works the way it does. Don't get me wrong: I don't hate "AI". Google's DeepMind is doing wonderful research on deciphering the way Dolphins communicate, which is a perfect example of how large language models are put to good use. Unfortunately, most companies are super focused on using LLMs to build "real" AI chatbots, which will lead nowhere. One company that has become hellbent on building the best AI in the universe is Meta Platforms. Don't you hate those horrible buzzwords like quiet quitting, career catfishing, and other cringeworthy horrors of LinkedIn? Well, I have one buzzword for Meta free of charge: panic investing. Meta (META) thinks the clock is ticking, and some other company might get the holy grail of all tech, such as AGI, superintelligence, or, to be comical, Skynet. Whoever makes that AI will be spared by the Terminators. That is how Meta's investing strategy makes it look. I covered Meta's string of recent investments, which ended with what to me looks like a desperate move. But let's go over that list again. Related: How Apple may solve its Google Search problem The investment speed shifted gear after Meta invested $14.8 billion in Scale AI and acquired a 49% nonvoting stake. The company poached big AI names like Alexandr Wang, Koray Kavukcuoglu, Dr. Jack Rae, voice AI expert Johan Schalkwyk, OpenAI researchers Lucas Beyer, Alexander Kolesnikov, and Xiaohua Zhai. The desperate move was hiring Apple's executive in charge of AI models, Ruoming Pang. Meta isn't stopping; if anything, it is shifting gears again and investing even more. Mark Zuckerberg posted his plan for superintelligence on Threads and Facebook on Monday. "We're also going to invest hundreds of billions of dollars into compute to build superintelligence. We have the capital from our business to do this," said Zuckerberg in his message. Zuckerberg also said that Meta is building several multi-GW clusters. The first one, Prometheus, is supposed to go online next year. That is an interesting name choice, but it is a bit ominous. At least it isn't Skynet. More AI Stocks: Veteran fund manager raises eyebrows with latest Meta Platforms moveGoogle plans major AI shift after Meta's surprising $14 billion moveAnalysts revamp forecast for Nvidia-backed AI stock According to Tom's Hardware, Elon Musk's xAI is buying an overseas power plant and shipping it to the U.S. xAI's new data center is supposed to be powered by one million GPUs and up to 2 Gigawatts of power under one roof, which could power almost 2 million homes. It looks like Zuckerberg needed to top this, so he also announced that Meta is building Hyperion, which will be able to scale up to 5GW over several years. So, I guess that will consume power for about 4.75 million homes. Nice, but why stop there? "We're building multiple more titan clusters as well. Just one of these covers a significant part of the footprint of Manhattan," said Zuckerberg. If this pace continues, Meta should announce a supercomputer covering a Rhode Island-sized area before the end of the year. Related: Oracle CEO sends blunt 2-word message on its business The Arena Media Brands, LLC THESTREET is a registered trademark of TheStreet, Inc.
