Sports

Miami Dolphins Week 13 San Francisco 49ers Mailbag 2022

Writer
We’ve made it to December. The Dolphins haven’t entered the final month of the calendar year with a winning percentage this high (.727) in over 20 years, and a win Sunday would match the 2001 team’s 12-game start with a 9-3 mark. Before the game, your questions.

Each Thursday, we put out the call for questions on Twitter. We choose three every week to be answered on the mailbag, as well as three for and three more here on the written mailbag.

Mailbag!

A: They score more points than the 49ers. Jokes aside, this is one of my favorite matchups in recent memory; not just from a Dolphins perspective, but football in general. Everything Miami does well, the Niners excel in the converse of that action, and vice versa.

Miami features the best passing attacking when throwing between the numbers. The Niners are the best at defending that area of the field. Both passing offenses get the ball out quick, but both sides have exceptional four-man pass rushes.

I think the team that can assert its will and get the game to follow their script will be victorious. Getting quarterback Jimmy Garappolo off his first and second read. Finding a way to influence linebacker Fred Warner and create false steps in that second level of the 49ers defense. It’s going to be a challenge because the 49ers are talented and well-coached.

“They have a very good team, coached very well, and they play really hard,” Dolphins Head Coach Mike McDaniel said. “And what a wonderful opportunity for us to go on the road and play a team that you have to earn everything you get. And that’s literally why we do it.”
Question from @TuaOurSavior – Do you think this upcoming stretch will show us what this team is really about?

A: I think every game is an opportunity to prove what you’re all about as a football team. Last week, the Dolphins came out of the gates with an intent to start fast. It put them in a position where they were able to remove the starting quarterback from the game prior to the fourth quarter. Each week in the NFL, from a media and coverage perspective, is a saga of its own. So, I think the narrative and perception around a team can always change regardless of the week.

Now, that said, if they can go out west and take care of business against a really good football team in their house, that would be among the most impressive wins of the season – something this team has proven it can do with wins over Baltimore and Buffalo earlier in the season, two teams with a combined record of 16-7.
“This is just great football between two teams that haven’t lost in a minute and generally when you haven’t lost in a minute, you don’t want to feel that feeling, so there’s a lot of incentive on both sides to make sure that they end up on top,” McDaniel said. “And isn’t that why we do football? That’s why we follow it. That’s why you guys report it. It’s not because I say cool things or look cool. I promise you that.”

A: I’m not sure which kicker you’re referring to. I would argue that distinction belongs to Justin Tucker who’s been a Raven for life. You make a good point, though. Kickers have fluctuations and find grooves at various times.
Place kicking is such a fascinating job within the sports world. Every kicker at this level is exceptionally talented with the ability to put the ball wherever they want from seemingly impossible distances. Any kicker will tell you the biggest challenge occurs between the ears, and when it comes to Jason Sanders, that seems to be where he excels the most.

“He still has that mentality of just what we talked about earlier – that maybe it’s the non-football mentality of he knows his skills, he knows his talent, he knows what he’s been doing and he trusts in it, and he believes in it,” Dolphins Special Teams Coordinator Danny Crossman said of Sanders. “So a lot of that stuff doesn’t bother him at least outwardly or nothing that we’ve talked about.”

Fresh off the bye, we’re firing up the Twitter mailbag and answering your questions ahead of Dolphins-Texans this Sunday from Hard Rock Stadium

Answering your questions about the Dolphins last game before the bye week and a chance for a fourth-straight victory.

Sports

CLASH Endurance Miami 2023: Start time, preview and how to follow live

On Friday, some of the best middle distance athletes in the sport will head to Florida to chase those all important PTO points and a slice of the $50,000 prize purse at CLASH Endurance Miami.

The race will also contribute towards the Challenge Family World Bonus and results will count towards qualification for the Challenge Family The Championship.

Below are details on the start times of the races, information on how to watch, and a preview of the elite men and women that are looking to kick their season off in style in the Sunshine State.

We should stress though that the start lists are very much subject to change, with a number of big names – such as Vincent Luis, Joe Skipper and Jackie Hering – initially announced but now not taking part. And there looks to be bad news on the coverage front this year, with no live pictures but instead a post-race production…

Start time and how to follow
The elite race at CLASH Endurance Miami takes place on Friday March 10th, 2023.

The start times are as follows:

Elite Women – 0830 local time / 1330 UK / 1430 CET
Elite Men – 1200 local time / 1700 UK / 1800 CET
Past editions of the event have been streamed live – and for free – on the CLASH Endurance Facebook and YouTube channels.

But this week the following message was posted about current plans: “If you know CLASH Endurance, you know we’re always trying new things. There will be no live coverage, however a post-race show will be released after the event.”

So if you haven’t got it already, then adding the CLASH Endurance app to your phone / mobile device is recommended for racing splits and results. It’s pretty much identical to the layout and structure of the IRONMAN app – which given that has proven itself over many years, is a good thing.

Event history and course
In 2021 the event was held under the ‘Challenge Miami’ banner, prior the rebranding of the Challenge Family North American events to ‘CLASH’. In 2022, CLASH provided some of the most thrilling races on American soil, in both Miami and Daytona.

In Miami, the race venue is the Homestead Miami Speedway, a self-enclosed motor racing circuit event. As with the Daytona International Speedway, a very convenient lake sits nicely within the centre of the circuit, primed and ready for swimmers.

Unlike the racing at Daytona however, CLASH Miami utilises the roads within the racing oval, and so is far more technical than the pure straight-line speed efforts that are the focus there.

The event will be raced over the following distances:

Swim: 1.7km / 1.05-mile (2 laps)
Bike: 62.7km / 39-miles (17 laps of 2.2 miles + one part lap to start)
Run: 16.9km / 10.5 miles (7 laps of 1.5 miles)
Pro Women
Last year, Ashleigh Gentle dominated, with the Australian winning by almost eight minutes in a performance that really set the tone for what was in store throughout the rest of the season for the PTO World #1.

This year, however, looks set to be a much more competitive race, with the absence of the defending champion from the start list really opening up the competition to a whole host of contenders.

Last season’s runner up, Brazil’s Pamela Oliveira, is an athlete who knows what it takes to get on the podium in Miami, but will face stiff competition if she has any hopes of going one better than last season.

The 35-year-old, who won IRONMAN Brasil as well as Challenge Brazil in 2022, will rely heavily on her endurance in Miami, and will have to hope her strong swim-bike combination will be enough to keep her away from some of the lightning quick runners in the field.

Sara Perez Sala (ESP) and Haley Chura (USA) are also likely to be to the fore from the outset.

Perez Sala, who won the Challenge Championship in 2022, before also finishing second at CLASH Daytona behind Angelica Olmo, will be hoping to build an insurmountable lead over the swim and the bike this Friday, with athletes such as Chura and Sif Bendix Madsen (DEN) the likely candidates to contribute to an early break.

Sports

Bacardi Cup Invitational Regatta 2023

After a one-hour postponement ashore waiting for breeze, followed by a general recall, race 1 got under way at 1320 hrs in a light 7-9 knots southerly. The breeze increased at the first windward mark to 10 knots, before easing to remain between 7-9 knots for the rest of the 8nm race.

Impressive form from Denmark’s Jørgen Schönherr/Markus Koy, who found the formula to convert their position outside the top ten at the first mark to nail a decisive opening win.

We are feeling great”, smiled Koy. “I mean winning a race is always like, it couldn’t be better.”

“We feel confident, because we won the last two Bacardi Cup Races”, added Schönherr, in reference to winning the final race of the 2022 Bacardi Cup and today’s opening race.

Leading off the start and upwind were two big name teams in the Star, defending Bacardi Cup champions Mateusz Kusznierewicz/Bruno Prada and Austria’s Hans Spitzauer/Christian Nehammer. Between them they have more Olympic history than fits on two hands, counting thirteen appearances in total. Add to that multiple World and Continental Championships appearances and podium finishes across different classes and we have serious talent. The last time the two teams faced each other was at the 2021 Star Worlds, where it was advantage to Spitzauer/Nehammer who secured bronze, with Kusznierewicz/Prada in fifth.

Sports

McDaniel Discusses Coaching Staff Moves

Mike McDaniel explained the decision to make a change with his offensive line coach but retain special teams coordinator Danny Crossman after a tough year in the kicking game.

INDIANAPOLIS — The hiring of Vic Fangio as defensive coordinator has been the big move of the offseason so far for the Miami Dolphins, but it’s been far from the only news involving the coaching staff.

One item involved the switching of offensive line coaches (from Matt Applebaum to Butch Barry) and another involved the escision to retain Danny Crossman as special teams coordinator after a difficult 2022 season in the kicking game — with the idea element that Crossman is a coach who was retained from Brian Flores’ staff.

McDANIEL ALWAYS IN CROSSMAN’S CORNER
The decision to retain Crossman raised eyebrows in part because McDaniel made the move to replace Josh Boyer as defensive coordinator and Boyer also was a holdover from Flores’ staff.

But McDaniel said Wednesday the idea of removing Crossman never really crossed his mind.

“That just comes as a result of daily evaluations of all coaching involved in the building,” McDaniel said. “I think that the Miami Dolphins fan base, the players and Danny and myself would all agree that the desired results, we have more to achieve, but if I would have determined that that was solely his … if I thought that we couldn’t get to where we need to get to go with Danny Crossman, I would have made a move. I definitely didn’t feel that way. And that just comes as a result of daily investment into the coaching staff and what he brings to the table.”

As we have suggested before, Smith was heavily involved with coaching the offensive line last season after Applebaum was hired out of Boston College. McDaniel said that needed to change and the implication clearly was that Applebaum was ready to be a full-time NFL offensive line coach.

“Realistically, from the way the staff was orchestrated the previous year, I really needed to get more offensive coordinator work out of Frank Smith and he was devoted a little too much to the offensive line,” McDaniel said. “And I needed more selfishly to alleviate some stuff off my plate. And so that was the motivating factor to make that move was to facilitate Frank Smith being able to appropriate his time more as a coordinator and less in the offensive line room.”