The Dolphins may have found a gem in linebacker Channing Tindall - Sky Sports' Cameron Hogwood looks at why Miami's newest spy is primed to thrive in Josh Boyer's full-throttle defense.
Sunday 15 May 2022 20:24, UK
The Miami Dolphins offseason agenda has been dictated by a duty to tee up quarterback Tua Tagovailoa for success, but in rookie linebacker Channing Tindall they also managed to juice up a standout defense with another tailor-made contributor.
Tindall is the second-round prospect Miami were gift-wrapped at 102nd overall (third round) with their first park of the Draft, Georgia's unsung linebacker falling below projections yet falling to perhaps his perfect landing spot.
He arrives the product of a Kirby Smart defense that functioned on miscellaneous toolkits, disciplined espionage and a bigger, faster, stronger, smarter ethos that rallied its way to a National Championship.
He steps into a Josh Boyer defense that thrives on a similar basis with its Cover-0 blitz assaults, its 'Two-tech? Three-tech? Who's doing what?' rotation deception and its trap-setting pre and post-snap hovering designed to disrupt a quarterback's progressions.
What has become profusely clear in today's NFL is that there is little harm in addressing and evolving an area already of strength, and with Tindall the Dolphins acquired a potential core lofty-floor, high-ceiling stalwart with which to bolster their smothering unit.
It may have been easy to skip over Tindall's college workload at times such was the down-to-down presence and impact of the Nakobe Deans and Quay Walkers of Smart's second-level defense, not forgetting a rotational role that centered around special teams up until last season.
But when he was on the field it was purposeful. Quarterbacks soon knew about it, offensive coordinators soon knew about it and the staggering, wide receiver-like pre-Draft athletic measurements were evidenced.
Tindall's production escalated in 2021 as he collected 67 tackles, 7.5 tackles for loss, 5.5 sacks, a forced fumble and 26 pressures in 15 games, none of which he started. Across all of which he continued to balance defensive snaps with special teams responsibilities.
That he did not feature as a full-time starter is arguably as big a testament to the juggernaut, NFL talent-stacked defense Georgia flaunted. That Smart was able to deploy Tindall as and when needed was an underestimated luxury.
Draft success is built on projection and translation, and even with an unconventional sample size the more you dig into Tindall the more you are assured Chris Grier was onto something, the more you are hit with the same enamour.
He is not Micah Parsons, and may not become a Micah Parsons, but Tindall injects a skillset to quench the NFL's multi-faceted trends.
Speaking to Sky Sports ahead of the Draft, Nakobe Dean alluded to Tindall as one of Smart's chief spies, tasked with lurking in wait of a Travon Walker, Jordan Davis or Dean himself to bait and squeeze a quarterback outside the pocket and into their missile's firing line.
It was unpaid work experience that fits the bill of a modern NFL linebacker job specification, which demands the reconnaissance spies capable of hiding behind their pass rushers and pre-meditating isolated quarterbacks as they are tempted and forced to roll clear of pressure.
Defensive coordinators are happy to challenge the league's pass throwers and aerial attacks to operate horizontally and rely on off-platform production if it means reducing the vertical chunk play potential. It is also for that reason why the need for mobility and reactive freelancing from quarterbacks entering the NFL has never been so great.
Tindall's off-the-mark explosiveness and shutdown speed gives him a play-wrecking ability to retreat four or five steps as a coverage decoy and route-blocker before taking off in hunt of a bootlegging or scrambling quarterback. In a similar manner it enables him to delay his approach to the line of scrimmage as a disguised rusher.
The role amounted to Tindall's key sack while defending his own six-yard line in the National Championship win over Alabama as Georgia faked a stunt with him on the edge to hoist Bryce Young right of the pocket and into the path of a flying Tindall for the takedown back at the 20.
It had also been evident against Tennessee earlier in the season when Tindall elected against engaging with blockers and showcased his burst to clobber quarterback Hendon Hooker for the strip-sack.
"For us, it's the versatility, the speed is what we like," said Grier after the Draft. "He can play, he has the ability to play all three downs and play special teams as well. In talking to Kirby Smart the other day again about him, he was just talking about what tremendous speed and toughness and the character of the kid and how Kirby really loved and thinks he's going to be a really good player in the NFL.
"I think when you watch the film, it's a very talented defense (Georgia) and how they use him - they use him as a spy, they use him to blitz, he covers backs."
He is the ideal ploy for designs aimed at thwarting the outer-pocket athleticism of a division rival in Josh Allen, not to mention the extensive catalogue of AFC quarterbacks that can be a threat with their legs.
The acceleration and anticipation to take advantageous angles gives Tindall a solid foundation as his play diagnosis continues to develop at the next level, while his sturdy frame enables him to absorb chip obstacles and his lateral speed allows him to re-adjust quickly in the event of a mis-read.
On the subject of identifying play design, Tindall offers shrewd moments in coverage with his agility and speed to swivel his body and tag onto the hip of tight ends or receivers in order to cut off throwing lanes. Such was the trust Smart had in him that he played 205 coverage snaps last season, per PFF.
Tindall provides a freedom to alternate between hand-in-the-dirt and standing starts in a way that teases a smoke-and-mirrors stunt package with the similarly-versatile Jaelan Phillips, in addition to further inciting the blitz tendencies of safety Jevon Holland.
He is the intel-gathering spy whose arrival will only help further unlock the flexibility of the two 2021 Draft picks in a defense that blitzed on a second-highest 38 per cent of dropbacks last season, the second-highest rate in the league.
Georgia would exploit his range as a shallow-route extinguisher and sideline-to-sideline run barricade, they would motion him in as a source of simulated pressure, they would drop him into coverage, sometimes they would let him loose as a full-throttle blitzer.
The ferocious space-closing speed, the on-field athleticism defiant of a 6'2" 230lb frame, the swift processing of play development and subsequent instincts to react, the maturity to resist temptations to bite on routes or quarterback slides, the tackling technique to wrap-and-finish through contact, the experience in a complex college scheme, the growth potential. He was made for Miami.
When most want to hail the bells-and-whistles imagination of a prospective Mike McDaniel offense, Boyer has another chess piece of his own.
There is a myriad of mid-round Draft picks worth making a song and dance about, and many that could see the field and make an impact sooner than Tindall. But the raw rookie model is the sell, as is the forecast of how the finished product might look.
