What if I told you ESPN's choice for Miami's breakout player this season is a thinly veiled insult disguised as a compliment?

You are Locked on Dolphins, your daily Miami Dolphins podcast, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. All right, Miami. Welcome to another episode of Locked on Dolphins. It is your team every day here on the Lackdon Network. I'm your host Kyle Crabs' lifelong Miami Dolphins fan, host of Lacton Dolphins, a host of Lockdown, scouting author of Touchdown Miami on Substack NFL staff writer for A to Z sports.

Today is Thursday, July 9th,

2026.

And we're going to talk about a compliment that was designed to be a compliment,

but I kind of take it as still mildly disrespectful, courtesy of ESPN.

And I can do this because the author of the story for ESPN was Ben Solac, who I've worked

with for several years.

We worked together at both my scouting startup, NDT scouting, which then was absorbed into

the draft network.

And we worked together at the draft network, and we worked together at

the draft network for several years before Ben made his leap to the ringer and has since been

added to the staff over at ESPN. So I know Ben well, and I am going to give Ben grief

for this. But Ben did a story this week that was the breakout player for all 32 teams across the NFL.

I said, this is interesting.

I can certainly do something with this with A to Z sports,

but it's inspired me so much that we're going to do today's show with it too.

Because he picked Patrick Paul, left tackle, Miami Dolphins.

Full-time starter last year, first year as a starter.

And this time last year, the question was Patrick Paul had like 300 offensive snaps

and was how well is he going to replace to Ron Armstead as the left tackle for the Miami Dolphins?

We didn't know.

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