The Miami Dolphins brought Malik Willis to town with the hopes that he could be their No. 1 quarterback for years to come.
This season hasn’t started great, though, at 0-4 — although that can’t really all be attributed to Willis.
The Dolphins are clearly lacking talent. They’re actually paying more money this season for players not on their roster than for players on it.
Then they lost De’Von Achane to a torn ACL in Week 3, making it even tougher sledding for the offense.
Still, Willis hasn’t been spotless. There’s plenty of stuff he can get better at and improve.
There’s also something that apparently other teams are noticing, something Willis might want to work on so that he stops giving things away.
Malik Willis Has a Tell
The Cincinnati Bengals play the Dolphins in Week 5, and their safety Jordan Battle was speaking to the media this week about Willis.
He revealed that Willis does something with the football that clues the defense into the moment when the QB is going to throw.
“He has a little slight little tap before every throw though, so I feel like we could use that as a key to break on the ball,” Battle told local media. “He likes to tap the ball before he throws it, or he takes his hand off, and that that gives the read the break. He’s obviously dangerous with his feet. We know we’ve got to be alert for that. Third and longs, they will run quarterback draws, and in the passing game, he will extend plays. So we’ve got to be good downfield. DBs are plastering, so we got to be alert for that. He will take chances. We just got to be on, be alert on guys where they line up.”
That’s a fascinating thing to consider. The idea of a tell often comes more often in baseball when pitchers are tipping their pitches, but it makes sense that QBs could have different tells as they control a lot of what is happening on the field.
This sounds like a live, mid-play tell — which is even more intriguing than Willis just giving up something pre-snap, because this is happening in fast motion and in split-seconds.
Still, if Battle is really onto this, it’s something Willis will want to work on to eliminate over time.
One Oddity Here
It is quite odd that Battle decided to share this secret with reporters.
It’s like he was so pumped to have figured this out with his teammates that he wanted the world to know.
Except, well, now the Dolphins know one thing about how the Bengals are preparing for Willis that they wouldn’t have known otherwise.
It probably isn’t something Willis can change in a few days, but it’s intel the public doesn’t generally here so soon before a game.
Dolphins’ Malik Willis Is Telling Defenses What He’s About To Do