Godchaux: Why Not the Miami Dolphins?

Defensive tackle Davon Godchaux believes the "sky's the limit" for the Miami Dolphins, even so that he used the term three times during his 11-minute video conference call Thursday.

But Godchaux also believes that the team reaching its potential is going to take a lot of hard and it's not going to happen to overnight.

“Everybody just wants to win, but everybody has to take the steps to actually win," said Godchaux, who will be going into the final year of his rookie contract in 2020. "You just don’t come out winning. New England didn’t just win overnight. They built the process and they took days to build the process. They had probably one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time that played for them and probably one of the greatest head coaches that coached of all time.

"It’s always a process, but I think it’s our time. Why not the Miami Dolphins? I think we kicked it off with a good draft this year drafting (11) guys. We kicked it off with a good draft. I think just taking that step and taking that process and coming in and hopefully being here for training camp, taking it day by day. We’ll see. To me on paper, the sky’s the limit, but paper doesn’t win games. You still have to go out there and work at it, so I’m excited to see it.”

The Dolphins clearly had a productive offseason in terms of upgrading the roster, which clearly had a lot of needs after the rebuilding project that led to the 5-11 finish in 2019.

But the Dolphins took care of a lot of those needs by signing 11 veteran free agents, among them Byron Jones, Kyle Van Noy, Jordan Howard and Shaq Lawson, before putting together an 11-player draft class highlighted by Alabama quarterback Tua Tagovailoa.

"None of that stuff means (anything) unless you go and put the work in," Godchaux cautioned. "If we go in and lollygag and not go out there and work hard in practice, it doesn’t matter that we got a first-round quarterback. It doesn’t matter about (any) of that stuff. The biggest thing in football is trusting the man outside of you, next to you — me trusting Christian Wilkins, Shaq Lawson, Emmanuel Ogbah — trusting all those guys on the d-line the same way they have to trust me. ... I think when we do that, like I said — I’m going to keep saying it, you’re going to hear that from my mouth a bunch of times — the sky’s the limit for this team.

"Just keep building and just keep digging and just keep chopping wood each and every day and grinding and getting better. We’ll see. At the end of the day, I’m not the type to say, ‘The Dolphins are about to go 16-0.’ It’s a process. Everything looks good on paper. You’ve still got to put the work in, so I think when we get back hopefully for training camp, I’m excited about it. I’m excited to see especially this defense and the new pieces we got — Kyle Van Noy, a guy who played in New England and played under this system — so I’m excited.”

Other topics Godchaux touched on:

• New defensive coordinator Josh Boyer, who was defensive pass game coordinator/cornerbacks coach in 2019: “Josh played a big role last year. Josh filled in a lot of things with ‘P.G.’ (Patrick Graham), so he said a lot of things last year, so I’m kind of used to him having the voice of the room, if that makes sense. Josh is going to be straight up with you. ... Just coming down from New England, he and ‘Flo’ (Head Coach Brian Flores) were in New England for a long time, so I think he’s going to have the same mind-set. He’s going to expect excellence out of you. You’re going to get better each and every day. He’s going to expect the same thing from you every day — no switch-up, no sugarcoat — so I think having that mindset as a DC, players feed off of that.”

• On how he got into bike riding this offseason: "Well, it’s actually funny. One of my neighbors came to me. She’s from Germany. She’s in pretty good shape actually. She came to me and she was talking about the bike riding the whole time. Like she came to me and she knocked on my door. She was like, ‘Hey Davon, you’ve got to get a bike.’ I was like, ‘Man I haven’t ridden a bike since probably like middle school or elementary. Like a 300-pound guy riding a bike. I (haven’t) ridden a bike in a minute.’ So I finally — she talked me into it — we went to the bike store, got a bike and the rest is history. Last Saturday we were supposed to do 40 miles. Her map only was like 31 miles, so I was kind of mad because I wanted to hit that 40-mile mark. We ended up doing 38.6 miles. I haven’t hit the 40-mile mark yet, but I kind of toned it down a little bit because I wanted to not exhaust my body, so I kind of toned it down a little bit. I’ve been doing like 20-25 miles, but the most I did so far was 38.6 miles. It’s a great exercise and this is after my Pete Bommarito weight lift, my Pete Bommarito conditioning, and then a bike ride will be later on that day just to get some extra cardio just to stay on top. Like I said, I feel like I’m in the best shape I’ve been in these last four years. I’m going on four years of my NFL career, so I feel good.”