The one takeaway from Miami Dolphins OTAs and it’s not Tua Tagovailoa

The Miami Dolphins have a couple more sessions before the long summer break but there is one thing that we are missing from these sessions.

Tua Tagovailoa has been the focal point of most social media posts. Whether it is an underthrown pass to Tyreek Hill that drew millions of views for no reason or Tyreek Hill himself coming to Tua’s defense. We have seen orange practice jerseys and Christian Wilkins being, well, Christian Wilkins.

Fans are hyped for what might happen in 2022 but we are still two months away from the start of training camp and preseason games that might give us some real answers or at least a few fewer questions.

One question that we can answer now is possibly the biggest one we had when Mike McDaniel became the head coach. How would the players acclimate to new staff and a young first-time HC?

If the OTAs and mini-camps are any indications, you should be excited about the future. The players seem to be buying into McDaniel’s approach to coaching. They are energetic and showing up. Practices have been productive and the players have been having fun while the offense is being implemented and the defense is being tweaked to Josh Boyer’s liking.

Defensively, the players are raving about how fast the offense is and how smooth it developing on the field. The offense is improving at the skill positions and Tua is indeed making strides in his game. It is easy to get excited but that enthusiasm should be more tempered. Until pads come on and we see what the offensive line can and will do, we should be cautiously optimistic.

Regardless of what level of enthusiasm we should have, the one thing for certain is that this Dolphins team is having fun. They want to play football and they are working hard to understand the intricacies of the offense and defense. There have been no reports of any negativity from the players about the scheme or the coaches.

McDaniel and his coaches are working hard on the fundamentals. The simple things like holding your blocks or shedding blocks defensively. The technique has become a major focus of the practice sessions and when they are not done completely correctly, the players are asked to do them again with the coaches explaining and teaching them why.

We can’t say how previous coaching staffs tried to develop the team but we know that for the most part, for whatever reasons they didn’t work. Will this work? That isn’t something to answer in late May but we might have a better idea come late November. For now, today, it’s refreshing to see so much excitement not from the fans but from the players themselves.