Miami Dolphins are about to find out if Mike McDaniel is indeed a genius

After two consecutive games, the Miami Dolphins offense appears to be regressing and it is up to Mike McDaniel to fix it. Is he a genius or in over his head? We are about to find out.

The Dolphins, once a top-five team in the NFL, a top offense with a top quarterback, is now just like the other teams with questions. They are regressing. In the last two weeks, the Dolphins have seen defensive systems that shut down their air attack. Shut down the top WR in the league and now, we have to wonder if it can be fixed.

McDaniel has four games left in what once looked like a Cinderella Season. He was on the cusp of becoming only the third head coach in Dolphins history to take the team to the playoffs in his first season as a rookie NFL coach. Adam Gase and Tony Sparano are the only two so maybe that’s not entirely a bad thing.

We have talked about the fact that minimal changes were made from the 49ers to the Chargers and no adjustments that McDaniel did in-game or at halftime changed the flow of the offense. The Chargers schooled Miami’s young coach and now we find out if he learned anything.

Until last week, “Miami Mike” could do no wrong. T-shirts with his face in a Miami Vice styling adorn fan’s chests but is Mike really the genius we made him out to be?

McDaniel’s offense is missing a key element, the running game. Against the Chargers they barely ran the ball at all, and that was against a team that is one of the worst in the league stopping it. They even pulled back six of their defenders out of the box to stop the passing attack. Still, Miami failed.

The Dolphins will have to come up with something completely different against the Bills and if they can’t, then McDaniel better figure something out quickly because the Packers will be watching what other teams do. Bill Belichick who is a master at designing defenses will surely find a way to take McDaniel’s on-field strengths away from him.

This is the time of year when coaches, good coaches, don’t get…well, out-coached. McDaniel needs to change something because if he changes nothing, the Dolphins won’t win another game. More importantly, however, McDaniel needs to do better with his adjustments in the game, and I think that he will figure this all out, hopefully during the Bills game on Saturday.