3 things Mike McDaniel must improve on for next season
By Matt Serniak
Everything that encompasses what falls under in-game management is what Mike McDaniel needs to get better at it.
He said it after the playoff game. McDaniel said he needs to get better.
Mcdaniel: "i know one thing, without question, i did the very best that i could for all people involved. that's extremely important to me. and i know there are plenty of things i'll get better at, which is how i'll always look at my expectations and my job."
— josh houtz (@houtz) January 15, 2023
I need to get better. You need to get better. Everyone needs to get better and that includes Mike McDaniel.
The number one thing that he needs to get better at is controlling the parts of the game that he can. That means timeouts, amount of time getting the play in, personnel groupings, challenges, and situations. I’m sure there are some other things I’m forgetting but you get the point.
We saw on Sunday all the times when McDaniel couldn’t get the play in with any reasonable amount of time. The time management skills that McDaniel displayed on Sunday and other times this season were the equivalent of how I think I would handle being in the NBA slam dunk contest. Not good is how I would handle it if you could believe it.
Ultimately, it was McDaniel’s ignorance of thinking he had a 1st down when he didn’t that cost the Dolphins on the last play of the game for the offense. I wanted to jump out of my skin put it back on and jump out of it again when that happened because it was so avoidable.
I get not having Tua in the game to alleviate some of the verbiage that gets said into the QB in the helmet but there isn’t much of an excuse for not knowing what down it is.
I’d love to be hired on the team to sit in the booth and my job is to watch the actual game broadcast to relate what I’m seeing from the NFL’s cameras and listen to what the announcers are saying. These are things the guys in the booth are not having access to.
But as I said in the beginning, I really like where this team is headed with Mike McDaniel. McDaniel got the Dolphins to the postseason for the first time in six years. Sure, he and the franchise got an assist from the bloodthirsty greed of the NFL owners, but they made the playoffs and that can’t be changed. This team has much more room to improve and it starts with the head coach. I expect that he will.
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