When Mike McDaniel came to town in 2022, he brought with him a flurry of questions. Here was Kyle Shanahan's offensive coordinator, a trusted member of Shanahan's staff for more than a decade — though he never called plays. More than that, the Dolphins were the lone team to schedule an interview with him. Needless to say, fans were skeptical.
It didn't take long for them to become believers. In Week 2 of his inaugural season, the Dolphins overcame a 28–7 second-half deficit to steal the game from the Baltimore Ravens with a 42–38 final score. This game was microcosmic of the shift taking place in South Florida. After years of Brian Flores' offenses being seemingly allergic to yards and touchdowns, McDaniel's offense was conversely insatiable.
After back-to-back down years in 2024 and 2025, McDaniel met the same fate as 99 percent of his contemporaries in the coaching profession — he was kicked to the curb. In a piece addressing questions surrounding new coordinators in various NFL locales, ESPN chose not to dive too deeply into McDaniel's new role with the Los Angeles Chargers.
"One of the hottest names among new coordinators is Chargers offensive coordinator Mike McDaniel. But I have no questions for him -- I'm as certain in McDaniel's ability to scheme up a good offense as any coach in the league. The "how" is kind of interesting, but I'm confident in the result."
Gone are the days of the Miami Dolphins employing an offensive mastermind who is the envy of the league
While some fans will never be able to come to grips with McDaniel acting and appearing different from the stereotypical football coach, the reality is that the man knows offensive ball. That 2022 season we touched on earlier was mired in controversy due to Tua Tagovailoa's head injuries. Despite Tagovailoa missing four full games and substantial parts of several others, Miami finished with the league's sixth-ranked offense in terms of yards.
That was the first top-10 finish for the franchise since 1995. In 2023, McDaniel and Co. turned up the heat considerably and finished with the league's No. 1-ranked offense — Miami's first time leading the pack since 1994, nearly 30 years prior. These things don't happen by accident. There's no fool's gold over a 34-game sample size. McDaniel would be the first to tell you he wasn't perfect, and there were certainly issues with the team under his guidance.
The 2024 and 2025 seasons were truly disastrous campaigns. The injury bug bit Tagovailoa again in 2024, and McDaniel was rightfully chided for being incapable of simplifying his offense for any of the backup QBs. In 2025, he suffered the ultimate betrayal as the player he had hitched his wagon to, and spent years building up, experienced truly historic regression.
Take your pick: a change in commitment following a life-altering contract, an understandable hesitancy following a concerning injury pattern, or a simple breaking down of physical tools. The end result is the same: Tagovailoa's days as an NFL-caliber starting quarterback are over. The Dolphins still finished with the 13th-ranked rushing offense, but in the modern NFL, that won't get you very far — the Dolphins went 7–10.
There's an admittedly crushing scenario where McDaniel, paired with the most athletically gifted quarterback he's ever had in Justin Herbert, pilots a top 5–10 offense on the other side of the country in 2026. Because Stephen Ross refused to let McDaniel choose his next signal-caller, Dolphins fans will never get to see what it could've looked like in South Florida
In firing McDaniel, Ross took a major risk. NFL teams are not entitled to one of the best offensive playcallers in the game. While Bobby Slowik is no slouch — far from it, in fact — there are zero guarantees that he can recreate any of the magic that McDaniel enjoyed. Part of the reason he resurfaced on McDaniel's staff as a senior offensive assistant with no defined role is because of his ouster from the Houston Texans.
That won't stop us from tuning in week after week, and it also won't stop us from reminiscing when the going gets tough.
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