Mike McDaniel will retain the play-calling duties for the Miami Dolphins as he heads into his fourth season, and his confidence in himself is not wavering.
There are a lot of fans and media alike that do not see McDaniel as the offensive genius he was touted as when he came to the Dolphins three seasons ago. After a good freshman year, he showcased an incredibly hard-to-beat offense in 2023.
Defenses had him figured out by the time the playoffs began, and Miami was bounced in round one. In 2024, the tape was there for other teams to follow, and Miami's offense was, well, nearly nonexistent. Even mediocre teams had the Dolphins figured out.
It is year four for McDaniel, and he is confident that he now has the "tape" to attack defenses and create problems for opposing teams. McDaniel talked about this on his recent sit-down with the crew of NBC's "PFT Live".
"Every year that I've been head coach here, I've had to extrapolate how people are going to defend us, and now there is enough commonality and consistency through all the different schemes, that this is the first offseason that you can kind of attack the tape."
McDaniel said that he now has a broader view of what defenses are doing to stop his offense. In years past, he was trying to work through it, but now he has the tape to review what he calls the commonality of each team and how they stop his offense. He said that he now has a better vision of what they expect to see in the future.
Hopefully, for the sake of the Dolphins, this turns out to be more fact than wishful thinking. McDaniel is coaching for his career this season. If he loses his job, he will find another job, but he may never get a head coaching gig again.
The Dolphins need McDaniel to succeed, or Stephen Ross could be looking at another rebuild that he doesn't want to go through.
For McDaniel, the biggest challenge is the in-game adjustments that he struggles with consistently. At times, it appears as though he has it figured out, but on the next series, he reverts back to what wasn't working or gives up on what is.
Miami Dolphins head coach Mike McDaniel can not afford a repeat of the 2024 season
2024 was not a good year, especially on offense. There are plenty of areas to point at and say, "This was part of the problem," but the reality is there were issues all over the offensive side of the ball that started early in the year and plagued them all season long.
If the Dolphins are going to succeed in 2025, McDaniel has to be the guy who fixes the offensive problems because a lot of them are directly related to his coaching.