Philosophical Changes I'd Love to See

[Yoodakine56]

If you believe in building around a pocket passer, which many obviously don't, I'd recommend you trade Tyreek Hill while he has value and looks to the nation like the "MVP" of the offense.

We know WRs are important, but we also know they're replaceable. And the WR room needs work anyhow as it's become clear that Wilson, Berrios and Chosen are the JAGs we initially thought they were before they came to Miami. Shame on us for hyping them up just because they signed in Miami.

Someone will be happy to trade for Tyreek Hill thinking they're fleecing the Dolphins and believing he's the piece they need. There are a slew of NFC teams that would probably love to have him.

Use the money to pay the other guys and use the additional R1 pick you get to select both WR/TE and OL in R1 while taking the money you saved and giving it to Wilkins which will go a long way in making sure Fangio stays around.

Maybe not trade him, but involve a bigger bodied receiver and implement the TE more often, along with Hill. Dont know why MM didnt mix it up when they played better defenses.

 

[Kyndig]

1. Fire a GM when he is an 8-year failure. When he has gone through multiple head coaches, and coordinators, and personnel and QB blunders, and cap blunders. He has failed and he has no clue what he is doing!
2. Draft a new rookie QB and give him his starting window when the previous QB has failed to be competitive for 4 years.
3. Stop firing head coaches and blaming head coaches for success of the team. Create a stable system of daily operations with a long term head coach! And when you hire a head coach, do not chase the flavor of the day. Hire someone who is committed and suited to run the operation for the next 20 years.

 

[Kyndig]

Overall, I think this is a great post even if there’s a couple of things I disagree with.

- When I initially read that McD might be considering giving up the play calling, I found that interesting and thought it seemed like a pretty logical step, but as I’ve had more time to think about it, I’ve decided that I’d really like to see him continue calling the plays. Not only is McD a very young HC, he’s pretty much still in the infancy stages of being an OC. From an ownership point of view, I think it’s extremely short sighted to hire a guy that young, with little to no experience as an OC or an HC and expect him to have all of the nuances down inside of 24 months. Another way to say it: If you’re gonna hire a guy that young and green, you damn well better be willing to let him grow, find his footing, and push through the rough spots that we’re bound to happen early on. If Ross isn’t willing to go through that process, he had absolutely no business hiring McD and should have turned his focus to one of the many retread coaching candidates that are available in bunches each and every off season. I think the adjustments McD has made to facilitate Tua playing behind an Oline that is still pretty bad and lacks serious depth at all 5 Oline positions shows that he is up to the task. There wasn’t one damn media member or Dolphin fan that thought Tua would start each and every game this season and yet he did.

McD could have easily spent the entire season banging his head against the wall and demanding his Oline to perform at a level that they couldn’t realistically achieve. Instead, he developed a passing game predicated on Tua getting the ball out in under 3 seconds. It’s just my opinion, but that shows me that McD is a guy who’s going to build his system around the strengths of his players, which is a trait shared by any HC in the NFL that’s worth a damn. I honestly believe that if the front office can continue to deliver Oline improvements, McD will be able to run a great offense as the play caller.

I also think the play clock issues are a massively overplayed subject. While certainly still not perfect, I saw improvement from his first year, which leads me to believe we’ll probably see more improvement next season. Not only that, you’ll be hard pressed to watch a single NFL game without seeing a QB burn a timeout because the play didn’t come in on time. Hell, in all honestly, you’d be hard pressed to watch a game and see it happen less than 2 to 3 times. I doubt there’s a site that tracks that stat, but if there were, I’d be really interested in seeing how many times McD had to burn a TO as the clock ran out compared to the rest of the NFL. It would be extremely interesting to see how he compares with other coaches.

I find myself agreeing with your first paragraph. He has shown flashes of brilliance in play design for sure, and has called some great games as well, so it’s a bit like the QB. You’ve seen the flashes that he can be elite, so can you widdle down the dead wood that is keeping from arriving at the desired destination?

But, there is no question that he’s also made some obvious mistakes, especially on the road against good teams. Those losses all had similar elements:

1. Excessive penalties on the offense
2. Clock management issues
3. Often foolishly not taking the field goal in the red zone in the first quarter (poor judgement)
4. Too much passing on short yardage
5. Abandoning the run game in the second half when it was working in the first half (Play calling)
6. Clock management issues - Combo of operation being too slow, so going to the line of scrimmage not having enough time for the play to develop with all the motion and such before you snap the ball
7. Communication issues because of the crowd noise, so offense out of synch
8. And yes, injuries on the offensive line. We need to upgrade the depth here.
9. Tua’s turnovers, both fumbles and interceptions.

So, many of those issues are on McDaniel, and are pretty apparent to everyone watching the game which is why so many people are calling for him to relinquish play calling duties, and some overreacting and saying he should be fired. However, all of those issues are fixable, and if he can get it right, and fix those issues, then he has shown enough brilliance to potentially evolve into one of the most brilliant play callers in the game. That’s the upside which we shouldn’t be so quick to throw out.

Having said that, he needs to re-architect the offense for sure to incorporate:

-No Huddle Offense.
-simplified with less motion on the road and perhaps more audibles for Tua To get out of plays that aren’t likely to work based on what the defense is showing you.
-Run the ball in short yardage situations, and stay balanced
-And yes, you can keep the explosive stuff, but you can’t rely on it for everything and force it.

 

[Jamesw]

Overall, I think this is a great post even if there’s a couple of things I disagree with.

- When I initially read that McD might be considering giving up the play calling, I found that interesting and thought it seemed like a pretty logical step, but as I’ve had more time to think about it, I’ve decided that I’d really like to see him continue calling the plays. Not only is McD a very young HC, he’s pretty much still in the infancy stages of being an OC. From an ownership point of view, I think it’s extremely short sighted to hire a guy that young, with little to no experience as an OC or an HC and expect him to have all of the nuances down inside of 24 months. Another way to say it: If you’re gonna hire a guy that young and green, you damn well better be willing to let him grow, find his footing, and push through the rough spots that we’re bound to happen early on. If Ross isn’t willing to go through that process, he had absolutely no business hiring McD and should have turned his focus to one of the many retread coaching candidates that are available in bunches each and every off season. I think the adjustments McD has made to facilitate Tua playing behind an Oline that is still pretty bad and lacks serious depth at all 5 Oline positions shows that he is up to the task. There wasn’t one damn media member or Dolphin fan that thought Tua would start each and every game this season and yet he did.

McD could have easily spent the entire season banging his head against the wall and demanding his Oline to perform at a level that they couldn’t realistically achieve. Instead, he developed a passing game predicated on Tua getting the ball out in under 3 seconds. It’s just my opinion, but that shows me that McD is a guy who’s going to build his system around the strengths of his players, which is a trait shared by any HC in the NFL that’s worth a damn. I honestly believe that if the front office can continue to deliver Oline improvements, McD will be able to run a great offense as the play caller.

I also think the play clock issues are a massively overplayed subject. While certainly still not perfect, I saw improvement from his first year, which leads me to believe we’ll probably see more improvement next season. Not only that, you’ll be hard pressed to watch a single NFL game without seeing a QB burn a timeout because the play didn’t come in on time. Hell, in all honestly, you’d be hard pressed to watch a game and see it happen less than 2 to 3 times. I doubt there’s a site that tracks that stat, but if there were, I’d be really interested in seeing how many times McD had to burn a TO as the clock ran out compared to the rest of the NFL. It would be extremely interesting to see how he compares with other coaches.

You have something very rare here ….. intelligence.

 

[royalshank]

Take play calling duties away from the guy who had the #1 ranked offense in the league? Hill, Mostert, Waddle, Achane and the entire offensive line was injured the last month of the season and barely could practice. But yeat, the problem is the coach and let’s trade our or bowl qb

Our offense scored an average of like 16 points per game against winning teams. It also was one of the worst RZ offenses in the league (TD efficiency) after week 7 or 8. Our “glory” days were the first 6-7 games and we averaged out looking good but we cratered from a trending standpoint.

 

[Fullytorqued]

Practice football instead of touchdown celebrations

 

[eMCee85]

Philosophically, I’d like to see angry and irritated fans, who rightfully go off on the Dolphins obvious deficiencies, to quit being marginalized and mocked on this fan site. This cycle of sucking is decades old. The Dolphins deserve every ounce of scrutiny they invite.

I'm with you. I don't understand why the **** they do this? It's like they have parrot brains and forget the past 30 ****ing years and all the dumb **** this organization has done over the years. "Last year isn't the same as this year"... oh yeah, how much more can you say that before you ****ing realize that this organization needs a total cleaning from the top to the bottom. Grier needs to ****ing go clear as day.

But mostly, these ppl here act like we don't know **** and the insulting of our knowledge just shows how pompous they all are. But hey, number one in stats tho

 

[AMakados10]

Here are a few..

1. More Man-to-Man Coverage on Defense
Generally, this team won on defense and I'm pretty happy with this group. But the better quarterbacks picked zone apart. I think with Miami's pass rush, going to more man would create turnovers and more negative plays. Switch it up. Ramsey is good in a man system. Find another corner, if necessary, who also excels in man.

2. Focus on Building a Successful Short-yardage Game
A lot of us have been harping on this for years now. Have to be able to run the ball when everyone in the stadium knows it's a run.

Couple of points here. On the push play, Miami needs someone other than Tua, with his injury history. Maybe Skylar Thompson, but it doesn't even have to be a quarterback. It could be Seiler. This play is all about leverage, winning in the trenches, and flat out desire.

Fix the offensive line once and for all and maybe add a power back.

3. McDaniel Should Give Up Play Calling
If the non-competitive playoff loss showed one thing, it's that play calling needs to come off McDaniel's plate. He can still install the offense and be involved, but McDaniel needs help. No way we should be seeing clock management issues when the team should be in the 2-minute drill. Does Miami have a speed up offense?

That's basically it. Obviously, I'm not really going into personnel but do believe the team needs to add physical players.

1. Agree in part. Need to mix it up. Offenses were able to pick on defense weakness (Apple & Kohou) too easily late in the year.

2. Run and Play action game disappeared for spread them out, wide angle runs, trying to hit home runs. Lot of this is because we were weak up middle with backup C and Guards.

3. Disagree. Year 2 as playcaller. Scoring 70 was awful for this team and we started swinging for home runs instead of settling for singles. Too much focus on Tyreek b/c of him pushing for 2K yards. Offense looked more balanced in Dallas without him.

 

[eMCee85]

A new cycle of winning seasons and making the playoffs has begun.

Those "angry and irritated fans" need some tempering, and I have no concerns about pointing that out.

Rational evaluation of a teams play looks at both the positives and the negatives and builds a set of recommendations for getting even better on that.

Irrational crybabies only respond to the negatives and try to compare teams' performances that are 20 years apart as if it was the same group of coaches and players, because they are emotionally unbalanced.

Put that in Tunsil's "bomb" and smoke it.

So much I could say to this Ray. When did you get here again? 2018? Oh yeah. You love Gase. NO ONE HERE SHOULD EVER LISTEN TO YOUR ATTEMPT TO SHADE us who've been here through the suck for more than two decades. I wonder when/who will be your next favorite team...

 

[eMCee85]

Overall, I think this is a great post even if there’s a couple of things I disagree with.

- When I initially read that McD might be considering giving up the play calling, I found that interesting and thought it seemed like a pretty logical step, but as I’ve had more time to think about it, I’ve decided that I’d really like to see him continue calling the plays. Not only is McD a very young HC, he’s pretty much still in the infancy stages of being an OC. From an ownership point of view, I think it’s extremely short sighted to hire a guy that young, with little to no experience as an OC or an HC and expect him to have all of the nuances down inside of 24 months. Another way to say it: If you’re gonna hire a guy that young and green, you damn well better be willing to let him grow, find his footing, and push through the rough spots that we’re bound to happen early on. If Ross isn’t willing to go through that process, he had absolutely no business hiring McD and should have turned his focus to one of the many retread coaching candidates that are available in bunches each and every off season. I think the adjustments McD has made to facilitate Tua playing behind an Oline that is still pretty bad and lacks serious depth at all 5 Oline positions shows that he is up to the task. There wasn’t one damn media member or Dolphin fan that thought Tua would start each and every game this season and yet he did.

McD could have easily spent the entire season banging his head against the wall and demanding his Oline to perform at a level that they couldn’t realistically achieve. Instead, he developed a passing game predicated on Tua getting the ball out in under 3 seconds. It’s just my opinion, but that shows me that McD is a guy who’s going to build his system around the strengths of his players, which is a trait shared by any HC in the NFL that’s worth a damn. I honestly believe that if the front office can continue to deliver Oline improvements, McD will be able to run a great offense as the play caller.

I also think the play clock issues are a massively overplayed subject. While certainly still not perfect, I saw improvement from his first year, which leads me to believe we’ll probably see more improvement next season. Not only that, you’ll be hard pressed to watch a single NFL game without seeing a QB burn a timeout because the play didn’t come in on time. Hell, in all honestly, you’d be hard pressed to watch a game and see it happen less than 2 to 3 times. I doubt there’s a site that tracks that stat, but if there were, I’d be really interested in seeing how many times McD had to burn a TO as the clock ran out compared to the rest of the NFL. It would be extremely interesting to see how he compares with other coaches.

Like the post, but my disagreement, if you will, is even if we were able to build the o line improvements, the offense is still going to have the over used motions on every single play almost. I mean, the overuse of the motion kills this offense in a couple ways.

1. We are unable to utilize a hurryup. This was confirmed by Tua himself in such words.

2. It doesn't allow Tua to make the proper I'd of the defense because he's too worried about getting the motion going in a ridiculous amount of time, like 5 second average.

3. The motions of players doesn't allow for any hot routes or adjustments. Even to players who aren't in motion because the motion dictates other routes.. That plus the good teams have figured that crap out and really don't pay any attention to it

Last night we seen some of the same plays, I mean, identical, to the plays we ran with little to no motion. And guess what, THEY WORKED. My opinion is McD has to cut out the over use of motion.

Leading into the second point. Your right about other teams calling TO because of the play clock but I'm willing to bet it's not at the level as us. This is second year and it got us in the last buffalo game and the KC game. Unexcusable.

 

[SF Dolphin Fan]

Overall, I think this is a great post even if there’s a couple of things I disagree with.

- When I initially read that McD might be considering giving up the play calling, I found that interesting and thought it seemed like a pretty logical step, but as I’ve had more time to think about it, I’ve decided that I’d really like to see him continue calling the plays. Not only is McD a very young HC, he’s pretty much still in the infancy stages of being an OC. From an ownership point of view, I think it’s extremely short sighted to hire a guy that young, with little to no experience as an OC or an HC and expect him to have all of the nuances down inside of 24 months. Another way to say it: If you’re gonna hire a guy that young and green, you damn well better be willing to let him grow, find his footing, and push through the rough spots that we’re bound to happen early on. If Ross isn’t willing to go through that process, he had absolutely no business hiring McD and should have turned his focus to one of the many retread coaching candidates that are available in bunches each and every off season. I think the adjustments McD has made to facilitate Tua playing behind an Oline that is still pretty bad and lacks serious depth at all 5 Oline positions shows that he is up to the task. There wasn’t one damn media member or Dolphin fan that thought Tua would start each and every game this season and yet he did.

McD could have easily spent the entire season banging his head against the wall and demanding his Oline to perform at a level that they couldn’t realistically achieve. Instead, he developed a passing game predicated on Tua getting the ball out in under 3 seconds. It’s just my opinion, but that shows me that McD is a guy who’s going to build his system around the strengths of his players, which is a trait shared by any HC in the NFL that’s worth a damn. I honestly believe that if the front office can continue to deliver Oline improvements, McD will be able to run a great offense as the play caller.

I also think the play clock issues are a massively overplayed subject. While certainly still not perfect, I saw improvement from his first year, which leads me to believe we’ll probably see more improvement next season. Not only that, you’ll be hard pressed to watch a single NFL game without seeing a QB burn a timeout because the play didn’t come in on time. Hell, in all honestly, you’d be hard pressed to watch a game and see it happen less than 2 to 3 times. I doubt there’s a site that tracks that stat, but if there were, I’d be really interested in seeing how many times McD had to burn a TO as the clock ran out compared to the rest of the NFL. It would be extremely interesting to see how he compares with other coaches.

Really good response and makes sense. Maybe I'm being too harsh.

No question, McDaniel got a lot out if this offense early. But it was limited by injuries and exposed by better teams.

 

[Highzenga]

Our offense scored an average of like 16 points per game against winning teams. It also was one of the worst RZ offenses in the league (TD efficiency) after week 7 or 8. Our “glory” days were the first 6-7 games and we averaged out looking good but we cratered from a trending standpoint.

Our entire offense besides Tua began to get injured the 2nd half of the year. My point was that I believe injuries played a big part in the offensive struggles the last month of the season

 

[AMakados10]

Remember when they put in the play clock in camp that screwed up Tannehill so he didn’t go through progressions because the OL was so bad? Dude took a lot of hard shots in his career.

Feel like Tua is getting the same tendencies. Hit home when Kurt Warner pointed out that he looks rushed on every play and rarely has a safety valve outlet.

 

[ForksPhin]

The only issue with going more man….is that Fangio is probably not going to change. He’s doesn’t seem like the type who will be doing a self-evaluation in the offseason and deciding that his scheme was the problem. I will give him some credit for making some required tweaks (significantly upping his blitz %), but the tweaks were basically forced upon him due to the injury crisis. The unfortunate lesson learned this past season is that high-level opposing offenses had field days attacking our weak links on defense.…to an embarrassing degree. The abuse taken by Kohou, Apple, and Riley was incredible.

Which leads to the next issue. As an OC, McDaniel could not do the same to opposing defenses. Think about the final two games of the regular season. The Ravens and Bills secondaries were decimated by injuries. Did we find a Kohou or Apple to attack? Nope.

I have a lot of problems with McDaniel the play caller. But I also have some problems with his overall philosophy, which some have already detailed. I have also repeated them over the past few weeks. He needs to re-evaluate this offseason. Bring back the no-huddle. Reduce the motion. Give Tua more time at the LOS. Give Tua more frequent simple first reads. Take the easy stuff. Be adaptable - you can run your preferred motion scheme against bad teams and blow them away. It’s not working against better defenses and better defensive coordinators. It is possible to change mid-season. The Bills just saved their season as proof.

 

[AL R]

Right
You mean number 1 O against bad teams
Every good team shut us down
This O is predictable and good D’s know how to stop it
Two years in a row now

I got some issues with the play caller including time management but if we can get an above average OL that could play together for most of a season predictable can still work. See Ravens and Niners.