Photo by Steph Chambers/Getty Images
Mike McDaniel needs to find a way to fix this, but so far he’s lost.
There’s no good way to salvage a season when you lose your starting quarterback, let alone a Pro Bowl player like Tua Tagovailoa, perfectly suited to run the Mike McDaniel offense. However, what is unusual is to see a team with the potential and goals of the Dolphins aimlessly limp along without answers. That’s just what’s happening in Miami right now, and it’s unclear if anyone inside the building has a solution to stop the free fall.
It’s been exactly three weeks since Tagovailoa suffered his fourth concussion on Thursday Night Football against the Bills. Since that point there’s a strong argument to be made that the Dolphins have become the worst team in football. They’ve lost their last two games with a combined score of 55-to-15, including an absolutely shameless 19 point loss to the hapless Tennessee Titans.
Inside this tumble two things have become present: The Dolphins had no real plan if Tagovailoa went down, and offensively they’re unable to scheme around his absence.
There have been more quarterback injuries at this point of the season than average. The Steelers started without Russell Westbrook, the Packers had to adapt to the loss of Jordan Love for two games, and the Colts had to turn to Joe Flacco amid an injury to Anthony Richardson. What’s remarkable about these teams in comparison to the Dolphins is that they were all able to adapt and overcome, win in spite of the injury — but in Miami the status quo is continuing to disastrous results.
It was clear from the second Skylar Thompson took the field against the Bills that it wasn’t going to work. McDaniel’s offense is predicated on accurate passing. That’s the entire secret sauce of what makes this tick. This accuracy isn’t just in the form of complete and incomplete passes, but down to the micro level of a passer being able to anticipate to hit a receiver in stride, resulting in the yards after catch which are so critical to make everything work.
Thompson finished that Bills game 8-for-14 for 80 yards. This somehow got even worse against the Seahawks, when Thompson and Tim Boyle combined for 186 yards passing on 32 attempts — largely because they couldn’t find Tyreek Hill in space to allow him to pick up YAC.
It’s fair to try and run the same offense at least once more, especially with a team like Seattle that you feel like you’re on talent parity with. However, the result of that game made it abundantly clear that something had to change. The only options for Miami were to try and make a panic trade for an interim QB, or modify their offense into a run-focused attack that took pressure off the below-average passers they had access to.
The Dolphins didn’t do either.
Against the Titans it was more of the same. McDaniel called 22 pass plays and 22 runs, while only dialing up four pass plays to his running backs out of the backfield. Once again this was the exact same game plan the team had in place with Tua running the show, but without his accuracy everything fell apart.
Surely the Dolphins are changing things for Week 5, right? Well, no.
Instead of offering solutions and answers for the free fall, McDaniel was instead empathizing with booing fans, saying he doesn’t blame them for being upset.
“I know sporting events where I’m rooting for a team and I’m not coaching in it, I get much more angry when there’s failure than when I’m coaching and I can actually problem-solve something. It’s to be expected. This is the big leagues. To feel entitled to blind support, that’s not my cup of tea. I think you have to go to work, problem-solve and try to fix things as best you can, and I don’t think we’re necessarily owed anything.”
As much as McDaniel’s new-school, laid back approach to football is a breath of fresh air, there are times a football coach should be mad. To say you’re not as angry as the fans are when it’s your team that’s underperforming is pretty wild. Is it nice that he wants to focus on problem solving? Absolutely. The issue is that there’s seemingly no work happening to solve the problems.
Line play on both sides of the ball have been a nightmare for Miami this season, which goes far beyond the loss of Tagovailoa. Last season the Dolphins were 22nd in the league in points allowed, which was okay with a high-powered offense that ranked 2nd in points scored. In 2024 the team is now 26th in points allowed, and dead last in offense.
THIS SHOULD MAKE HIM MAD! When a star player goes down there should be an expectation that the team should rally. That everyone should step up and play their best football to fill the void, to prove a point, to have some pride when they step on the field. Right now the Dolphins are playing like an unmotivated mess that’s lacking effort, and that’s squarely on the shoulders of Mike McDaniel.
This week might be their last chance to turn this around. The Patriots are a building team the Dolphins should be able to beat, even without Tua. If they lose and fall to 1-4 the season is absolutely over. It’s just that simple. There’s no good time for an injury to a starting QB, but a three game stretch of Seattle, Tennessee, and New England was the best place for it to happen. After Week 5 the Dolphins face the Colts, Cardinals, Bills, and Rams. If Tagovailoa is still out for those games they will be four losses for a team that can’t beat the likes of the Titans and Patriots.
There’s no doubt that the Dolphins got dealt a bad hand in all this, but McDaniel is coaching like someone who’s folding. That has to change.
