The Miami Dolphins will enter the upcoming season with Mike McDaniel as head coach. Under him, quarterback Tua Tagovailoa is expected to take the next step. Can that happen in the new offensive system?
Munich – Mike McDaniel is an architect. More specifically, an offensive architect. An offensive architect so good that his last project in San Francisco earned him a promotion. In Miami, he has been the head architect for a few months now.
The new head coach of the Miami Dolphins is supposed to develop a concept, build an offense. For Tua Tagovailoa.
The budget played only a minor role in the planning. In free agency, the team around general manager Chris Grier invested over 150 million US dollars in contracts for new players, deployed further resources in the trade business for Tyreek Hill. And what might the finished construct look like?
Shanahan system
“My job is to develop you into a great player,” McDaniel told Tagovailoa during a phone call posted on the team website.
With the San Francisco 49ers, McDaniel learned under Kyle Shanahan, who runs one of the most quarterback-friendly offenses in the league. Under Shanahan (and McDaniel), quarterbacks such as Nick Mullens, C.J. Beathard and Jimmy Garoppolo have shown career bests over the past several years.
The (usually) highly effective running game, complexity reduction in many passing concepts, and putting skill position players in the spotlight who then create yards after the catch give the quarterback a fairly secure footing within this scheme.
Dolphins initiate offensive conversion
The “Fins” seem to want to put a stylistically similar offense on the field. Left tackle Terron Armstead, running backs Raheem Mostert and Chase Edmonds and fullback Alec Ingold can flourish in an outside-zone-heavy scheme.
Hill’s highlight plays so far have tended to come on long passes, but the former Chiefs star has shown quite a few times that he can also excel in the short passing game, creating plenty of yards on his own.
Tagovailoa = Garoppolo 2.0?
And that’s exactly what the McDaniel offense could be targeting. Last season, Garoppolo’s pass receivers amassed an average of 6.5 yards after the catch – a league best.
And Hill isn’t the only player to bring those skills to the Dolphins. Jaylen Waddle racked up 455 of his 1,015 receiving yards on his own, while new signing Cedrick Wilson amassed 5.7 yards after the catch per pass catch last season.
At the same time, the 49ers offence eschewed the vertical passing game for long stretches, with just eight per cent of Garoppolo’s passes flying for 20 yards, one of the lowest rates in the league.
Tagovailoa is likely to meet a similar fate on offense. The 24-year-old, much like Garoppolo, could play ball distributor. “He throws an accurate pass, that’s very important in a system where a lot of yards are going to be created after the catch by the receivers,” McDaniel said of his new protege on “ESPN. “
Tagovailoa also needs to step up
But that doesn’t mean Tagovailoa won’t be challenged. That’s because the system demands a lot of timing and precision from the quarterback at short distances. The margin for error becomes all the smaller.
In the past Tagovailoa made such small mistakes again and again, 15 interceptions he afforded himself in his first two seasons, although he already operated in a comparatively “unaggressive” short-passing offence in the past two years, which schematically kept him on a rather short leash.
Nevin Lawson’s first interception of his career.
Tua throws the pick ❌
– Pro Football Network (@PFN365) October 17, 2021
However, Tagovailoa brings a certain mobility that McDaniel doesn’t have from 49ers days with Garoppolo, Mullens and Co. Tagovailoa’s athleticism can be incorporated as another element in the offense. “He’s athletic and moves well in the pocket. That’s very important in a system,” McDaniel told “ESPN”.
For the architect, the task now is to continue to tinker with an offense in which, ideally, his quarterback feels comfortable.
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