Dolphins Offensive Tendencies too predictable

I had a long conversation with a friend of a friend. Call him Ray. Ray was involved in college coaching and even got drafted by the Houston Oilers, and went to camp only to be among the last cuts...so yeah, he's old.



Anyway... after a long talk about why Napier was the wrong guy to hire as Gators HC, we started talking about the Phins.

And while Ray says the team is built to win, he has some doubts about McD's offensive play calling. The temptation to go for the intermediate routes and the
deep shots seem to have precluded sticking with the run and maximizing the dump offs. Once teams started focusing on taking away Tua's first read last year, the
whole offense seemed to flounder. Ray says he saw defenses focus on stopping the middle-intermediate passing game and almost dare the Phins to go a short passing dump off game late last season and there never seemed to be any adjustments?

Ray suggests that a good Offensive Quality Control coach who studied the Phins offense from last year and would give McD some tendency breakers would go a long
way to making the Dolphins Offense much more creative.

After pondering on it for a while, I think I agree. We all saw the offense look great early on and then stink it up at times late in the season. Tua got confused versus the 49ers and the Chargers and McD never did adapt his play calling IMO.

I am wondering if maybe McD needs someone to HELP with the play calling. I heard a HC... I cannot remember who it was... But he was on with Nueheisal on the sirius college radio...he was an OC before... say that he and his OC worked together and if he saw something, he would tell the OC, and if he was calling plays and the OC saw something, the OC would say something to him.

I have some doubts about the Oline, about Tua's consistency, and McD's ability to adjust to defensive adjustments. McD with Shanahan was great, but it remains to be seen if McD without Shanahan and his play calling schemes is going to be great IMO.

We should be able too tell this season for sure IMO.

Interesting feedback and I agree FF.

We have to remember, not only was McDaniel a rookie HC he was also a rookie playcaller. We are going to have to live with the growing pains, but by all reports he's a very, very smart coach and will not rest on his laurels thinking the offense - or the playcalling - was "good enough".

We got a glimpse of that when one of the running backs said in his end-of-season meeting McDaniel regretted how little he called running plays last season. I believe we will see a MUCH more balanced attack out of McDaniel in year 2. The most frustrating thing about last season was seeing us run the ball effectively, but go to the pass in good running down and distance situations.

I can't complain too much because it was the best offense we have fielded in a very, very long time. But if we want to make a playoff run with the hope of winning at least one playoff game, our offense has to be more balanced and effective.

Much like the defense with Boyer's toolbox containing nothing but a lot of crazy blitz packages, the offense needs to have more than a bunch of intermediate and deep passing plays to Hill and Waddle.

You could've just posted here and saved yourself the trouble. Last season the Fins' offense consisted of "throw as much as possible to a couple of WRs while everyone else gets table scraps and hardly ever run". The TEs are one-dimensional blockers--by design--whose blocking hardly even comes into play, and the WR depth is more shallow than your average millennial. I can't remember the last time I've seen an offense that limits itself on purpose as much as this one. I mean yeah, this team's been generally bad offensively since the JJ Error..um, Era, but that's been mostly due to lack of talent.

When You won't Run the Ball and make the LB's come up closer to line, Easier to close up the Middle of the Field. We will find out real quick if anything has changed in Game 1 when we play a Team that had there way with our Passing Offense last year.

The Chargers and 49ers run a variant of the Fangio defense. Tua struggles with a Fangio style defense and it's not McDaniel's play calling. It's Tua's lack of ability to go past the pre snap read. Tua is a timing QB. Disrupt that timing and he doesn't adjust. Also, the more film teams have of an offense the easier it is for them to game plan the defense. I've watched repeated film of last years breakdown games. Most of Tua's poor plays still had a wide open receiver but Tua doesn't see them. If McDaniel failed it was with the run game.

Great point CC. Tua is trying to figure out the Fangio defense in camp, and to this point he's had a lot of failures and limited success.

I don't know what McDaniel will do to solve this. You cannot ask a player to do things he just cannot do well. Maybe it is more heavy with play action? Elements of the RPO perhaps, which has been his strong suit since Alabama?

I guess there is the possibility that Tua will figure it out. He's been playing in a lot of different offenses. He knows the offense very well, now. He does have to figure out how to be faster and better with his post-snap reads. Maybe it just takes more practice? I don't know...

I have no doubt that McDaniel will continue to grow and learn as a coach and playcaller. He took this team from the outhouse to the penthouse in just one season, and now the sky's the limit moving forward.

JMP wrote:I have no doubt that McDaniel will continue to grow and learn as a coach and playcaller.  He took this team from the outhouse to the penthouse in just one season, and now the sky's the limit moving forward.

Freakin' WANNY in his first season got this team more wins than JJ ever had in four years and a division title. Saban ended his first season with a 6-game win streak that caused the sports media to proclaim them as Super Bowl contenders in the offseason. Sparano got this team 11 wins and a division title in his first season. Even ADAM FUCKING GASE had 10 wins and made the playoffs in HIS first season.

How'd that work out for all those guys? Just sayin'. The bloom went off the rose for me with McDaniel at some point when he was doing his best to equal the infamous '93 choke job. IMO he's no better than the rest except being more likeable. And likeable will only get a coach so far with me if he doesn't win. No more excuses--this team needs to win at least one playoff game this season or else Grier AND McDaniel should BOTH be gone.

DolFan 316 wrote:

JMP wrote:I have no doubt that McDaniel will continue to grow and learn as a coach and playcaller.  He took this team from the outhouse to the penthouse in just one season, and now the sky's the limit moving forward.

Freakin' WANNY in his first season got this team more wins than JJ ever had in four years and a division title. Saban ended his first season with a 6-game win streak that caused the sports media to proclaim them as Super Bowl contenders in the offseason. Sparano got this team 11 wins and a division title in his first season. Even ADAM FUCKING GASE had 10 wins and made the playoffs in HIS first season.

How'd that work out for all those guys? Just sayin'. The bloom went off the rose for me with McDaniel at some point when he was doing his best to equal the infamous '93 choke job. IMO he's no better than the rest except being more likeable. And likeable will only get a coach so far with me if he doesn't win. No more excuses--this team needs to win at least one playoff game this season or else Grier AND McDaniel should BOTH be gone.

I'm not talking about wins - I'm talking about the overnight transformation of the offense from one of the worst to one of the best. And it was all due to coaching. Adam Gase never did ANYTHING like what McDaniel did last season - not even close. The Dolphins have certainly never seen anything like it, at least not since Dan Marino entered the league.

another two Tua interceptions against an opposing defense.

During 11-on-11 drills, linebacker Christian Harris intercepted Tagovailoa for a likely pick-six, one of two picks for the fourth-year quarterback. But it wasn’t the actual turnover that was interesting, as much as it was Tagovailoa’s explanation of the play.

“I think it’s what I’ve done best, is looking guys off and no-looking throws into holes like that,” he said. “I talked to Christian Harris — buddy, Alabama — and he told me, ‘Dude you did that so much to us last year that I was like, just trust my drop in this area.’ He was like, ‘I’m not falling for it.’ That’s basically what happened.

“So, it’s a good play for him. And that too, the mind game of that. It’s like, ‘Wow, I never thought that you’d figure that out, that piece of the game out. Kudos to him.”

Tagovailoa’s comments stand out because, at his best during the 2022 season, he was adept at misdirecting second-level defenders with his eyes and finding open throwing lanes to his wide receivers. But it appeared that later on in the season, as Miami’s offense began to struggle, opposing defenses caught on to it more and weren’t as moved by the eye deception.

https://www.miamiherald.com/sports/nfl/miami-dolphins/article278272833.html

and the second one...

But two plays later, while targeting wideout Robbie Chosen on a slant route, safety Jalen Pitre jumped the route for a long pick-six along a raucous Texans sideline to end the practice.

“Man, I wish I could have that one back,” Tagovailoa said. “That one, I was trying to maneuver someone and it didn’t work out with one of the receivers and that was the only place to ditch the ball. I probably should have just sailed it to the ground. But it’s a good play. Good play by [Pitre].”

umm, so if teams have figured out Tua's tendencies and are not falling for his fakes - and he doesn't evolve to change things up - then Miami is done.

No looking throws. These passes are timed. The receiver has to be at the spot at the correct time. The chargers and 49ers figured this out and Tia had two of his worst games facing them last year.

This might be a long painful season.

If you're going to talk about the INTs against the Texans yesterday, shouldn't we also mention the 3-4 TDs he threw?

QBs throw INTs - it happens.  Marino and Manning threw tons of them - in the regular season, and in big games.  I'm not going to lose sleep or worry at all about a practice INT.

Travis Wingfield
@WingfieldNFL

McDaniel says the two Tua INTs Wednesday were an example of Tua pushing things to the absolute limit in practice to get the most out of his game.

Coach says Tua made about 10 throws of similar nature that were awesome plays yesterday.
9:51 AM · Aug 17, 2023

In other words, Tua is using practice reps to...practice! As he should.

It actually sounds like a logical progression, to me.

Tua started in the RPO at Alabama and did very well. Last year, he excelled in a timing offense and used his eyes as an effective tool to manipulate defenders away from where he was throwing the ball.

Now, he's working on what to do if the "eye trick" won't fool defenders anymore. With practice, he will learn how to quickly move past first / second timing read and identify open targets. I think he's done it in the past I have a vague recollection of one of his TD throws going to his third read. He just needs to work and get better and faster with that.

white1 wrote:It actually sounds like a logical progression, to me.

Tua started in the RPO at Alabama and did very well.  Last year, he excelled in a timing offense and used his eyes as an effective tool to manipulate defenders away from where he was throwing the ball.

Now, he's working on what to do if the "eye trick" won't fool defenders anymore.  With practice, he will learn how to quickly move past first / second timing read and identify open targets.  I think he's done it in the past I have a vague recollection of one of his TD throws going to his third read.  He just needs to work and get better and faster with that.

Well said, white. It's all about evolving. Also important to remember that Tua and McD are both at the very beginning of year 2 in this offense.

If Tua can avoid going into his usual up and down pattern, he will be okay IMO. I think he has to avoid being banged up for that to have any chance of happening though, which will depend a lot on the O-line where I think the (suspect) depth is going to once again be a huge problem, so we have to hope for a nearly injury free Oline season.

But in addition, I think the McD play calling needs to change also. When the Defense is making shutting off the first and second reads a priority, the play calling needs to change to take advantage of that. Run the ball more, go to more mis-direction, utilize the RBs in the passing game more as the PRIMARY receivers...

McD needs to realize that once Tua starts downward, unless he changes that trend somehow, it will take Tua a few games to get back into synch IMO.

Also, get the danged play calls in one whole helluva lot faster than they are currently being done! I still say if McD had not fouled up the play calling at the end of the Buffalo playoff game last year, the Phins would have had a terrific shot at shocking the Bills, the NFL, and everyone by beating the Bills in Buffalo!!!

I'm not worried about McD's playcalling at all. He's obviously 100% dedicated to his craft and will continue to grow as a playcaller. Last season was just the first step.