Stifling defense, Tyreek Hill lead Dolphins to season-opening victory over Patriots
Mike McDaniel stood behind a lectern, wearing lightly-worn white Air Force 1’s, gray joggers and a rose-gold watch on his left wrist. The first-year Dolphins coach’s glasses were a bit splotchy and his zip-up was drenched. If one hadn’t seen the final score of the Dolphins’ season opener against the New England Patriots, then the image of a soaked McDaniel after a celebratory Gatorade shower summed up the afternoon.
In the beginning of what many hope is a prosperous run under the 39-year-old first-time head coach, the Dolphins left Hard Rock Stadium with a 20-7 win over the Patriots on Sunday.
“It was a very cool moment, against my wishes,” McDaniel said about the postgame celebration of his first career victory. “They just showered me in Gatorade and made it about me, which I know for a fact it’s not. But, the team celebrating and just being happy for the direction that we’re going in, that’s why you get into team sports.
“I can also tell it was a good, exciting celebration because it wasn’t like a satisfied celebration and we’re happy that we got it done. I think a lot of guys feel like the Miami Dolphins fan base and the organization deserved to win. But, there was a lot of frustration, including me, on things that in the game we really left out there.”
Throughout the offseason, the Dolphins garnered immense intrigue about what a McDaniel-led offense would look like, with additions such as wide receiver Tyreek Hill and running back Chase Edmonds joining Tua Tagovailoa for a pivotal year in the third-year quarterback’s career.
But for all the warranted hype about the changes the team made, the unit that remained virtually intact paced it to its first victory.
The Dolphins defense forced three key turnovers, including a strip sack by safety Brandon Jones that was scooped up by outside linebacker Melvin Ingram and returned for a 2-yard touchdown, increasing their lead to 10-0 in the second quarter.
A first-quarter interception by safety Jevon Holland halted the Patriots’ opening drive and rookie cornerback Kader Kohou jarred the ball loose from wide receiver Nelson Agholor on New England’s final possession. The ball was recovered by outside linebacker Jaelan Phillips with 4:55 remaining in the game and effectively ended any comeback bid.
“I told the team last night I thought it was important that you guys were introduced to the offensive players and the offense,” McDaniel said, “but this is still the defense’s team until proven otherwise and they valued that. That was important to them when they heard that, and they wanted to prove me right. They sure did.”
The Dolphins defense wasn’t the team’s problem last season, though, not at least during an 8-1 finish in which the team came one victory short of an improbable turnaround from 1-7 to the postseason. McDaniel was tapped to lead all 53 players on the roster, but it was his offensive acumen and potential to bring the most out of Tagovailoa that drew Dolphins’ decision-makers to him.
In his first game as play-caller, McDaniel made sure to showcase the team’s new speed. There was Hill, the crown jewel of the Dolphins’ offseason, who caught six passes in the first half and finished with a game-high eight receptions for 94 yards.
There were new backs Edmonds (65 total yards) and Raheem Mostert (32 total yards), who dodged and evaded defenders, especially late to salt away the team’s fourth consecutive win against New England.
And there was also Waddle, the second-year player who was on the receiving end of one of the biggest plays of the afternoon. Facing fourth-and-7 just past midfield with 24 seconds remaining in the first half, McDaniel kept his offense on the field with a 10-0 lead. Moments later, Tagovailoa completed an intermediate pass over the middle of the field to Waddle, who split a trio of defenders and dashed into the end zone for a 42-yard score.
The play was a microcosm of the environment players have said McDaniel has fostered: one where he empowers his players and instills belief in them.
“I think Mike has the utmost confidence in us from things that we’ve shown in practice,” said Tagovailoa, “from things that we’ve done throughout training camp and also when we’ve had joint practices.”
Yet, there was still room for improvement for an offense that has high expectations for itself.
Tagovailoa had the efficient outing he’s often displayed in his young career. He completed 23 of 33 passes for 270 yards, one touchdown and zero interceptions. But the No. 5 overall pick in the 2020 Draft also put the ball in harm’s way as the Dolphins attempted to hold onto their lead late, once on a haphazard pass that was dropped by a defender and later losing the ball on a play he was later ruled to be down.
The running game, which was McDaniel’s specialty as a coach for the San Francisco 49ers, continued to have the same struggles seen in the preseason. The Dolphins totaled just 65 yards on 23 carries. An offense that ranked 22nd in the NFL with 20.1 points per game in 2021 finished the first game of the 2022 season with that same exact total Sunday.
“Our game plan was to score points and as much points as we could,” said Tagovailoa, whose fourth victory tied John Elway for the most quarterback wins against Bill Belichick without a loss. “For us offensively, Mike says that our offense is not aggressive — that’s just the style that we play, whereas other people think it’s aggressive. For us, whatever call Mike decides to choose for us to run, that’s what we’re going to run, whether it’s trying to set up a play-action pass or not.
“We’d like to do a little better in the run game, but I think that’s what the first week is for. We got all the jitters out. Everyone got their first real live action of a game and had all four quarters. Like I always say, we’ll go back into the film room, we’ll talk about it. We’ll go through it, get everything corrected and we’ll come back Wednesday.”
But maybe the chief reason for more optimism after a second consecutive season-opening win over the Patriots is McDaniel and his vision. Throughout his postgame comments, McDaniel often diverted questions about the magnitude of his first-career win — he became the fourth coach to win his first game leading the Dolphins — back to the team and what’s next, a week 2 road matchup against the Baltimore Ravens (1-0).
Though the figurehead for a new Dolphins era, he’s attempted to align himself as just a cog — albeit, a much more impactful cog — in the overall functioning of the team.
“I never felt isolated in the least in this moment, so in probably the last, I don’t know, decade of football, it was probably the most relaxed and comfortable that I’ve been for a game,” he said. “That’s the honest truth. It’s because from the scope, yes, you are making play-calling decisions and a lot of your planning, you have to pay the piper. It’s black and white, win or loss, but it’s not about that. It’s about doing right by all the people in the building, by the players, facilitating them coming together, and then we go out and have fun doing what we do. Because if you work the right way, you shouldn’t feel stressed or nervous.
“To be honest, it was what I was kind of starting to piece together in the preseason — maybe this is right, wrong, or indifferent, we’ll see if each game how it plays out — but I felt very comfortable, and there wasn’t really any nervous energy or anything like that, which was cool that I felt like the players were that way, too.”
This story was originally published September 11, 2022 at 3:58 PM.
