Dolphins film study: How Miami’s offense got back on track without Tyreek Hill
Before Sunday, Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel didn’t know life without wide receiver Tyreek Hill.
Hill had appeared in every game since both arrived in Miami for the 2022 season, but an ankle injury sidelined him this weekend against the New York Jets.
McDaniel, though, made the adjustments necessary to let quarterback Tua Tagovailoa trigger the offense even without his top threat.
Tagovailoa acknowledged that the offense “got a little out of sorts” after Hill initially injured his ankle in the previous game against the Tennessee Titans. Hill’s uncertainty for the Jets game added to questions about what the offense would look like if he didn’t play.
Hill was ultimately ruled inactive but the Dolphins, with a week of preparation without the All-Pro pass-catcher, were able to make adjustments and had a productive outing in a 30-0 blowout win. Miami totaled only 77 rushing yards, but Tagovailoa had one of his most efficient games of the season, completing 21 of 24 passes for 224 yards and one touchdown.
“We shouldn’t change who we are as an offense because one guy is out,” Tagovailoa said. “We’ve got a lot of other guys that we trust, that we believed in, to keep on the team, and that’s what happened out there. It’s just the trust that we have in each other, and we just go out there, play what we see and play fast. As we prepared, that’s sort of the mentality that we had going into this game.”
Without one of the most explosive players in the NFL, here’s how the Dolphins’ offense got back on track.
Quick release and screen passes
With the duo of Hill and fellow wideout Jaylen Waddle, Tagovailoa has been one of the most aggressive quarterbacks pushing the ball downfield in the last two seasons. But there was uncertainty in how New York would defend the offense without Hill.
So early on, McDaniel called multiple short passes to get the ball out of Tagovailoa’s hands quickly, limit the Jets’ pass rush and see what the coverage looked like.
Miami increased its use of screen passes, particularly. Tagovailoa attempted and completed nine screen passes, which were a season-high, according to the NFL’s NextGen Stats. He was sacked three times but otherwise kept relatively clean because of his quick release. Tagovailoa averaged a career-low 2.08 seconds to throw against the Jets.
Middle-of-the-field adjustments
The Dolphins use the middle of the field as well as any team in the league. With their speed and spacing, Miami can find open windows in the intermediate range of the field, where Tagovailoa hits his pass-catchers with room to rack up more yards. But defenses have adjusted, finding ways to disguise their coverages and crowd the middle of the field. The Titans were especially good at this in Miami’s loss on “Monday Night Football.”
McDaniel made a smart counter from game to game, using a simple but effective concept to get the ball to other vacated parts of the field. McDaniel would have a player run a route into the flat, while an outside receiver on the same side of the field would run a slant. When in man coverage, the slant would create conflict for the defender trying to get to the pass-catcher running to the flat. When in zone coverage, a pocket would open up for Tagovailoa to hit either the flat route or slant route. The Dolphins ran this concept at least three times on third down on Sunday and moved the chains each time.
Featuring Waddle
With Hill out, all attention was on Waddle as the Dolphins’ top pass-catcher. At times, he had been lost in the shuffle, partly due to Hill’s outsized role in the offense and also because of early-season injuries.
McDaniel, though, made sure to get Waddle involved early. Tagovailoa’s first two targets went to Waddle. He finished with eight catches for a season-high 142 yards. And Waddle’s 60-yard touchdown, his longest reception of the season, was a reminder of the blazing straight-line speed he possesses. Waddle hit a top speed of 19.72 mph, his fastest speed he’s hit as a ball carrier this season.
“There’s not many people that could cover the route that Jaylen Waddle ran,” McDaniel said, “because there’s not many people that are capable of going vertical.”
The big play was made possible not only because of Waddle’s speed but also because of wide receiver Robbie Chosen, who effectively worked as a decoy. He ran a crossing route on the other side of the field, which grabbed the attention of the deep safety that normally would have given cornerback DJ Reed help on Waddle. Instead, Waddle was left 1-on-1 and easily won his matchup.
“When a guy like Tyreek’s out, it’s not just one person that has to step up,” Waddle said. “It’s the whole team, the whole unit when you have a caliber guy like Tyreek Hill, a Hall of Fame guy like ‘Cheetah,’ that’s missing. I think collectively we did a good job.”
This story was originally published December 19, 2023 at 11:22 AM.
