The results of the Dolphins’ play-calling vs. Bills, what it revealed and what backfired
Mike McDaniel has earned a reputation as an offensive savant, someone that players consistently identify as one of the smartest coaches they’ve met.
The question is whether he outsmarted himself in losses to the Chargers and Bills.
The Dolphins have been a passing team all year, mostly with very good results. They’ve passed on a higher percentage of plays (62.3) than 28 teams in the league. That can be justified, considering Tua Tagovailoa is second in the league in passer rating, Jaylen Waddle leads the NFL in yards per reception and Tyreek Hill is among the league’s best receivers.
But in a loss against a Chargers team with the worst run defense in the league, the Dolphins dropped to pass 30 times (even with Tagovailoa going 10 for 28) and ran 19 (for 4.8 per carry) — a strategy that led ESPN analyst and former Jets coach Rex Ryan to say the Chargers “outcoached” Miami “so badly, it’s amazing.”
Against a Bills team that they pulverized on the ground, the Dolphins were pretty balanced (32 passing plays to 25 running plays), but bypassed running the ball several times on third and short, with all of those plays ending badly.
After Raheem Mostert ran eight times for 101 yards in the first quarter, the Bills eventually made an adjustment, by putting more defenders in the box. Mostert continued running well but had just nine more carries the rest of the night, closing with 136 yards on 8.0 per carry.
When the Bills adjusted their defense, McDaniel had two options: A) keep running the ball until the Bills proved they could stop it on several plays or B) throw more to try to take advantage of the Bills playing only one safety deep. McDaniel generally opted for the latter.
“In a game like that, you have to kind of stay ahead of what the defense is doing,” McDaniel said. “I think when they adjust – we had to give them a reason to play single safety. I think they played four snaps of man the first time we played them. So you have a choice – you can either play scared, or you can try to continue doing what your offense is built to do and if they’re blitzing five-man pressures to stop the run, it’s going to get ugly” if your team keeps running.
“I was fine with the way the game went and….you have to take what the defense is getting giving you.”
McDaniel’s philosophy is sound fundamentally, but an equally strong case could be made to stick with what’s working on a night that Miami gained 188 yards on 7.5 per carry, with Salvon Ahmed contributing six carries for 43 yards (7.2 per carry).
Here’s what happened when the Dolphins opted to pass instead of running on various downs and distances against Buffalo:
▪ Eight times in the game, the Dolphins faced a second down and five yards or fewer, usually following good runs on first down.
Five times in that situation, the Dolphins threw. Tua Tagovailoa threw incomplete passes on four of those five attempts and completed a three-yard pass to Tyreek Hill (on a second and four) on the other.
The Dolphins ran three times when it was 2nd and 5 or less and picked up a first down on one of those three plays.
▪ Six times in the game, the Dolphins faced a 3rd down and three yards or less on a night they were dominating on the ground.
Only on the first (a successful third and one run by Alec Ingold) did the Dolphins run in that situation. (The Dolphins also converted their one fourth and 1 with a 3-yard run by Mostert.)
The Dolphins threw it five times on the other 3rd down plays and none were successful; three were incomplete passes by Tagovailoa, one was a sack, and another was a completed pass to Durham Smythe that lost two yards.
The two third and one throws were hurtful. The first, resulting in a sack, forced Miami to settle for a 39-yard field goal early in the game.
The second blunted momentum after Jaelan Phillips’ strip sack gave the Dolphins the ball at the Bills’ 47 early in the fourth quarter.
After Mostert ran for 11 yards and 6 yards on the next two plays, Tagovailoa hit Hill for three on the third and 4 and then lost two on the pass to Smythe on 3rd and 1 at the Bills 27.
The Dolphins settled for a Jason Sanders’ 47 yard field goal, putting them up eight.
Late in the game, when the snow started, the Dolphins opted to keep passing, with Hill gaining 13 yards and Cedrick Wilson 21 on receptions from Tagovailoa. Then they tried their only rushing attempt in the game’s final nine minutes, a one-yard Mostert run to the Bills 40.
Then a short pass to Hill lost three yards, a pass toWaddle fell incomplete and the Dolphins punted on 4th and 12 from their 40 with 6:04 left, never getting the ball back again.
Who knows what would have happened if the Dolphins had kept pounding the ball with Mostert and Ahmed in the snow? But this was a case of the Dolphins doing what they thought would expose the defensive looks they were playing against, instead of sticking with what had been working.
McDaniel - who received some credit as the 49ers run game coordinator before becoming the team’s offensive coordinator for one season - was asked last week if he has given much thought to whether Miami should become more of a running team.
“I’ve always valued the run game,” he said. “I think you guys have followed my career enough to know that I’ve been involved in it and have always really seen the line of scrimmage as the place where games are won and lost.
“So you look at everything and say, ‘Where’s our matchups? How can we do things well? And what gives us the best chance to win?’ I don’t think I’ve, really, this season felt like, me personally, that I’ve done the job I totally want to in that area. So it’s always a focus.”
This story was originally published December 18, 2022 at 12:33 PM.
