First-year Miami Dolphins head coach Mike McDaniel had been under fire as the 2022 regular season came to a conclusion with the team losing five of its final six games.
There were even rumors that the Dolphins could fire McDaniel if they missed out on the playoffs. Luckily for the young man, an ugly Week 18 win over the hapless New York Jets helped avoid that eventuality.
Instead, Miami clinched a playoff appearance with third-string quarterback Skylar Thompson under center. Its reward was a road game against the Buffalo Bills in the AFC Wild Card Playoffs in which Miami was two-touchdown underdogs.
After falling down 17-0 in the first quarter, the Fins made this a game. They tied it up at 17 before finding themselves down 34-31 late in the fourth quarter. That’s when McDaniel’s in-game coaching came into question.
The young head coach struggled with clock management as Miami was attempting to either tie the game or take the lead. That included an absolutely astonishing delay of game penalty on fourth-and-1 from Miami’s 48-yard line with 2:28 remaining in the fourth quarter.
It was absolutely on Mike McDaniel. He needs to get that play call to a rookie seventh-round pick in a more timely manner. There’s no other way to go about it.
Like clockwork, Miami would fail on its fourth-and-6 opportunity when a Thompson pass to tight end Mike Gesicki fell incomplete to pretty much end the game.
To be fair, Miami has been dealing with a lot recently. That included star quarterback Tua Tagovailoa suffering a third concussion of the season in a Week 16 game against the Green Bay Packers. Backup Teddy Bridgewater also missed the wild card round due to a broken pinky finger.
Typically, relying on a young quarterback to do his thing under center is not ideal. Given that Thompson was a mere seventh-round pick with two career starts under his belt, that’s magnified further.
Despite all of this, Miami went tit-for-tat with one of the top Super Bowl contenders in the NFL on road and in hostile conditions. The Dolphins should be commended for that. But it is hard to get past the late-game clock management from McDaniel. Simply put, he did not put his team in the best situation to win at the end.
Interestingly enough, McDaniel had noted multiple times during the season that he’s been trying to improve his speed as it relates to getting the play call in to the quarterback. The first-year head coach also cited crowd noise in Buffalo for the issues ahead of that fourth-and-1 play. That seems to be an excuse more than anything.
Reactions to McDaniel’s in-game coaching struggles on social media were not kind, either.
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