McDaniel Explains Controversial Fourth-Down Decision

Head coach Mike McDaniel spent his postgame media session following the Miami Dolphins' overtime victory against the Washington Commanders in Spain talking about the win, his team's resilience and the experience of playing in a new country, but he also was asked to explain his controversial decision late in the 16-13 overtime victory.

With the score tied 13-13 and 1:44 left at the snap after an injury timeout, McDaniel decided to go for the touchdown on fourth-and-goal from the 1 and called for an inside run by Ollie Gordon II, who was tackled for a 2-yard loss.

The decision came with Washington out of timeouts and was criticized in a lot of parts, including by NFL Network analyst Kurt Warner.

After taking over on downs, Washington got a quick 28-yard completion from Marcus Mariota to Deebo Samuel over the middle and another 25-yard completion to Jacoby Jones later to set up a 56-yard field goal attempt by Matt Gay, who was wide right for the second time on an attempt from beyond 50 yards.

"You don't make that decision unless, you know, I thought the play was going to work, and it didn't," McDaniel explained. "But looking at from it was about 1:47 or something, with no timeouts, a field goal gives them the ball back. Their special teams is very adept at getting the ball between the 30 and 40, which would leave about 25 yards for a tying field goal, as opposed to going 60 yards when they're backed up.

"And so those are the type of situations that you try to do the best thing with the recourse of failure. And that was an example of the defense stepping up. They held when it was most critical, and to get a three-phases, a complementary football game where we got takeaways in two phases and didn't turn the ball over, it was an important win for for our team But, yeah, I definitely wouldn't have made that call if I thought it was going to fail. But you you also make that decision based upon the recourse if it doesn't work."

WHY McDANIEL MADE THE WRONG CALL

As it turned out, McDaniel was bailed out because Gay couldn't make the 56-yard field goal after some very strange play-calling by the Commanders.

After Jones' reception gave them a first-and-10 at the Miami 40-yard line with 57 seconds left, Washington made the curious choice of an inside run, which gained only 2 yards but more importantly ate up a lot of the clock. After an incompletion with the ball snapped with 25 seconds left, the Commanders then snapped the ball at third-and-8 with 22 seconds left but Mariota wound up trying a deep shot that fell incomplete.

There was no reason for Washington to run on first down there, and who knows how things would have played out otherwise.

And the problem with McDaniel's premise is a failed fourth-down attempt put his team in a position to lose on a field goal, while kicking the field goal meant it would have taken a touchdown for Washington to win in regulation.

And it's not like the Commanders were moving the ball up and down the field, considering they had managed only one touchdown to that point.

It also should be noted that De'Von Achane, as brilliantly as he played, made a bad mistake when he allowed himself to get shoved out of bounds at the end of an 18-yard run that gave the Dolphins a first-and-goal at the Miami 6.

Instead of there being 1:47 on the fourth-down snap, there should have been a little over a minute and maybe that would have impacted McDaniel's decision.

Under the circumstances as they were, though, the right call was to kick the field goal.

The Dolphins survived that dubious decision, but hopefully there was a lesson learned because they got lucky this time and might not the next time.