Mike McDaniel’s late-game clock management under scrutiny after Dolphins loss

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.