Takeaways on the Dolphins Hiring Mike McDaniel

Thoughts and observations on the Miami Dolphins selecting Mike McDaniel as their 11th head coach

A quick look at social media Sunday certainly seemed to suggest that Miami Dolphins fans were happy about the choice of Mike McDaniel as the team's new head coach.

In the end, the two finalists — McDaniel and Kellen Moore — certainly seemed to have a lot of similarities as two very smart, 30-something offensive coaches, but it's the fact that McDaniel has way more NFL experience that made him the better choice from this end.

Yes, McDaniel is something of an Internet star with the clips of his quirky media sessions, but that's not going to win games in the final analysis, and that's where his decade-plus of NFL experience comes in, especially when he's had the chance to work under and around proven coaches such as Mike Shanahan, Kyle Shanahan, Sean McVay and Gary Kubiak.

DOLPHINS GO WITH AN OFFENSIVE COACH

Also like the hire of an offensive coach for a couple of reasons, the biggest being that it's the side of the ball that's been longing for an answer for so long when it comes to the Dolphins and maybe McDaniel is the guy who holds the key.

It doesn't prove anything, but it's certainly worth noting that the two Super Bowl coaches this year (McVay and Zac Taylor) have offensive backgrounds, as did the two other conference championship participants (Shanahan and Andy Reid).

THE IRONY OF THE McDANIEL HIRING

It's pretty ironic that it would be the Dolphins who would hire the first minority of the coaching cycle in light of the lawsuit filed by Brian Flores alleging system racism in the NFL's hiring practices after he was fired by those same Dolphins.

Of course, Flores' allegations regarding the Dolphins didn't have anything to do with racism, but they still were specifically named as defendants.

One last note on this, the 49ers will receive two compensatory third-round picks with the Dolphins hiring McDaniel, but shouldn't it be Miami instead (or as well) getting bonus draft picks considering it's the team that hired the minority candidate? 

ANOTHER FIRST-TIME NFL HEAD COACH FOR DOLPHINS

McDaniel's hiring continues the Dolphins pattern of going with first-time coaches, and there's certainly two ways of looking at that.

On the one hand, the Dolphins haven't had much success with first-time NFL head coaches (Nick Saban, Cam Cameron, Tony Sparano, Joe Philbin, Adam Gase, Flores).

On the other hand, a quick look around the NFL will show two first-time head coaches in the Super Bowl and three of four in the conference championship games.

-- Maybe a lot will be made by some of the fact that McDaniel didn't call plays for the 49ers, but let's remember that Zac Taylor didn't call plays for the Rams either before he was hired as Bengals head coach and he's in the Super Bowl in his third season.

What matters more is that McDaniel was the architect of the 49ers running game, perhaps even more so than Kyle Shanahan.

There seems very little question about McDaniel's ability as an offensive mind, and that's why in the final analysis he was hired.

-- Here's something to keep in mind as we look back on McDaniel's time in charge of the 49ers running game. In his first years as either run game coordinator or offensive coordinator, the 49ers had five different rushing leaders: Carlos Hyde, Matt Breida, Raheem Mostert, Jeff Wilson and Elijah Mitchell.

Mitchell was a sixth-round pick in 2021, but Wilson, Mostert and Breida all entered the NFL as undrafted free agents, so maybe we shouldn't automatically assume the Dolphins will be taking a running back early in the 2022 draft to make McDaniel's running game work at peak efficiency.

We're not saying that's the right way to go, we're just saying to be prepared for another draft without an early-round running back.

Three of the five running backs on the Dolphins roster at the end of the 2021 season are pending free agents Duke Johnson, Phillip Lindsay and Malcolm Brown, along with Myles Gaskin and Salvon Ahmed, who entered the NFL as a seventh-round pick and an undrafted free agent, respectively.