How Dolphins’ Mike McDaniel, 49ers’ Kyle Shanahan put unique spins on same offense
Ted Nguyen
Dec 2, 2022
13
Many of Kyle Shanahan’s assistants have been plucked from his
49ers coaching staff over the years, but perhaps no one who’s left was more valuable to the San Francisco offense than Mike McDaniel. Wherever Shanahan’s career took him, he was sure to bring McDaniel, who started his
NFL coaching career in Denver in 2005 under Kyle’s father, Mike, and proceeded to work with the younger Shanahan for another 14 seasons before becoming
Dolphins head coach this year.
“I’d always say (McDaniel) was our computer, like, ‘What did I say on this last year at this time?’ and Mike could always retain that stuff and was really good at it,” Shanahan said Wednesday before the 49ers’ Week 13 game against the Dolphins. “And then we went through so much together, how different
Washington was than
Houston, just schematically how many things that we had to change.”
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Today, both coaches run the system they developed together, but they do so with different styles and personnel. The 49ers’ impressive week-to-week adjustments have powered one of the most unique rushing attacks in the league during Shanahan’s time as a head coach, and McDaniel, who was the run game coordinator and offensive coordinator while in San Francisco, was once a big reason for that. Now McDaniel is applying his ingenuity to the collection of speed demons in Miami, and the Dolphins have the NFL’s most explosive passing game.
Tyreek Hill and
Jaylen Waddle are on pace to become the most productive single-season receiving duo of all time. The concepts Miami utilizes are familiar to Shanahan’s playbook, but the routes are being run deeper and the pre-snap movement is even wonkier now that McDaniel has free reign.
According to TruMedia, the Dolphins see man coverage on just 15 percent of dropbacks, the lowest rate in the league, and they have the fifth-highest success rate against it (47.7 percent). Teams fear Miami’s speed and are playing two-deep zones zone to keep things in front of them. The Dolphins have seen Cover 2 at the NFL’s third-highest rate (17.6 percent). But even against a coverage designed to stop explosive plays, the Dolphins have still produced them 29.9 percent of the time — more than 10 percentage points better than the
Eagles, the next-most explosive offense vs. Cover 2.
Miami’s speed expands these zones so wide that massive gaps exist between defenders.
Week 12, 9:48 remaining in the first quarter, first-and-10
Early against the Texans, the Dolphins punished Houston’s Cover 2 with repeated intermediate routes over the middle of the field. On this play, Hill ran a dig route from the right (top of the image), while Waddle ran a deep post over the top of him.
As quarterback
Tua Tagovailoa got to the top of his drop, he pump-faked to Hill. Texans safety
Jalen Pitre was likely tired of getting beat in the intermediate area and abandoned his deep responsibility to defend Hill.
As a result, Waddle was able to get behind Pitre. The backside safety closed on Waddle, but Tagovailoa put the ball up high and Waddle rewarded him with a jumping contested catch.
Zone defenders don’t have much of a choice when dealing with so much speed. If they don’t drop deep, they’ll get burned. Tagovailoa can process at hyper speeds and usually progresses to his checkdowns as defenders are dropping back, which creates even more space underneath.
Week 12, 1:01 remaining in the second quarter, third-and-5
Here, the Dolphins called a smash concept. Waddle and Hill ran deep corner routes on each side of the formation. The Dolphins were in empty and had tight end
Durham Smythe and running back
Jeff Wilson Jr. each chip edge defenders before releasing to the flats.
The chip blocks helped the Dolphins from a protection sense and timing sense. If Wilson and Smythe released right off the snap, they would have had to stop and wait toward the sideline while Waddle and Hill finished running their routes. But because they instead released late, the cloud corners didn’t see them and dropped to cover Hill and Waddle. Tagovailoa released the ball as the corner was still dropping, and Wilson had plenty of time and space to pick up the first down. Short routes should not be this wide open on third-and-5, but for the Dolphins, this is the norm.
One area in which McDaniel has distinguished himself from Shanahan is his willingness to abandon the run. According to
RBSDM.com, the Dolphins pass on early downs in neutral situations at the seventh-highest rate; the 49ers do so at the sixth-lowest rate. Despite not running the ball frequently, the Dolphins have still called play-action on 38.4 percent of their dropbacks, trailing only the
Falcons.