During the Miami Dolphins’ losses to the San Francisco 49ers and Los Angeles Chargers, Mike McDaniel’s offense stayed away from the run game, forcing Tua Tagovailoa to rely on his arm and decision-making.
However, against the Buffalo Bills on Saturday night, Miami’s running backs and fullback ran 24 times for 181 yards (7.5 yards per attempt). This opened up some things in the passing game, and it’s exactly how the Dolphins should plan to attack some of the league’s toughest competitors.
During the second half, Miami only ran the ball 10 times for 55 yards. In the same stretch, they completed nine of their 15 pass attempts for 133 yards.
After the game, McDaniel spoke about the decision to get away from the rushing attack.
“I mean you have to – in a game like that, you have to kind of stay ahead of what the defense is doing,” McDaniel said. “I think when they adjust – we had to give them a reason to play single safety. I think they played four snaps of man the first time we played them. So you have a choice – you can either play scared, or you can try to you know continue doing what your offense is built to do and if they’re blitzing five-man pressures to stop the run, it’s going to get ugly. I was fine with the way the game went and I think all of our players would, if given the opportunity, the offensive line and the running backs believe in our receivers and quarterback, and you have to play to each other and take what the defense is getting giving you.”
There were a few situations where the Dolphins needed short yardage, and they could’ve run the ball, but they opted to pass, resulting in an incompletion or a failure to pick up a first down or score. Those plays could’ve been the difference between a win and the loss that they ended up with.
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