Dolphins’ opener at Chargers is an early litmus test for everyone — including Mike McDaniel

In an episode of The Athletic’s “The Playcallers” podcast released in July, a narrative podcast that looks into the dynamics of the Mike Shanahan coaching tree, Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel gave insight into what was a defining moment early in his career.

McDaniel was serving as an offensive assistant in Washington and the team was playing the Dallas Cowboys in Week 17 for the NFC East title. A crafty audible created by McDaniel in the middle of the game allowed quarterback Robert Griffin III to better execute the zone-read concepts that Dallas was adjusting to and helped Washington defeat their bitter rivals.

“That stands out from my football journey as being, like, one of the moments that I knew that I was different, that I could be something,” he says in the podcast.

As McDaniel continued to rise in the coaching ranks, he received the reputation for being an innovative offensive mind, devising unique rushing games with the San Francisco 49ers and then putting his own successful spin on the Shanahan offense with quarterback Tua Tagovailoa in his first season in Miami.

However, late-season struggles, particularly in a prime-time dud against the Los Angeles Chargers, have placed a greater focus on the 2023 regular-season opener Sunday, which will bring Miami back to the venue of that frustrating night.

“It’s going to be a fun matchup,” wide receiver Tyreek Hill said. “I’m glad the league gave us this game so we can go ahead and knock it out. It’s going to be fun in L.A.”

In the narrative podcast, McDaniel also says: “I’ve never really done anything under the guise of, ‘OK, well that’s how it was done.’”

It’s an outlook that should benefit the Dolphins in 2023 as they attempt to reach the postseason in consecutive years for the first time since 2000-2001 and contend in the AFC.

In the week leading up to the Week 1 matchup, McDaniel, 40, has downplayed the impact of a Chargers defensive game plan that led to a 23-17 Dolphins loss on “Sunday Night Football” and produced arguably the offense’s worst game of the season.

“Obviously it wasn’t cool to experience it first-hand,” McDaniel said this week, “but from a coach’s perspective, I told [Chargers coach] Brandon [Staley] after the game, it was so impressive, it just tells a lot about that team that they didn’t blink and they came out to challenge us and they did.”

Since the Dolphins’ 2022 season ended in a wild-card loss to the Buffalo Bills, McDaniel has tweaked the framework of the team, from its coaching staff to in-game operations. He hired renowned assistant Vic Fangio as defensive coordinator, citing the decision to replace Josh Boyer as “in the best long-term interests of the Miami Dolphins.”

McDaniel announced that he streamlined the communication process used to decide when to challenge plays after he went 1 for 6 as a rookie coach.

And while the addition of Fangio to help turn around a defense that underachieved last season could produce great results, maybe no development is more significant than the growth of McDaniel and his next step as an offensive play-caller and coach.

Running back Raheem Mostert has been with McDaniel since the coach joined the 49ers’ staff as a run game coordinator in 2017. The two have developed a close relationship since then and during exit meetings after the 2022 season, McDaniel apologized to him for not running the ball more. To Mostert, it was indicative of the egoless personality McDaniel has.

“I know that he’s very, very critical of what needs to be done,” Mostert said.

Offensive coordinator Frank Smith said McDaniel’s “flexibility and his ability of what he’s able to see on Sunday” sticks out to him.

“The way Mike is familiar with this system, understanding its answers, how we do things, that’s the great part,” he said. “As we looked at last season and our offseason emphasis, it’s just those things that we know we could work on were really emphasized, and that’s why this Sunday is going to be a fun opportunity to make sure our growth, and then adjusting as we need to adjust as the game goes.”

Mostert watched 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan — with the help of McDaniel — shift personnel, tendencies and concepts in San Francisco to stay ahead of the curve. Across the Shanahan tree, many of the counterparts McDaniel coached alongside in Washington have done so — and such changes are imperative for longevity in the NFL.

So, how will that take shape for the 2023 Dolphins? An emphasis on and a return to McDaniel’s roots as a run guru? An increase in screen passes and different passing concepts?

It’s the beauty of Week 1, which holds more unknowns than certainties.

“I think it’s hilarious when people talk about the Dolphins offense as one stagnant entity that will always be evolving, depending on all these different variables,” McDaniel said last month. “I think there’s things that we did pretty well last year, and there’s things that we didn’t do as well as we’d like. So we’ve tried to focus on getting better at those things while maintaining the things that we’re good at. Then you’re just trying to attack defenses where they’re vulnerable. They kind of have a hand in that by the hand they play. And so you have to be able to take advantage of their overplay to one particular phase or the other. So I’ll always be changing what our offense is.”