Pro Football Hall of Famer finds plenty of constructive criticism for Dolphins’ passing game in 2025 after film breakdown
The Dolphins are in Year 4 under Mike McDaniel but one Pro Football Hall of Famer continues to find some head-scratching issues.
The Miami Dolphins‘ offense is trying to find sturdy footing after a difficult opening contest against the Colts and a frustratingly inconsistent showing against the New England Patriots in Week 2. The coaching staff has pointed to negative game scripts as a major contributing factor — and they’re right to do so. Miami’s defense has given up too many scoring drives and forced Miami to chase the scoreboard for much of their first two contests.
But one NFL media member who knows a thing or two about winning offensive football at the pro level sees some more favors that the Dolphins could be doing for themselves and quarterback Tua Tagovailoa on game day. Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterback Kurt Warner dove into the tape of Miami’s offense and came away with several bits of constructive feedback for Mike McDaniel and company.
Hall of Famer Kurt Warner sees cracks in Miami’s passing attack so far in 2025
Warner conducted a 50-minute film study on the Dolphins’ Week 2 offensive performance against the New England Patriots and tried his best to explore the layers of Tua Tagovailoa’s play within the offensive scheme Miami put on display in their 33-27 loss. One of the prominent themes of his study was what he perceived to be some limitations between the timing of Miami’s routes and the timing of Tagovailoa’s drops.
On numerous occasions, Warner spotlighted high-low concepts to the sideline that were not optimized because Tagovailoa appeared to be reading the throws from low to high, and accordingly taking his drops after the snap to maximize his throw underneath — but doing so forced Tagovailoa to move off of a potential throw further down the field as it uncovered to work to later progressions.
Among Warner’s other bits of feedback were Miami’s route spacing at times creating more muddy reads and congested areas to throw the football and a frustrating lack of detail in some of the landmarks of routes by Dolphins receivers.
That’s a whole lot of layers that could be pointed to as areas of improvement considering the offensive side of the ball has had a continuous coaching staff across Mike McDaniel’s tenure. The quarterbacks coach, the offensive coordinator, and the head coach are all in year four together with the same quarterback and the same hallmark pairing of wide receivers.
The Buffalo Bills are looming on deck — and few teams have created as many headaches for Miami’s passing attack under McDaniel that the Bills. If Thursday night is going to be a successful showing for the Dolphins, they’ll need to troubleshoot some of Warner’s issues in short order. Or, otherwise, they could hope to play more complementary football, generate more stops on defense and preserve the ability to run the football more often in Week 3.
Given Josh Allen’s gaudy career numbers against the Dolphins, that may be easier said than done.
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