Speed is at the core of the Dolphins’ offensive revolution. Mike McDaniel’s plan to unlock it

On May 4, Dolphins players stood on the Formula One racetrack created at Hard Rock Stadium. Some marveled at the elaborate setup for the Miami Grand Prix. Others fit themselves into the slight cars for test drives.

In a video posted to the Dolphins’ Twitter page, quarterback Tua Tagovailoa wrapped his arm around the shoulder of first-year head coach Mike McDaniel.

“We’re about to go really fast,” Tagovailoa said.

The remark could double as the mantra for the 2022 Dolphins.

In a frenetic offseason for the Dolphins, one trait was ubiquitous in their transactions: speed.

It all began with the team’s hiring of McDaniel, a Yale-educated, 39-year-old who worked as a ball boy for the Mike Shanahan-led Denver Broncos and spent the last decade-plus rising up the coaching ranks alongside Mike’s son, Kyle. McDaniel spent the past few seasons as run game coordinator and then offensive coordinator with the San Francisco 49ers. His quirky, self-deprecating personality, boundless positive outlook and innovative teaching methods endeared him to those in the organization.

Dolphins brass in February tapped McDaniel to usher in a new era of football in South Florida after a fifth consecutive year without a playoff appearance, and dysfunction following the firing of head coach Brian Flores. To do that, though, they had to reshape a dilapidated offense to match McDaniel’s vision.

During the offseason, the Dolphins spent $145 million in guaranteed money, the second-largest expenditure in the league. Most of the money was allocated to offensive veterans, each fitting as pieces of the puzzle in McDaniel’s scheme.

In the opening days of free agency, the team agreed to terms with running backs Chase Edmonds and Raheem Mostert. Both are regarded as two of the fastest players at their position; Edmonds has been timed at 15 mph on 23.3 percent of his carries, according to NFL’s Next Gen Stats, the highest rate of backs with at least 100 attempts. Mostert, who played for McDaniel in San Francisco, has registered the two fastest times by a ball carrier since 2018.

The team even brought in some of the fastest players at positions that don’t normally touch the ball. In came Keion Crossen, a cornerback whose timed speeds on special teams have ranked among the fastest in recent years. The team also signed three-time Pro Bowler Terron Armstead, who’s not only regarded as one of the league’s best offensive tackles but holds the NFL Scouting Combine record for the quickest 40-yard dash time by a lineman — 4.71 seconds.

“Obviously he loves speed,” Crossen said of McDaniel during the player’s introductory news conference. “I think that’s one thing he mentioned to me for sure.”

Less than 24 hours after signing Armstead, the Dolphins pulled off one of the biggest trades of the offseason, sending the majority of their 2022 draft picks to the Kansas City Chiefs for six-time Pro Bowler Tyreek Hill. Hill’s “Cheetah” moniker speaks for itself and he pairs with second-year player Jaylen Waddle — who reportedly has run a sub-4.4 40 — to form arguably the NFL’s fastest receiver duo.

“If me and him are on the same side, same football field, teammates side by side,” Hill said, “it’d be like a Lambo and a Ferrari.”

Along with additional upgrades, McDaniel has been handed an adequate foundation to construct his offense in Year 1. Throughout training camp, he didn’t shy away from letting it be known how important speed is to him. He would announce the fastest times in meetings, poking fun at Hill when he was bested by a teammate. McDaniel chuckled when asked about the difficulties of game-planning with so many dynamic players.

“It’s kind of like the difficulties the guy who has three yachts has deciding which yacht to pick. … You don’t need to shed a tear for our problems with our speed decisions,” he said. “[Players] talk about their speed a lot, which is cool, but they’re also fast football players that block, that do the things that teammates need to do. When they’re called upon to be a fast electric decoy, they do that. I think that they’re not fast guys, they’re fast football players, and that’s the coolest part about them and why we don’t really have issues.”

The main offensive concept McDaniel is implementing is the outside zone scheme, which, in layman’s terms, seeks to move defenses laterally and open creases for not only running lanes but passing lanes. As quick as ball carriers need to be in finding and hitting running lanes, offensive linemen need to be just as agile in their movements to create holes.

Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra was a guest at a training camp practice, and when he spoke to McDaniel, the two found commonalities with the concept of spacing in their respective sports. In basketball, the three-point line has been prioritized and the game has become more spread out to locate high-percentage shots. It’s no different in football, where McDaniel’s offense seeks to stress opposing defenses, not only vertically but horizontally to allow easier completions for quarterbacks.

“One of the reasons you like speed is because now the defense has to defend more ground, so it’s kind of a similar philosophy of creating space,” McDaniel said. “You do it in basketball with shooters, so then you have to draw defenders out, giving more space underneath, and you do it in football with playing fast and having speed so that in the timing of the play, defenders have to defend that much more area. Because in both sports, defenses are trying to do the same thing and you’re really trying to compress the area that they have to defend.”

It’s not an unfamiliar approach: Get players with elite physical traits — in this case, speed — and marry them with sound techniques to produce advantages. The team saw similar potential last year when it signed wide receiver Will Fuller and drafted Waddle with the No. 6 pick in the 2021 draft. That season, of course, was derailed by injuries, poor blocking and a lack of clarity regarding the play-caller.

However, McDaniel, who will call plays, has quickly established a clear vision, and the team has the talent to possibly execute it. His football acumen and creativity — he helped turn wide receiver Deebo Samuel into an elite running back last season — have sparked countless ideas of what he could do with Hill, Waddle and others.

“We’re going to try to turn these Sundays into a track meet,” Armstead said. “A physical track meet. Let’s not try to overshadow that at all.”

The centerpiece of the offense remains Tagovailoa. In just two years, the No. 5 pick in 2020 has emerged as one of the league’s most polarizing players. Throughout the offseason, sports talk shows have devoted time to discussing whether Tagovailoa, 24, can take advantage of a situation that more resembles his time at Alabama, when he was surrounded by a bevy of quick-twitch playmakers. While he’s months removed from Deshaun Watson trade rumors, as well as a frosty relationship with Flores, his job security has still been scrutinized, especially after the NFL’s findings that owner Stephen Ross and vice chairman Bruce Beal tampered in an attempt to lure Tom Brady to Miami.

Coaches and teammates have praised the growth of Tagovailoa — who is 13-8 as a starter — not only as a player but as a young man who’s letting his guard down. Part of that has been attributed to the environment established by McDaniel, one that’s empowering Tagovailoa. Beyond X’s and O’s, that relationship is the key to unlocking an offense that hasn’t truly been electric since Dan Marino’s heyday.

After the Dolphins’ final training camp practice, Tagovailoa was asked what was different this year. He paused for several moments — as if to process what had happened in the last 12 months.

“Everything,” Tagovailoa finally answered. “The offense is different. The confidence that the guys have coming out to practice is different. The confidence that the guys have coming into the building is different. The way we do things around the building is different. Just everything. I can’t necessarily point to one thing, and I think what’s going to help make us a better team is us spending more time with each other, not just in the building, but outside the building. And we’ll see where this thing goes for us.”