Is Slovik Set to Assist or in position to replace McDaniel?
The Miami Dolphins have hired former Houston Texans offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik to bolster their coaching staff. Slowik was a hot name for head coaching jobs at the end of the 2023 Season, but the Texans offense floundered this season and he was sent packing. Now Slowik is a Phin, and it can’t hurt to add coaches on offense because just like the Texans, the Dolphins offense floundered as well.
The problem is if Slowik couldn’t help the Texans, why should we feel confident that he can help us?
Speculations are McDaniel Slowik Call Play
Slowik is the brother of Ryan Slowik, who is the Dolphins defensive backs coach and defensive pass game specialist. He also has connections with McDaniel through their time together with the Commanders and the 49ers. It makes sense in every way as far as relationship.
From a football standpoint, both the Dolphins and Texans struggled with their offensive lines and Slowik played a part in that. The Texans had the worst protection in the league this year and unless the Dolphins do some major homerun hits, his blocking unit won’t be much better this season.
The good news is Miami throws so fast that many issues get masked on the offensive line and Slowik is expected to just help with the passing game. I’d feel a lot better about Slowik if his ability to uplift the offensive line wasn’t in question. Still, McDaniel clearly struggles to manage everything so another voice can only help.
Some are saying that the Phins brass is pushing McDaniel out of play calling duties.
Who knows?
Maybe?
Slowik didn’t seem to dial up a smart gameplan
Was it chicken or the egg with Stroud and Slowik?
Just about every time I watched the Texans play Stroud was either under pressure or holding the ball too long and getting pressured. Stroud was blitzed an insane 57% of the time and under pressure 40% this season. The ratio of blitz to pressure was positive, but something was off because they didn’t take full advantage of it.
Was Stroud slow to process and release or was the philosophy, gameplan, and calls off. Likely it was a mixture of both, but there is something in the gameplan that bothered me.
Stroud was still a bit green in his second season and Slowik only called 27% play actions and 10% screens in light of that 57% blitz rate. This is asking a lot of a young quarterback whose average depth of target was 7.7 yards, which is aggressive.
Stroud had a very high clean time to throw of 2.60 seconds, Slowik needed to adjust to more small ball because something was off, and he didn’t. With all the receiving talent Texans had and 2.60 seconds to get it done, if Stroud should have been handling it if he could. Slowik seemed not to adapt to his quarterback and let him get pounded and hounded to the tune of 63 sacks. This isn’t smart coaching.
As an example, the great Mahomes had about the same play actions and screens, but the depth of target on his clean throws were 6.1 yards, nearly 2 yards less. Reid protected Mahomes and Slowik didn’t protect Stroud. On the face of it, it seems Slowik was slow to grasp where his quarterback was at and what was best for him, but it’s hard to say without going over the film in detail.
Will Slowik help the Phins passing game or take over the play calling duties? It will be a while until we find out. You can bet with the best pay per head that anything is possible with our team! Go Phins!!!