CBS4's Steve Goldstein Looks At Dolphins Coaching Staff, NFL Offseason
MIAMI GARDENS (CBSMiami) - The Mike McDaniel era begins as the NFL offseason officially is underway.
The new Dolphins head coach had an impressive, humorous, and interesting opening press conference. McDaniel told numerous stories about his journey to becoming an NFL coach, starting with riding his bike as a kid to Denver Broncos practices to get autographs. He would stay there all day and realized how much work went into being in the NFL.
Now, he is in charge of his own team and continues to fill out his coaching staff with offensive hires. The defense and special teams will have many holdovers from Brian Flores' staff.
New Coaches
McDaniel reportedly has found his offensive coordinator, offensive line, and wide receivers coach, amongst others. Wes Welker returns to South Florida to work with receivers. He's coming from San Francisco where he worked with McDaniel.
Matt Applebaum will run the offensive line after doing the job at Boston College the past few years. He is familiar with the blocking and running schemes McDaniel will implement.
While McDaniel himself will call the plays, new coordinator Frank Smith from the Chargers will be very involved, perhaps taking a similar role that McDaniel had in San Francisco with head coach Kyle Shanahan.
All of the new coaches have experience with the offensive line, which was clearly the Dolphins' biggest weakness this past season, and know the schemes McDaniel will run.
Calendar
Starting February 22nd, NFL teams can designate players for the franchise or transition tag.
One candidate is tight end Mike Gesicki, one of the best pass catching tight ends in the league. The thought here is the Dolphins find a way to hold onto the free agent. Productive defensive end Emmanuel Ogbah is another player the team will likely look to re-sign.
March 1st starts the scouting combine. If the Dolphins can find some of the talent they found in the first two rounds of last year's draft it would be a home run.
March 16th, at 4 p.m., starts free agency. Miami has the most money to spend in the league with about $75 million in salary cap space available.
April 29th is day one of the NFL draft. The Dolphins, via a trade last year, have the 29th pick which belonged to San Francisco. They then have the number one pick in each subsequent round except the 4th, where the Dolphins have 2 selections, for a total of 8 draft picks.
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