Miami Dolphins bold predictions for Week 4 Monday Night Football vs. Titans
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Between the loss of Tua Tagovailoa, who was placed on IR with a concussion, and their loss to the Seattle Seahawks, the Miami Dolphins have not had a very successful September despite sitting pretty-ish with a 2-1 record in the AFC East.
Fortunately, Mike McDaniel isn’t looking to simply rest on his laurels and hope everything turns around, as after watching Skylar Thompson go down with an injury in Week 3, he’s decided to turn his attention to recent signee Tyler Huntley, who has already spent time with the Cleveland Browns and the Baltimore Ravens so far this season.
Will it work? Will Huntley not only help the Dolphins to survive but thrive in Week 4? Well, considering they’re facing off against one of the more unfortunate teams in the NFL in the Tenessee Titans, who are sitting at 0-3 with a point differential of -30, if ever there was a game to get a team back on track, this would be the one.
1. Mike McDaniel sets Tyler Huntley up for success
After watching Skyler Thompson take an absolute beating in Week 3, the Dolphins are going all-in on ex-Baltimore Ravens Pro Bowler Tyler Huntley, who will be starting against the Titans in Week 4.
Asked why he decided to give the journeyman signal-caller the nod in Week 4 over Thompson or Tim Boyle, McDaniel noted that he believes Huntley is the right man for the job, as his big game experience should come in handy moving forward.
“I think one thing that was supremely obvious to the team since he got here, and even more so this practice week, is Snoop [Huntley] has started multiple big games," McDaniel told reporters via Yardbarker. “Just understanding as a quarterback, what is required to win over teammates and take the place of somebody else and assert their own personality, their own skill set, their own traits within the offense and lead people. We've been very high on Snoop. His maturation has been expedited by him, and he's done an excellent job assimilating into the locker room.”
From 2021-22, Huntley appeared in 13 games with eight starts and played fairly well for John Harbaugh’s team, completing 65.7 percent of his passes for 1739 yards, five touchdowns, and seven interceptions on the way to a Pro Bowl appearance in 2022. If McDaniel can even just unlock that level of production out of the Utah product in addition to his production on the ground – 431 yards and three touchdowns during that window – the Dolphins should be set up well for a victory in Week 4, as even though the Titans have the fourth-best passing defense in the NFL so far this season, they aren’t nearly as effective on the ground against a dual-threat QB.
2. Will Levis learns even more in a brutal loss
Through the first four games of the 2024 NFL season, few quarterbacks have been as disappointing as Will Levis.
Originally drafted in the second round out of Kentucky, Levis played well enough for the Titans in 2023 to give him the reigns full-time as the team’s starting quarterback in 2024, but so far this season, he’s looked downright bad, throwing at least one interception in each of the Titans’ first three games while averaging just 193 yards per game. Levis has made some of the worst decisions of any player in the NFL, and things have gotten so bad that reports have had to ask his head coach, Brian Callahan, if everything is okay with his young QB.
While Callahan would obviously like to see Levis play better moving forward, on Wednesday, he pointed out that every mistake is a learning experience, especially for a young QB.
“I do think you certainly learn way more in failure, unfortunately, than you do in success,” Callahan explained via Tennessean. “Right now we've had enough failure to go around, but you're certainly hoping that promotes a whole bunch of growth. And I think that that's one of the things that's happening right now for Will and I've been really encouraged by that.”
Welp, good news for Callahan in Week 4, as it’s safe to assume there will be plenty of chances for Levis to learn against the Dolphins, as it’s safe to assume Miami’s pass rush will give him trouble all day while the secondary purposefully takes away the passes he likes to throw. While it’s hard to predict interceptions because so much goes into the play, it’s safe to assume that there’s a very good chance Levis’ streak will continue into Week 4.
3. The Dolphins return to their winning ways in Week 4
When Tagovailoa went down with a concussion in Week 2, fans openly wondered if the Dolphins’ season was over.
On paper, it makes sense; going from a Pro Bowler who routinely fights for the most passing yards in the NFL to either a Day 3 pick, a UDFA journeyman, or a player signed off a practice squad is a tough ask for almost any team but recall, if you will, that McDaniel’s mentor, Kyle Shanahan, has taken his team to the Super Bowl with the final pick in the NFL Draft under center, and it’s not too hard to imagine a world where Huntley is able to at least read a defense correctly, make quick reads off of motion, and ultimately run for positive yards if nothing is there.
Remember when Shanahan drafted Trey Lance out of North Dakota State despite fans feeling like Mac Jones was a better fit for his system? Much of that decision came down to his ability to stress defenses as both a game manager and a dual-threat runner; if Huntley can do the same thing in McDaniel’s offense, the Dolphins might go undefeated until Tagovailoa is eligible to return.
The post Miami Dolphins bold predictions for Week 4 Monday Night Football vs. Titans appeared first on ClutchPoints.
