The Dolphins are one of the teams with reported interest in running back Jonathan Taylor, who was granted permission to seek a trade earlier this week.
Head coach Mike McDaniel was asked about that interest during his Thursday press conference and successfully avoided tampering with his answer, at first joking that his two-year-old daughter “just tweeted a report.”
“I’ve said this before: I’m not going to speak about other players,” McDaniel said. “And how many times do I have to explain, Chris Grier’s job is to work. He works at it a lot and keeps me abreast when they’re real. Generally when things are real, I don’t have questions about them. There’s been kind of a consistent pattern where we’ve talked about all sorts of players.
“So reports, whatever, that’s kind of the — it seems like the noise that is around the business.”
McDaniel added that he’d be doing a “terrible job” as a head coach if he were focused on the rumors instead of the 90 players he’s leading in Thursday’s practice.
“I’m very much just concerned about all those guys and anything less — if I’m worried about whatever hasn’t come to my desk yet, I think that’s an opportunity cost that I’m not willing to pay for all those players that I’m excited to go coach today,” McDaniel said.
But, it’s been clear that Miami has been looking to add to its run game. The club was interested in Dalvin Cook before he signed with the Jets and reportedly checked in with the Raiders about Josh Jacobs. While the Dolphins have a solid stable of backs, McDaniel noted he’s always valued the position.
“Let’s say on an average season with 17 games now, you have 1,200 plays on each side of the ball. And how many of those plays are the running backs touching it? It’s a valuable position that you have to have depth at,” McDaniel said. “It’s a big portion of your touches and you understand that in that process, that you have to have a good solid group for the team and for your offense for the whole year.
“And I got my feet wet, really, in NFL game planning in the run game. So it’s near and dear to my heart.”
If the Dolphins were to add Taylor, that could take the offense to another level. But Miami will have to examine if the cost of acquiring Taylor plus the cost of making him happy with a new, lucrative contract is worth it.
