Mike McDaniel, Miami Dolphins
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Mike McDaniel walks onto the field before a game against the Cardinals.
For the last several seasons, the Miami Dolphins’ special teams have, well, been anything but special.
At the end of last season, special teams coordinator Danny Crossman was relieved of his duties, and the Dolphins hired former Tennessee Titans coordinator Craig Aukerman to take over his position.
Aukerman met with the Miami media recently and discussed the change to the culture of the special-teams room.
Special Teams Position Battles
The Miami Dolphins will have a new long snapper and potentially a new punter as Miami signed former Titans’ All-Pro Ryan Stonehouse. He will compete with Jake Bailey, who struggled with hangtime and ball position over the last two seasons. The two are expected to battle it out in training camp this summer. The job could come down to who kicker Jason Sanders feels more comfortable with as his holder.
“I think everything – holding, punting, directional punting, distance, hang time – all that stuff. Obviously Jake (Bailey) has a lot of reps with Jason (Sanders), but it’s also going to be our job to get Ryan (Stonehouse) and Jason ready just in case he ends up winning the job,” Aukerman said. “Who knows, but Jason had an unbelievable year and I credit Jake with that, too, because it’s tough to go through a bunch of long snappers in a season and I thought those guys handled it like pros last year and obviously Jason had one of his best years of his career which was unbelievable. Yeah, everything will be factored into the competition.”
Aukerman said he is looking forward to the competition between Bailey and Stonehouse, who have both been to the Pro Bowl representing the AFC.
“My major thing is I’m all about competition. Jake (Bailey) is an All-Pro punter. Ryan Stonehouse is an All-Pro punter,” Aukerman said. “When an opportunity arose that Ryan was free, hey, let’s bring him down here. Nothing is guaranteed to anybody. It’s all about competition and the thing that I love about competition, it makes the guys step up their game, and I think this is going to be being for both of them. Coming in here and competing against one another, two really good punters, and I think that’s only going to help those guys out.”
Stability at Long Snapper
The Miami Dolphins cut former long snapper Blake Ferguson and welcomed Joe Cardona from the New England Patriots, who was a free agent. Aukerman was excited that Cardona was available and did not hesitate to bring him in.
“It’s big. An opportunity to get Joe (Cardona) – when that happened, I think I sprinted down to Chris’ office and said, ‘Hey, this guy has done it for 10 years in the National Football League at a very high level,”’ Aukerman said. “I was excited for the opportunity to have that chance to get him and then when he signed, it was really big for us as an organization to bring a guy in there with that type of experience – a guy who’s won multiple Super Bowls, who’s done it a very long time – so really excited to have him here.”
Miami did not have Ferguson for most of last season and seemed to rotate long snappers every three games. Aukerman knows how difficult that could be, and he is looking for Cardona to take over the position.
“It’s tough. And that’s why these guys – I’ve been very excited about their process that they go through every single day. They are pros and it’s fun to watch them understand and talk about different things and communicate, and when you have three or four different long snappers, it’s tough because maybe one of the times he’s a left-hander and now it’s going to be a different type of spin that’s going to be on the ball,” Aukerman said. “So all those different types of things that happen during the game or practice, that’s why I give those guys so much credit, being able to deal with the adversity that was happening with having a bunch of different snappers and then them competing at such a high level was big.”