McDaniel’s season view

Although many coaches and players say they regard every game equally, McDaniel admits divisional games carry slightly more heft in his mind. The Dolphins open with five consecutive conference opponents, and two (New England on Sunday and the New York Jets on Oct. 9) are AFC East opponents.

McDaniel has those as red-letter games because they’re divisional opponents. He compared it to a 3e-point shooting contest in the NBA, where players have a rack of balls and there’s one ball on each rack worth double points.

“You have 17 games, all important,” he said. “There are six games that have a little more value, but [all] they’re still very important.”