Hall of Famer Kurt Warner: Dolphins' offense brings me back to The Greatest Show on Turf

MIAMI GARDENS — Hall of Fame quarterback Kurt Warner is on the phone. You know he’s ready to share his thoughts on the Dolphins’ offense, but you’re not sure if he’s ready to make The Comparison. It’s probably the comparison he has heard countless times before, to The Greatest Show on Turf, the Rams' groundbreaking offense Warner engineered to devastating effects, not to mention a Super Bowl championship.

You wonder if Warner will push back at any hint that there are parallels to be drawn to these Dolphins. You don’t wonder for long, because in less time than there is between snaps in an NFL game, Warner begins by bringing it up himself.

“They’re very innovative,” Warner says of these Dolphins. “They’re doing things that nobody else is doing. And you know, a lot of these things kind of bring me back to The Greatest Show on Turf.”

Over the course of 15 minutes, whether the conversation drifts toward coach Mike McDaniel’s concepts, Tua Tagovailoa’s accuracy, Tyreek Hill’s unique gifts or the success of Miami’s running backs, over and over, Warner sees connections.

“I go back to The Greatest Show on Turf,” says Warner, an analyst for the NFL Network, including “GameDay Morning” at 9 a.m. Sunday.

Warner was in his first season as the starting quarterback of the then-St. Louis Rams in 1999 when he became one of the league’s great success stories, a former grocery store stockboy who became an overnight All-Pro and the inspiration for the 2021 film “American Underdog.” The Rams, coached by Dick Vermeil, went 13-3 and beat the Tennessee Titans 23-16 in the Super Bowl. They averaged 32.9 points per game, scored at least 30 points in all but six games including the postseason and became the benchmark against which all other high-flying offenses are measured.

Before breaking down what Warner most appreciates about these Dolphins, there’s an urgent benchmark that must be addressed. On Sunday, the Dolphins travel to Orchard Park, New York, to play the Buffalo Bills, the three-time defending AFC East champions who have lost only one of the past dozen home games against the Dolphins. In that, there’s a parallel to 1999.

Just as the Dolphins are 3-0, so, too, were the Rams entering Week 4. The Rams’ assignment: the San Francisco 49ers, who had beaten the Rams 17 consecutive times.

“And so we went and we destroyed the 49ers,” says Warner, who threw three first-quarter touchdown passes to Isaac Bruce in a 42-20 win. “That was the game that was kind of the turning point for us. Because you can be really, really good, but there’s turning points within every season where it’s like, ‘We’re good,’ but then you have a win, or a signature win, where you go, ‘OK, we’ve got something special. This is different than in the past.’ And I think that’s what these games mean. … There’s going to come a time where it goes from playing good to believing that you can win a championship.”

Will Miami Dolphins get that ‘signature' win over Buffalo Bills?

The Dolphins have beaten the Chargers, Patriots and most recently blew out the Broncos 70-20 on a record-setting day. None is in the class of the signature win Warner referred to, but this weekend’s showdown could be.

Still, the Dolphins have shown Warner enough to say this offense has championship potential.

“Nobody seems to have an answer,” Warner says. “And people are like, ‘I’ve never seen this before. We don’t know what to do.’ ”

The most obvious features are the pre-snap shifting and motion the Dolphins use, including rare inside-out motion.

“The way that they use motion to free up Tyreek Hill to work the middle of the field,” Warner says. “Because when you’re a timing-oriented team, the one thing that you don’t want is someone to mess up that timing. And so what messes up that timing is jamming and being physical. Again, I’ll go back to our team with The Greatest Show on Turf. That’s where we were so good and we scared people because we played so fast.”

Putting Hill in motion also puts man coverage in motion, taking away jams and letting Tagovailoa operate on schedule. Not only has Tagovailoa perfected his timing with receivers to the tune of 362 passing yards per game, but the Dolphins have managed to incorporate so many moving pieces while drastically cutting back on pre-snap penalties that dogged them in McDaniel’s first season.

“There’s a lot of things that go into our motion timing,” Tagovailoa says. “There’s some motion snap points that we say ‘snap here’ for certain plays and then some we say ‘snap here’ for other plays.”

Kurt Warner: Good luck trying to copy what Dolphins are doing

Warner says he’s starting to see other teams try to copy the Dolphins. Good luck, he says. The same happened in 1999.

Warner: “What we always said was like, ‘People can try to copy us but they don’t have the details. They don’t understand why we’re doing it. They don’t understand the uniqueness of it. That’s what makes us different. Even if people try to run the exact same play we run, they don’t have the quarterback we have and they don’t have the receivers that we have and they don’t have the intelligence within the system to use it the same way.’ ”

In no way is this to suggest McDaniel’s work is done, that he can shutter the mad scientist lab and kick back. The wildcat, you’ll recall, worked wonders for the Dolphins until it didn’t.

“The real tell is going to be, A) Can Miami continue to do this and have the same sort of success with the system? Can they stay ahead of the curve, looking to add nuances to the offense?” Warner says. Then, Warner adds, comes Part B: What will defenses do to slow the Dolphins?

“And then it’s the countering of Mike McDaniel going, ‘OK, they’re going to start taking this away, then here’s our counter.’ ” Warner says.

For now, Tagovailoa, Hill and Jaylen Waddle have enjoyed freedom to slice through the heart of defenses by working the middle of the field. Warner expects defensive coordinators to make that a high-priority item to take away.

“If teams are able to take that away, can they have the same sort of success attacking outside the numbers?” Warner says. “Miami’s going to try to do everything they can to say, ‘No matter what, we’re going to still find a way to throw it in between the numbers. We’re going to do what we do.’ ”

On average, Tagovailoa is releasing passes in 2.34 seconds, fastest in the NFL.

“With the rules that we have, it’s really hard to take away the quick passes in the NFL,” Warner says.

Dolphins rushing for 350 yards presents more problems

In the NFL, the scheming never stops. After Tagovailoa passed for 466 yards in the opener against the Chargers, the Patriots and Bill Belichick aligned their defense to make sure that wasn’t repeated. Using a more balanced attack, the Dolphins rushed for 145 yards and beat the Patriots 24-17. Then came the barrage against the Broncos in which Miami passed for 376 yards and rushed for 350.

It’s one thing to want to force teams to rely on their weakness. “Now you’re starting to ask, ‘OK, what is their weakness?’ ” Warner says.

In 1999, Warner threw for 41 touchdowns and only 13 interceptions. Bruce and Torry Holt combined for 18 touchdowns, but don’t forget that running back Marshall Faulk had 2,429 total yards from scrimmage, including 1,381 rushing. Plenty of The Greatest Show involved Faulk gliding across that turf.

More: Dolphins' Conga Line during win over Broncos rises to the top of NFL end zone celebrations

In 2001, Warner and the Rams went 14-2, again leading the league in scoring (31.4 points per game) but lost in the Super Bowl to the Patriots 20-17.

“They basically said, ‘We’re going to grab them and hit them and hold them and we’re going to do everything we can to mess up their timing, even to the extent that, hey, if we get some penalties, we’ll get some penalties. This is the only way we can slow down this team,’ ” Warner says. “And so teams want to try to do that, I’m sure, to Miami as well.”

More: Vic Fangio vs. Josh Allen fascinating Dolphins-Bills Sunday storyline

Three games hardly constitute a sample size, but it’s all we have in 2023. For what it’s worth, these Dolphins are averaging 10.0 more points and 115.6 more yards per game than the 1999 Rams in their first three games.

The nickname The Greatest Show on Surf is gaining traction in South Florida, but there’s far too much football to be played.

Maybe later this year, it’ll be time to start pressing those T-shirts.

Just like maybe early next year, the Dolphins will have a reason to party like it’s 1999.

Dolphins reporter Hal Habib can be reached at  hhabib@pbpost.com. Follow him on social media @gunnerhal.

Comparing The Greatest Show on Turf to the 2023 Miami Dolphins

Here's how the 1999 St. Louis Rams' offense compares to this season's Dolphins, both after three games.

Stat Rams Dolphins

Yards per game 394.7 550.3

Passing yards 295.0 362.0

Rushing yards 99.7 188.3

Points 33.3 43.3

Sunday's game

Dolphins at Bills

1 p.m., CBS; Fubo, NFL+, Paramount+ and YouTube by subscription

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Miami Dolphins' offense reminds Kurt Warner of Greatest Show on Turf