5 things to know: Miami Dolphins head coach candidate Mike McDaniel

Some familiar names have popped up as the Dolphins begin lining up interviews for their vacant head-coaching position.

Then there’s a name that only sounds familiar.

NFL Network reported Tuesday that the Dolphins requested to interview Mike McDaniel.

No, not Josh McDaniels, the offensive coordinator of the Patriots and former Broncos head coach. But Mike McDaniel (singular), the offensive coordinator of the 49ers and former Broncos ballboy.

Another candidate: 5 things to know about Bills offensive coordinator Brian Daboll

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McDaniel is only 38 years old, the same age as Brian Flores when he was named Dolphins coach. He is in his fifth season with the 49ers, having also served as run-game coordinator and run-game specialist. He also has been with the Falcons, Browns, Washington, Texans and Broncos, plus the UFL’s Sacramento Mountain Lions.

A closer look at McDaniel:

What he is and what he isn’t with San Francisco 49ers

Although McDaniel is the 49ers’ offensive coordinator, head coach Kyle Shanahan calls the plays. McDaniel helps create the game plan and is in charge of the run game.

So how did the 49ers do on the ground this season? It’s complicated. They finished seventh in the NFL at 127.4 rushing yards per game, part of an offense that ranked seventh overall and 13th in scoring (25.1 points per game). Elijah Mitchell was San Fran’s top rusher at 207 carries for 963 yards (4.7 average) and five touchdowns, but he played only 11 games. Raheem Mostert suffered a season-ending knee injury in the opener.

At one point last summer, McDaniel was asked if he might dabble in play-calling, perhaps in a preseason game.

“I don’t think that that does the 49ers good to try to work me in selfishly as the play-caller,” McDaniel told the San Francisco Chronicle. “We’re very comfortable in our working relationship, and he relies on my opinion.”

The Dolphins once hired a head coach who had the title of offensive coordinator elsewhere even though he did not call plays: Joe Philbin in Green Bay.

One thing Steve Ross will love about McDaniel

Ross leaned on one of his favorite principles — collaboration — when he explained why he fired Flores.

“I think an organization can only function if it is collaborative and it works well together,” Ross said.

So as the Dolphins do their homework on McDaniel, a quote of his from last summer is bound to jump off the page.

“It's really business as usual,” McDaniel said. “It's a very collaborative situation that Kyle Shanahan really creates on his coaching staff. And in that process, you have a voice and you're part of all different phases. So now maybe I lead some collaboration among the coaching staff a little bit more, but it's really not that different, to be honest."

McDaniel overcame troubles with alcohol

McDaniel’s climb up the coaching ranks hasn’t gone in a straight line.

McDaniel was fired in Houston by Gary Kubiak for oversleeping. In Cleveland, coach Mike Pettine discovered bottles of vodka under McDaniel’s desk. And in Atlanta, staffers confronted him because he could be moody and sometimes smelled of alcohol.

Eventually, McDaniel met with coach Dan Quinn, GM Thomas Dimitroff and assistant GM Scott Pioli, recognizing he needed help. The team helped arrange a few-week stay at an in-patient treatment facility. He also was diagnosed with depression.

Luckily, this is where he story takes a turn.

McDaniel has said Jan. 4, 2016, marked the date of his last beer. In 2017 he told USA Today he has “zero desire” to ever drink again.

If McDaniel becomes a serious candidate in Miami, the Dolphins will do extensive homework on him. One call to Dimitroff might assuage concerns.

"It was beyond admirable for a young coach who's a very intelligent person and also understands in this league, you can set a tone and all of a sudden you have a stigma attached to yourself if you're admitting certain things," Dimitroff said. "When your brother's struggling, you have to be there to help him and vice versa. I think that's what we did with Mike."

McDaniel: "For the first time in my life, I had men stand behind me and say, 'Hey, you're not alone, dude.' "

Always knew he’d be in NFL … after starting off in banking

McDaniel grew up the son of a single mother. He used to bike from Greeley, Colo., to spend his summer days collecting autographs from Broncos players. Along the way, he formed a friendship with Broncos videographer Mike McCune.

One day, McDaniel brought his mother, Donna, to camp and introduced her to McCune. Eventually, she married him.

Later, McDaniel received an academic scholarship from Yale, where he earned a degree in history. He interned in investment banking, but he knew he was no banker.

“For me to ultimately be satisfied in my career I had to be passionate about it, and unfortunately there wasn’t much that I was passionate about besides football,” he once told Sports Illustrated.

If not banking, what?

When McDaniel was in the seventh grade, he wrote inside his Little League helmet, beside NFL decals, “I will make it.”

“I was very specific with my word choice," he told The Press Democrat of Santa Rosa, Calif. “I was consciously not writing 'play,' because I was smart enough to know. But I made a decision when I was very young that I wanted to be a professional football coach."

How did McDaniel know he wouldn’t cut as an NFL player? He was just a 5-foot-9, 175-pound backup receiver at Yale.

Imagine the Dolphins going from Flores, a 219-pound ex-linebacker at Boston College, to McDaniel.

"You go to these new teams, and I always get a kick out of the first time that we're around the players, and I start talking to an offensive lineman about technique," McDaniel said. "And the look they give me is priceless. Because I get it."

Two endorsements from NFL players

When the 49ers named McDaniel offensive coordinator, All-Pro fullback Kyle Juszczyk was delighted.

"Absolute BEST in the game!!," Juszczyk tweeted. "Nobody gets more out of his players than McDaniel! Most creative run scheme out there! So deserving of this promotion!!"

And ex-John I. Leonard standout Pierre Garcon, who led the NFL with 113 receptions for Washington in 2013, called McDaniel "probably the smartest one" of his position coaches.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Mike McDaniel: Miami Dolphins head coach candidate, 5 things to know