The next Miami Dolphins big-play receiving threat, cornerstone blocker on the offensive line or every-down running back might make his lasting pre-draft impression on the organization this week at the NFL scouting combine in Indianapolis.

New Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel has had his coaching staff assembled for less than two weeks, but the group has quickly had to study prospects at various positions before meeting them in interviews this week and evaluating them over physical testing, measurements and drills.

Before the NFL draft that runs from April 28-30 this year, the scouting combine begins Wednesday and concludes on Saturday, with some teams’ coaches and executives also holding media interviews on Tuesday.

“You’re always looking for guys that love football,” Dolphins general manager Chris Grier said in an interview released by the team on Monday. “For us, we were talking about how important it is, the interview part when we’re really getting to sit down and meet the players for the first time.”

For the former college football players that have spent the past several seasons putting together impressive film, their performance in Indianapolis can either enhance their draft stock or bring up red flags that will keep NFL teams away, causing them to sink in the draft and lose money.

“It can be stressful,” Boston College center Alec Lindstrom, who has been preparing for the combine in South Florida with trainer Pete Bommarito, told the South Florida Sun Sentinel. “It’s one of the biggest weeks of your life. It’s the biggest job interview I’ve had so far in my life. There’s a lot of stress, but I’m confident.”

Said Tulsa offensive tackle Tyler Smith, who has also been working out with Bommarito: “This is one of the biggest events in my life, especially in the career field that I want to go into. It’s important to just take everything a day at a time, focus on what you got to do just in the now. Because you can only affect things in the present. Everything in the future will fall into place based on your preparation in the present.”

Lindstrom and Smith play positions the Dolphins are sure to be focused in on. Revamping the offensive line will be a priority this offseason, with free agency beginning on March 16 ahead of the late April draft. Miami should also be looking to add receivers for quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, enhance the running game with a tailback to run behind an upgraded line and possibly find an inside linebacker to complete the defense if it can keep everything else intact.

The direction the Dolphins go in the draft will largely be dictated by what holes are either addressed or created in free agency. Miami is projected to have league-leading cap space. Before getting into roster additions, the team also has to determine if it retains impending free agents in defensive end and 2021 sack leader Emmanuel Ogbah and top tight end Mike Gesicki, who could be a question mark of a scheme fit in Miami with the importance of blocking at his position in McDaniel’s offense.

“Being able to know that we have flexibility to do stuff is good, but at the end of the day, we’re going to build a team that’s best for us,” said Grier of having money to spend in free agency.

McDaniel had an interesting analogy in the same interview released by the team.

“It’s not like mom’s allowance she just gave you, that you’re like, ‘Hey, we have some money. Let’s go spend it,’ ” the Dolphins’ first-year coach said. “Flexibility, for sure, that matters, but then that doesn’t always mean, you have money, you can spend it. Which is why I rely on [Grier] so much, because he — ‘Mike, now, let’s think about it.’ And that’s a huge part of the process that coaches can be short-sighted, at times, so you need proper balance when talking through anything, especially salary cap, spending limits.”

As the Dolphins now have former Boston College offensive line coach Matt Applebaum to teach the unit and with BC having Lindstrom and three other linemen as draft prospects — guard Zion Johnson and tackles Tyler Vrabel and Ben Petrula — it could be a good bet that Miami takes one of Applebaum’s blockers with the Eagles.

“Coach Applebaum is like me. Outside zone is his thing. It’s my thing,” Lindstrom said. “Coach McDaniel, he came from San Francisco, and they run the outside-zone play really well.”

Smith was in a spread scheme in Tulsa, and the linemen became familiar with a series of techniques — zone, outside zone, counter, power, he listed.

Blockers currently slated to get selected around the end of the first round, where the Dolphins draft at No. 29, include Minnesota tackle Daniel Faalele and Central Michigan tackle Bernhard Raimann. Both are big, physical linemen that could fit a downhill rushing attack under McDaniel, but each raises questions in pass protection that were seen at Senior Bowl practices in early February. Northern Iowa’s Trevor Penning impressed that week, possibly meaning he has catapulted his stock out of Miami’s reach at 29.

Among receivers that could be around late in the first round are Penn State’s Jahan Dotson, Arkansas’ Treylon Burks, Alabama’s Jameson Williams or Ohio State’s Garrett Wilson or Chirs Olave. Greater clarity on which will position themselves too high in the first round for the Dolphins to snag could come this week at the combine.

The prospects will be put through arduous interview sessions that will test their football IQ, character and mental stamina.

“Be yourself,” Lindstrom said he received from older brother Chris Lindstrom, a guard for the Atlanta Falcons that went through the process three years ago. “They’re going to really try to test your knowledge of the game, they’re going to test who you are, they’re going to look into you — do you have any problems off the field? Just being able to answer those questions and then showcasing my mental knowledge of the game.”

Said Smith: “I’m an honest guy. I’m not going to try to come in there and put on a façade. I just want to talk man to man, let them [know] a little bit about myself, let them know what I bring to the table.”

McDaniel said, from early talks working with Grier, that the two align with what they look for in players. McDaniel can sense it in conversations with players already on the Dolphins’ roster constructed by Grier.

“Their values, I can feel their passion when they’re talking to me about the Miami Dolphins moving forward,” he said. “There’s indicators like that all over the place, as well, entering into this whole thing, knowing that our philosophies are kind of parallel.”