We have now witnessed Mike McDaniel as the head coach of our Miami Dolphins for three full seasons. As we approach his fourth season at the helm, I asked the following question:
What do you think of Mike McDaniel as the head coach of our Miami Dolphins? Do you believe he will be the long-term solution for this team in that role? Do you see him growing into the job, or is he doomed like so many others before him? Should Miami continue to support him as he develops, or should they have already cut their losses and moved on?
Below are some of your answers and thoughts-
LSC20&Olney sees Mike as a nice guy but knows that doesn’t get the job done at the NFL level.
He seems like a genuinely nice guy. He would probably make a pleasant neighbor. Unfortunately this is professional football. The characters that play the game are varied and in some cases violent and undisciplined. Coach Mike simply doesn’t have the strength of personality to corral the characters that play the game at this level. He might do better with younger college kids, but given today’s NIL environment I doubt that as well. Maybe high school ball is his cup of tea as a head coach.
jmworacle seems to have been happy with him when he first arrived, but has since soured on the whole thing.
Mike McDaniel was a breath of fresh air when he arrived. The first two seasons caught everyone by surprise. However, with Chris Gier’s ineptitude refusing to invest in proper support, the other teams caught on to the offense, and the Kansas City playoff game exposed it when the offense showed it couldn’t properly function under less-than-ideal conditions.
In the 2024 pre-season, hindsight showed that limiting Tua’s playing time hindered his progress. As for this year, if one of the “reserves” shows a Skylar Thomas-like promise, then have them play with the first team to see how they do against players who’ll be playing on Sunday rather than sacking groceries at Publix.
Mrcogburn says, “Next.”
Not even the best OC the Phins have had. Next man up.
JKBMia sees him as swinging too far, the opposite of Flores.
He does not look like the guy who can get us over the proverbial “hump”.
I was hopeful after his first year, and he just hasn’t improved since then.
Creativity has faded, and he hasn’t commanded the respect from the entire locker room, nor brought in the right players to be able to delegate that to.
Flores was far too extreme on one side and MMD is far too extreme on the other.
I assume without a playoff win he will be gone after this year, regardless of injuries, luck, circumstance, etc.
tvegas897 sees this as his do-or-die season.
Gonna find our what Mikey is made of this year. Has he learned anything about play calling, clock management, discipline? And most importantly, Leadership? This year is crtitically important. If there isn’t massive improvement, the question will answer itself
Francesco ITA believes he’s too much of a nerd.
It’s psychological … Nerdy people usually get lost in details while losing the grip on the bigger picture.
And all his “peculiar” behaviors (like delaying too much the call of a play or insisting too much with some plays) hardly will be improved because of that. All his nerdy/quirk behaviors also are a difficult match with NFL players, since is the kind of persona that they would have bullied in high school… Would work only as OC or if the team wins big …
SlayerNation1 says “No” with a lengthy explanation.
No, is the one word answer, presuming the goal is meaningful winning in Professional Football at the highest level.
Mike would be a great story but it would be trying to recreate the Greatest Show on Turf, and there is a reason why that SB team is a unicorn. I think Mike is similar in personality to the lachrymose, player’s coach, Dick Vermeil.
Mike was an over correction experiment in the wake of Flores. There were 7 HC openings and Mike got exactly one interview and one team of interest. Ross and Grier thought they outsmarted The World. Like a lot of poseurs in business, Mike has to rely on sleight of hand to distract from the lack of substance. In this case gimmickry: gimmick Offense, Orange Jersey High School culture, meetings at :25 after, silly and distracting attire.
Same basic record as Flores. To my eye, McD was a skilled therapist for Tua and Tyreek got Tua and Mike paid, overpaid that is.
We know the foibles: soft on discipline, a pushover/exploitable personality, bad clock management, too married to playsheet, unable to evolve, in-game adjustments and an ineffective communicator.
You don’t need to be a wordsmith to be an effective communicator. You can be a Dan Campbell type for this job, even McVay and LaFleur are not massive ex-players, but command respect.
It is hard to get buy in, if it sounds like you learned your elocution skills from this guy…
Dolphster believes he needs to learn to learn from his mistakes.
I dump on McD a lot. Not because I don’t think he CAN be the guy. But because he doesn’t seem to learn from his mistakes and adapt (like when good teams solve the offense and he just keeps going to the same well over and over). If he can change some of his ways and introduce a little discipline to the team (if that ship hasn’t sailed already), I think he CAN be the guy. But I don’t think he will make the changes necessary, so he probably won’t be the guy.
gertdoggy sees this season as his last chance, and he needs to focus on head coaching duties and give up some of the other things to other coaches.
I think he knows this year is a live or die year for him so the ball is in his court. I wish he would give up the play calling duties and just concentrate on being a head coach. I also want to see him do better at making adjustments throughout the game. If we go into half time struggling on offense or defense it seems like we are the only team that comes out exactly the same way
Phin is the Word believes that the lack of improvement in certain areas gives you the answers.
You can almost overlook the more glaring differences between him and an archetypical NFL coach: PHD look, bizarre attire, locker room player indifference (which works when you’re winning but o/w… eh), etc. The three things I see that haven’t improved his stock is his design of an offense that relies on an unreliable QB, his lack of adjusting both in-game and when said QB has his yearly injury hiatus, and… the fact we’re still mulling this “is he the guy” question over after all this time.
That’s our random ten comments for this evening. The rest of the comments can be seen in the original post HERE. It seems as if the majority’s take on McDaniel is that he is either already cooked, in way over his head, or entering a season where he either wins big and a playoff game, or he will be working for someone else the following season.
As with all of these posts, I thank everyone who shows up each evening/next morning and reads our question and answers our Phinsider Question Of The Day.