If you were looking for the right words to describe Miami Dolphins head coach Mike McDaniel, quirky, smart, relatable and successful would probably be four of your first choices. Now successful may raise some eyebrows here, but consider, in his first three seasons as the Dolphins head coach, McDaniel has won 28 regular season games and made two Playoff appearances. In the history of Miami Dolphins football, only two other coaches – Don Shula and Dave Wannstedt – could boast similar success.
Yet as McDaniel enters his fourth season as the head coach of the Dolphins, it’s not disputable that he’s on the hot seat, and perhaps accordingly, he’s more hot-headed than ever. Joe Schad of the Palm Beach Post described McDaniel’s recent tone as “peeved, irritated and fed up,” but internally, it’s being viewed as a necessary shift in culture for a team whose culture has maybe been a little too laid back in the first three years of McDaniel’s tenure.
“I think there is a culture shift,” Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa said on the first day of mandatory minicamp. “I feel it.”
Although McDaniel hasn’t necessarily come right out and defined his altered approach as a culture shift, the way he’s spoken about his team and the expectations he has for them says it all.
“The football program has to focus on football. For that to happen, there’s a lot of things that can’t dominate people’s time, which is like first and foremost, being on time, being accountable to each other and staying to the rules,” McDaniel said.
“Feeling very open as a team that, ‘Hey, it’s okay to call someone out when they deserve to be called out.’ And for those people to, it’s okay to call someone out when they deserve to be called out. And for those people to, it’s okay to be called out as long as you change your f***ing behavior, okay?”
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McDaniel’s shift toward a more old-school, hard-nosed approach might not be the worst thing in the world, so long as if the Dolphins head coach doesn’t lose his new-school approach to calling plays. Since McDaniel took over in Miami as one of the youngest head coaches in the NFL in 2022, he’s been lauded for the unique and speedy offense he’s crafted as the Dolphins play-caller.
Last season, Miami came back down to earth a bit, finishing 18th in yards and 22nd in points per game, but some of that could be chalked up to Tua Tagovailoa missing six games.
In 2025, McDaniel won’t have the luxury of having any built-in excuses. And based on the way he’s been talking, he’s not looking for any excuses either.
