Dolphins Made The Right Move Firing Mike McDaniel

Dolphins Made The Right Move Firing Mike McDaniel

Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross fired head coach Mike McDaniel on Thursday morning. It was a well-thought-out move that, in the end, was the correct decision. Some say the Dolphins waited too long to fire him and should have done it on Monday, but that’s easier said than done.

I do believe Ross liked McDaniel and wanted it work. He gave him a long leash and could have easily fired him on Halloween after Ross relieved general manager Chris Grier, but he wanted to keep him the rest of the season, and when the Dolphins went on a 4-game winning streak, it looked like the Dolphins were going to keep him.  

I really thought Ross was going to keep him, but whatever conversation Ross and McDaniel had on Tuesday, when McDaniel gave his sales pitch, obviously, something made him realize he had to make a change.

I think he liked and respected McDaniel, but in the end, Ross had to decide what was best for the organization and not stay the status quo. Plus, the Dolphins interviewed several candidates for the general manager position, and I’m sure the head coaching position and their takes were asked about in the interviews. 

McDaniel brought a fresh offensive scheme that ranked as the best in the NFL in 2023. The high point was scoring 70 points against the Denver Broncos, but good as McDaniel’s offense was, it never did well against winning teams.

The Dolphins struggled horribly and even choked away a 3-game lead in the AFC East in December 2023, when the Dolphins finished the season with 4 of their last 5 games at home, including the season finale against the hated Buffalo Bills. Everything was there for the taking. McDaniel got the Dolphins to the playoffs in 2022 and 2023 but couldn’t win a game in the postseason, and the team regressed under his watch. 

Some will say it had to do with the way Grier constructed the roster, especially after losing some free agents at key positions, then trading premium picks, signing older free agents, and not drafting good players to supplement the free-agent losses. I get that point.  

ESPN analyst Ryan Clark said he felt that quarterback Tua Tagovalioa held this team back because of his injury history and not having a big-time arm. I don’t agree with that because McDaniel got Tua to play at a high level in 2022 & 2023, and in fact, he is the one who advocated for the big extension for him.

Yes, he missed games in 2024, but he didn’t simplify the offense for the other quarterbacks, and the offense struggled. If McDaniel felt he needed another quarterback, then I think he would have told management that. 

McDaniel has a good offensive mind, but he put too much on his plate calling the offensive plays. In every game he coached, except the last 3 with Quinn Ewers, his offense would take a delay-of-game penalty because he didn’t get the play in fast enough.

He was terrible with his coaching challenges. His teams could never play well against good teams. He wouldn’t stick with the running game when it was working and was pass-happy too often.

He did incorporate the 6th offensive lineman after the Cleveland game, and it helped ignite the running game, but he got away from that for some reason the last month of the season.

There were also questions about his ability to lead the team after last year, when several players showed up late to meetings, and he realized fines were getting through to them. Yeah, no kidding, it’s chump change for today’s athletes. He’s better this year, as shown by the team continuing to play hard for him despite the outside noise of his job security. 

In the end, despite the team playing better down the stretch and the team continuing to play hard for him, it wasn’t enough to keep his job. If McDaniel had stayed, he probably would have been looking at a complete roster teardown, and he would have been in a no-win situation: he would have had to win with lesser talent, probably wouldn’t have succeeded, and his job would have come into question again next year. The Dolphins decided not to kick the can down the road again and go for a fresh start. 

McDaniel is going to have suitors either as an Offensive Coordinator or maybe a head coaching job again, but the Dolphins needed a fresh start. McDaniel gave everything he had to the job, and I don’t doubt it, but it’s a results-driven business, and the results were going downhill. Even when the Dolphins had 3 or 4 wins in a row, it was fool’s gold, as this team couldn’t perform against better competition late in the season. 

I wish Mike McDaniel the best and thank him for his 4 years, but it was time for a change.