The Dolphins Make Me Cry.com - Forums

It's official. (https://twitter.com/MiamiDolphins/status/1490465304140521477)

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FK8yME1WQAAEjjN?format=jpg&name=small)

Discuss.

I really don't know anything about this guy, which is good, I guess.  I hope he likes to play offense.

I guess since he likes smoking pot he can get the whole team baked AF. Then McDaniel can take the McDolphins to the McDonalds for some munchies LMAO....

As far as my own opinion:

I thought McDaniel was the worst option in the poll from the other thread - the second-worst option, Kellen Moore (also a Dolphins HC finalist), at least calls the plays - but at least Mike McDaniel is a better choice than the worst head coaching hire this round: Josh McDaniels.  Silver linings, I suppose.

I'm disappointed to see the Dolphins go with yet another candidate with zero head coaching experience, and I'm doubly disappointed to see them repeat the decision they made with Joe Philbin in hiring an "offensive coordinator" that doesn't even call plays.  But given the developments of the last week, this is probably the best MIA could do.  There should have been a larger focus on HC experience from the start of the search; now you lie in the bed you made.

I think McDaniel is a brilliant offensive mind who Kyle Shanahan has taken everywhere with him, but just like Flores, he is not a leader of men. We can get past the age part of being just 37, but he is clearly a lab geek. More like the players best friend then someone who can move their ass to do better. Flores obviously had a hard time with that due to personality defects and I think McDaniels will be the same, albeit the nice guy version.

Still, I can't deny how highly praised he is around the league. With guys like Philbin, Gase and Flores, they didn't really come with huge praise. McDaniels does so there is SOME optimism even though I think we fucked up this hiring process just like we do everything else. Genuinely hopeful though that he can turn around the O-Line, run game and thus, Tua.

9-8 team with lots of cap space and decent talent already? My ceiling for this season is 12 wins and my floor is 7. I genuinely believe our problem is lack of coaching so let's pray we found our next Shula.

So was Gase and Philbin.

I think this is the 7th consecutive coach we have hired without head coaching experince. Crazier people would think that's the definition of insanity but us homers know this was the right move because our great GM says so. That's not an attack on anyone but a reflextion of how I feel today. Pretty bummed about this organization. The freaking Jags accidently get Pederson and we get a guy no one else had interest in. Lord knows we've failed every single time we've tried to out smart other people with oour picks but this is the one I'm sure.

We're both in agreement that we didn't want another first time HC and there were far better options out there. However, the praise for Gase and Philbin was all a mirage to anyone who paid attention. Working with Peyton Manning in Denver isn't exactly hard and Jay Cutler, for all of his mopeyness and hysterical divorce rumors, is a good QB. He was never a "QB Whisperer". Philbin had Aaron Rodgers so enough said.

McDaniel seems to have a much better resume with worse QB options. I will definitely give him the benefit of the doubt but I have no delusions. It would be more surprising if he succeeded than if he failed. This is the same team that quit on Flores for half the year and towards the end, don't see how some 37 year old Soylent drinker is going to get them pumped for Buffalo.

First off, for anyone making the mistake it's McDaniel not McDaniels.  Secondly, the guy has been around football his entire life.  He started as a ball boy, then the bottom of the bottom and worked his way up from there.  For anyone who cares, he is biracial, something that completely embarrassed Deadspin as they made an entire article about how he is just another white head coaching candidate.  He graduated from Yale, so you know he's extremely smart.  Players absolutely love him, Kittle tried to get language in his contract that McDaniel could never leave (half joking I'm sure).  The thing about him not calling plays is not entirely true, there are times he calls plays and the niners have said it's more of a collaborative process then you would think.  His specialty regards the run game and everyone on the field being responsible for their blocks including WRs, something that would tailor to Tua well as it won't all be on him and maybe we can finally get a run game.  He is not a Gase or Philbin, those guys had a lot more to work with to show they were "gurus" before taking head coaching positions.  Other than him being a first year head coach, there isn't much to knock the guy on.  He was my favorite candidate after Harbaugh, so y'all should get on board, the majority of the Dolphins fan base if very excited about this hire.  One other thing, fwiw, the Cowboys fans want Moore gone, niners fans are pissed McDaniel is gone.

He seems like a real coach in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ev3Gm9zhlfg&ab_channel=TheQBSchool (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ev3Gm9zhlfg&ab_channel=TheQBSchool)

The nickname i saw already was "Bong Shula" .. i'll take it

^^^

Don't know why Kellen Moore at 33 was getting serious HC interviews. Really glad we didn't hire him but it sucks that he was even considered.

I see all the possible upsides to the guys but since we've literally never had anyone with "potential" work out it's pretty hard for me to buy into the hype right now. I just really have no confidence in Chris Grier with his track record.

What I find so interesting about this guy is that he's never played a down of football at any level, and that his calling card is his innovation and ingenuity.

What that means from my vantage point is that he's climbed the ladder of his profession based primarily on intelligence. He's a graduate of Yale University, and Yale certainly doesn't admit morons. Whatever morons they may admit by mistake likely don't graduate. In 2021 Yale had 46,905 applicants for admission to the university and accepted 2,169, a lowly acceptance rate of just 4.6%. Compare that to Michigan for example, which had an acceptance rate of 26%. Ohio State 69%. Alabama a whopping 83%. The top Ivy League schools like Yale are admitting only the cream of the crop. I suspect that in McDaniel's childhood and adolescence he was recognized as a gifted student and at least somewhat of an intellectual prodigy.

Now translate that to what he appears to have become passionate about -- coaching football. What you have here is McDaniel's career having consisted largely of using his intelligence to dissect the game and discover and implement competitive advantages for the teams he's coached. Someone's doing that with an IQ of let's say 140 (a guess) is entirely different from a former football Bubba's doing it with an IQ of just ~100 (which is average and expected).

At any rate, it's a very intriguing hire to me, as it marks a transition from "football experience" to mere intelligence as the calling card for the coach. The risk a team runs in hiring a coach of that nature is that he coaches from sort of an "ivory tower" and can't relate to the players as they play the game he never played. From all accounts that hasn't happened, however, as players of McDaniel's have raved about how he relates to them and puts them in position to maximize their performance and win.

So we potentially have the best of all worlds here -- a guy the players want to play hard for because he relates well to them and puts them in position to win, while implementing competitive advantages he's discovered via his intelligence.

I'll be on the edge of my seat to see how this team takes the field and plays next year.

He played WR at Yale.

https://yalebulldogs.com/sports/football/roster/michael-l--mcdaniel/10402

McDaniel was originally born in Aurora, Colorado in 1983. He graduated from Smoky Hill High School in 2001, choosing to attend Yale University while being a member of the football team and studying history.[1]

He’s an interesting guy and better than Moore, I don’t have any faith in this franchise or the league atm so we will see I guess.

The beauty of our team right now is that there is no "wait and see". We are 9-8, have a lot of cap space and were criminally under coached. If we go 7-10 this year, he's not the guy and should be fired immediately. We aren't rebuilding, we are going for the division next year. It's just a few more wins, not tripling our total. From Day 1, he has no excuses so we will know if he's the man in Year 1.

Yeah I think a lot depends on what happens with Tua. I think Tua is closer to Jimmy G ( although I still think Tua has more potential) than the QB’s that some of our previous coaches had, and McD brought the best out of him so, with what was available I think it’s the best hire.

The dolphins are a whirl windstorm of shit though so any optimism is gone until closer to the season.

I would say the number one concern is he has never been the play caller.  There is a big difference between being an OC on a team where the HC lets the OC run the offense (either because the HC likes to delegate or is more of a defensive minded coach) then an OC who is basically the assistant to the HC who is the real OC.  This is one reason why the Belichick coaching tree is such a disaster.  

People look at Flores and the defenses he coached at New England and call him a genius.  While he contributed to the overall game plan, for the most part he wasn't the mastermind but simply executing Belichick's game plan.  

Likewise McDaniel didn't develop brilliant game plans that lead to a superior SF offense.  He executed plans developed by Kyle Shanahan.    

Obviously the source for most HC's is DC and OCs on winning teams.  However, I think you want the guys who are true OC's and true DC's.  For example on a Rex Ryan coached team the OC is a true OC, he runs the offense with minimal input from the HC.  But the DC is not a real DC, on Rex Ryan team Ryan was the DC and the guy with the title of DC was the assistant DC.  

The above viewpoint is way off in my opinion.  This team didn't have a single player receive a single vote for the all-pro team this year.  Contrast that with teams that had players who received recognition through voting but who didn't make the team, let alone the teams that had several players actually make the team.

This team was coached up in 2021.  A team with zero players anybody thought had any business being on the league's all-pro team certainly shouldn't have had a winning record.  Anybody can argue there is some degree of error in voting of that nature, but there isn't error to the degree that a team getting zero votes for any player "in reality" has lots of talent that was overlooked.

https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2022/01/14/full-vote-totals-for-2021-nfl-all-pro-team/

Totally not true. Minkah Fitzpatrick and Jakeem Grant got votes! Oh wait a minute. Never mind ...  you are correct.

Well that's all that I need to know about him. Yuck this guy and Yuck Fale. He deserves to choke on a bulldog.

I wholeheartedly agree with this.  If Flores can be fired for not making the playoffs with a team that had its QB out for several games, and its top two WR's out for most/all of the season, and no true RB threat because that position couldn't be fixed last season; then McDaniel will get zero leeway from me this year.  I presume Miami will have better WR's and RB's this year, I can't see how they could possibly be worse; and the Rookies drafted the last two years have experience.

I hope McDaniel succeeds, and I will be rooting for him, but on paper this is a horrible choice for HC.  He only has 1 year as an OC, and that was basically running Shanahan's offense.  HE IS GROSSLY UNQUALIFIED FOR THE JOB.

As soon as Harbaugh re-signed with Michigan, Pederson had signed with the Jags, I guess I was always going to be a bit "meh" on who they got.

This is the fourth HC with no prior experience in the job that Ross has appointed, and the second who never called the plays as OC. I really do hope he turns out to be the Boy Wonder Genius that some are touting, but at first glance this is another cheap and nasty move by our owner.

Regardless of what happens, I am really hoping that Ross is forced to sell the team - the baggage he has accumulated for over a decade now is damning enough.

Flores wasn't fired for his W-L record.  He was fired for allegedly being toxic af and impossible to work with.

He was fired for winning.

No, according to the people who fired him, he was fired for being the wrong fit for the organization. I would also say that after 3 years, he should have been fired since his record wasn't any better than Gase. Flores won 1 more game than Gase. However, Gase had one playoff appearance. If he was no better than the previous coach we fired, then why keep him? Hell, most people were calling to fire him after the Jacksonville game. It's a results driven league.

There is no lawsuit if he was fired after the Jaguars game or the following week when we dropped to 1-7. Almost no coach survives going 1-7 in their 3rd year. If Ross had common sense, he would've done this and saved himself some trouble.

After being a Dolphins fan for 40 something years, I'm not sold on McDaniel at this point. But do you think Flores ever had a conversation with Tua like this? (https://www.facebook.com/MiamiDolphins/videos/4938385559542675) I seriously doubt it....

I am very excited about him being our coach, but I understand people not being sold on him.  This is his first HC gig and we've been down this road before, but you have to be excited watching that video.  Showing massive support for your starting QB is a great start.

I will 100% give him the benefit of the doubt, but I don't know if he can lead men into battle. Granted, no one apparently has been able to since Shula, but it takes a lot to get a bunch of egotistical millionaires to listen to you, and that goes for every sport. I hope he shows them he is putting the work in and knows his shit and that will be enough. Coaching has been an issue for this team for as long as I can remember, I just hope he could build a real staff. Might even keep some of the defensive staff for continuity and because they turned it around in the 2nd half.

I'm pretty stoked about McD getting the job. I've spent enough time listening to him talking X's and O's to understand how smart he is about the game, and believe he can help this team win.

Not overly excited or upset with this hire. I hope for the best but then again I have been doing that for 30+ years with this team so.......

None of us should be sold on McDaniel at this point, but he should have a clean slate to have our faith until he gives us reason not to.

Welcome back AZ. Long time not posts! I think it's hard for any long term fan of the Dolphins to keep getting hyped with every new hire. Here's to hoping for the best.

I agree.

This is a fair point.


Hey CF, I am still around, don't post often anymore but I keep up on the forums a few times each week.

I have split the race/ethnicity discussion into its own thread so as not to further derail this one.