The Dolphins Make Me Cry.com - Forums

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/46575310/tagovailoa-calls-some-dolphins-player-meeting-attendance

What you're seeing here is a head coach who is derelict in his duty as a leader, having established a free for all country club culture in the locker room, where players can flout rules and give low effort with insufficient consequences.

Some of the players are trying to compensate for that by asserting their own leadership and holding players-only meetings and such, though they are limited in their ability in that regard because they have neither the power nor the authority to levy consequences for other players' actions (missing those meetings, showing up late, etc.).

The whole thing stems from a head coach who would likely be great in the capacity of an offensive coordinator, where he doesn't have the responsibility of leading and establishing the culture for an entire team, but who is woefully miscast in his current capacity as head coach.

Jason Taylor always said Nick Saban was his favorite coach because he cracked down on the lazy, low effort players that undermined Taylor's exceptional efforts.  Mike McDaniel is at the opposite end of that spectrum.

I see that take as being short sided. If you're showing up late to a player's only meeting when you are 1-4, you aren't committed to the success of the team period. Sure maybe more of a disciplinarian head coach might be able to reign that in a bit, but in my opinion he shouldn't need to, players should make it their job to be on time especially if things aren't going particularly well. What I see are a lot of players that are just playing for a paycheck and not much else. They are in it mostly for themselves, not for the team. They aren't dedicated to making the team successful, they are dedicated to making a living and doing the bare minimum to continue doing that. That's the difference between good teams and average teams and below in my opinion and that's reflected in the standings. Miami could very well be 4-2 right now except for a few plays here and there and by that I don't mean they SHOULD be 4-2, no I mean the difference between being 4-2 and 1-5 is slim and every single play matters, you need every single player doing everything they can at every moment to be the best they can possibly be and it doesn't seem like that's the case and that's why their record is 1-5 instead of 4-2 in my humble opinion. Some of those losses would be wins not because of those 1 or 2 plays where they didn't get the job done but because of all the other plays in the game where they could have gotten more and wouldn't be in a position to need those 1 or 2 plays to win the game. Miami isn't losing because they can't win with the head coach they have it's because several of the players are not committed to success, that's a failure of the players themselves.

No, not every team has those players. Most successful ones don't have those players in my humble opinion or if they do, they are the one sitting at the end of the bench. Success has a price, some aren't willing to pay that price.

Every team has those players -- it's the head coach's job to establish a culture in which their behavior in that regard is not tolerated.

That's for two purposes:  1) winning, obviously, and 2) so that the players giving greater effort don't eventually throw in the towel themselves because their best efforts are being undermined by low-effort players whose behavior is tolerated.

And who put them at the end of the bench?  The head coach.

If he's unwilling or unable to do that, the entire team culture changes, and not for the better.

You need more than 22 players committed to winning to do that.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think this issue is strictly a Dolphins thing, I think most of the teams below .500 have either the same or similar problem. A lot of players are in it for a paycheck these days. The number of players truly committed to being the best is becoming scarce in the NFL.

I kind of get that Tua may be trying to take a little of the heat off of McDaniel, but it certainly doesn't help when an ex-Dolphin calls him out for not living up the standards he's preaching. Sure, this guy may have only been on the practice squad for a very short amount of time, but it's still not a great look.

Former Dolphins WR calls out Tua Tagovailoa for leadership comments after loss to Chargers

https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/former-dolphins-wr-calls-out-tua-tagovailoa-for-leadership-comments-after-loss-to-chargers/

"This dude…the starting QB…was late to the first team meeting during my 3 seconds on the Dolphins and everything was all cool in there,"

Pretty damning stuff from Armando Salguero.

Miami Dolphins Lack Leadership From Ownership, To General Manager, To Coach, To Tua Tagovailoa

https://www.outkick.com/sports/miami-dolphins-lack-leadership-from-ownership-general-manager-coach-tua-tagovailoa

The Miami Dolphins lack talent, don't make enough plays, and obviously aren't winning. But the biggest area where they fall woefully short is leadership – because it is lacking in this organization, from ownership, to coaching, to the general manager and quarterback Tua Tagovailoa.

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I've said this in another thread.   Ross created a party atmosphere with the orange carpet, Club Liv, minority owners with celebrity status, allowing a casino naming rights to the stadium, adding a bunch of bars, etc...   He's done very little to try to get rid of that atmosphere and both the players and coaches are taking advantage.

There's a LOT of axe grinding in here from Salguero. While I don't completely disagree with everything that was said, he's basically taken every single complaint registered against the Dolphins for the last 5 years and summed them all up in 1 article. C'mon. Where was this article a couple years ago when Miami was on a roll? This amounts to basically kicking a team when they are down.

When you are losing everything looks worse and winning cures all ills. The truth is somewhere in between.

Mando is voicing what a lot of fans feel.   Ross is not a competent owner.   He treats the team like it's happy hour at the bar as opposed to doing what it takes to win games.  It's been this way ever since he became the owner in 2009.   In his sixteen years of ownership, this team has been to the playoffs only three times and not won any divisional titles.  Let that sink in.

Yeah, I know Mando is voicing a lot of what Dolphins fans feel. That's my problem with this article. Is Mando just a Dolphins fan or is he a journalist? This wasn't written to identify the problems that Miami has, it was written to get a lot of clicks. I'm not impressed.

He's both a fan and a journalist.   He's been a beat writer for years.   And right now, he's voicing what a lot of Dolphins fans think... major changes are needed and ownership is a great place to start.

I'm curious to know what Mando's plan is to change the ownership of the Dolphins. If he felt Tua was the wrong QB to take in the draft, I don't remember seeing that article. If he felt that McDaniel was the wrong coach for the Dolphins when he was hired, I don't remember seeing that article either. I can't even remember an article criticizing Ross for keeping Grier on after Flores left.

Now he knows all these guys lack leadership? Because the Dolphins are 1-5? I guess they all lost their leadership abilities they had when they were 11-4 in '23. Hindsight is 20/20 as they say.

Disagree.  But the last time a FA whose number one goal was to win a ring signed with Mia #13 was still throwing the pig skin.  

There are players who choose Buffalo, KC, Pit, or Philadelphia because they feel it gives them the better shot at a SB.  But they aren't even considering Miami.  

I have seen listed on this site all the reasons why it should be easier for the Dolphins to recruit FA over a team like the Bills -- lower taxes, better weather, better night life, beaches.  Etc.  But here is the problem with that -- a player that is picking where he wants to play based on which city has more strip clubs or where he can make the most money instead of which team gives him the best chance to win a superbowl isn't exactly the type of player you want to be recruiting.  

I guess we are assuming that most players get to choose who they play for now?

All he can do is encourage fans to pressure Ross to sell the team.  But the bottom line is this.  Ross hasn't made a single good decision as Dolphins owner.  Not one.   Every move he made has not worked out for the better.   

Free agents do.  And the Colts are a lot less likely to have a player demanded he be traded than the Jets.

It's not like the team accomplished anything of note from 1990-2009 under Wayne Huizenga.

I would imagine that Miami residents, in particular, would appreciate an owner that paid for a several-hundred-million-dollar stadium upgrade - an upgrade that drastically improved the fan experience - out of his own pocket, instead of extorting the taxpayers with a threat of moving the team like the Marlins did.  As a Bay Area sports fan, I have seen what ACTUAL "shitty owners" look like in the city of Oakland, who went from 3 pro sports teams to zero in the space of 5 years, primarily because Oakland taxpayers refused to be extorted by said shitty owners.

Some Free agents do. Most have at most 1 or 2 offers from teams that they would be willing to accept (if the money isn't at least close to the best offer, it's a non starter), so maybe they are choosing between Miami and another place so they are not really choosing who they want to play for, more like they are taking the better of 2 choices.

Most players are either with the team that drafted them or they are playing with the team that offered them the best contract. There's a select few that actually get to choose which team they would like to play for and why.

I realize that nobody gets offers from all 32 teams. 

But lets say a player gets comparable offers from Miami and Green Bay.  The player that picks Miami over Green Bay because the weather is nicer and it has a better bar scene is less likely to be a motivated player than the one who chooses bad weather and better shot at playing in the post season. 

...or, the player who chooses MIA/SEA/LV/DAL/TEN over GB/KC/BAL/BUF/PHI is simply saying "I don't want to pay state income tax, fuck everything else."

That is just another way of saying he only cares about money. 

Pappy's contention is that less NFL players care about the winning than in the past.  My contention is that the same number of NFL players care but a smaller portion are playing for the Dolphins.

Choosing a low state tax state, is different than wanting to be coached by Shula or catch balls thrown by Marino.  There are still plenty of players picking teams for football reasons, they just aren't picking the Dolphins. 

I don't like when "selfish" things like money or living situation are used as negatives for where players choose to play.  It's a job.  We all do (and should) weigh those types of options when picking employment.  Work environment (like who your coach and teammates and team culture) matter too, but it's just part of a larger package of perks, like with any job.

Let's also remember that players choosing the team is only half the equation. A player cannot choose to play somewhere that doesn't make an offer.

I disagree with this.  I don't want an owner like Jimmy Haslam in Cleveland or Jerry Jones in Dallas that get way to involved with managing the team.  I want an owner that will put up the money to pay players and hire a GM to do the job of managing the team.  And get somewhat involved with hiring the head coach and maybe give some input with regards to the QB and top FA acquisitions.  Ross has provided stability which is a good thing generally.  Now it's time for Ross to replace Grier and McDaniel because they haven't gotten the job done.  Grier got a bit unlucky with his highly paid FA's getting injured, but he bet on some of the wrong players.  McDaniel with his lax attitude has lost the team, he'll go somewhere and be a great OC, but he's not HC material.

I don't disagree, I'm just saying that choice doesn't often present itself. Maybe 5 to 10 percent of players get to make that kind of choice.

My contention would also be that free agency has changed how many get to the make that choice. Before free agency even fewer got to make that kind of choice. Back then you played for whomever drafted you so there literally was no reason NOT to play for a ring. In fact playing for a ring was about the only way to get a better contract. With free agency if you put up gawdy stats, you can work that into a good payday with someone willing to pay and in my opinion that's what many players are more interested in. They couldn't care less if that translates into wins or not.

It's rumored there was a half time speech from someone in the leadership today (coach, Tua, who knows?) and the team went out and laid a complete egg in the second half.

It's all over folks. This isn't an invested team right now, it's a bunch of individuals out for themselves, and it ain't going forward from here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjGl9u2af8I

If the halftime speech was given by McDaniel, that's been something (among other things about him) I've been concerned about since he was hired.  You can't be a clown the vast majority of the time and then be taken seriously when trying to give an impassioned speech that galvanizes a group of professional football players.  They simply won't take you seriously.  You can't switch gears on the fly from "clown" to "Bill Cowher" (for example) and have it come off effectively.  Your audience simply can't adjust to that degree.  You are who you are in their eyes.  And there is no "clown" version of a halftime speech that is effective either.

The clown shtick may seem harmless, but it isn't harmless under those conditions.  It's a fatal flaw.

Exactly what I meant above:

https://x.com/FinsXtra/status/1979955001868042597

+1

McDaniel is a nice guy, but he's got no fire, no emotion; he's not NFL HC material.  They need to fire him now before they lose any more players.  I think the Dolphins are at that 62-7 Jags playoff loss where nobody cared except a couple guys.

It's real simple -- if a team takes on the personality of its coach, then its coach's personality must consist primarily of traits that are consistent with winning in the rough and tumble game of professional football.  The coach's personality can't be absent almost ALL of those kinds of traits and in their stead consist of the opposite of them -- a meek, clownish, goofball persona.

This is exactly what Tedy Bruschi was talking about in the video above.  And he's certainly been there and done that at a very high level in the league.

If McDaniel were coaching a tiddlywinks team it wouldn't matter -- his personality wouldn't detract from the effort.  But he's coaching professional football.  Quite the opposite.

McDaniel has the best win % of the three coaches hired by Chris Grier.  The problem is bigger than the coach. 

First, just because something isn't the only problem doesn't mean it isn't the central problem.  If heaven forbid you had stage-four cancer it would certainly overshadow your strep throat for example in your overall health situation.  It wouldn't be the only problem you had but it would sure be the most impactful one.

Second, the statement above splits hairs.  McDaniel's win percentage is 49.2%.  Adam Gase's was 47.9%.  Brian Flores's was 49%.  McDaniel isn't distinguished significantly from those other coaches in terms of win percentage.  All are essentially slightly below .500.

Third, McDaniel's win percentage doesn't distinguish him favorably from head coaches who have been fired and were subsequently never highly successful as head coaches in the NFL.  In terms of winning in the NFL at large, he's done nothing distinctive as a head coach.

The central problem is Grier.  McDaniel might also be a problem, but if he a failure as a coach, this means Grier has in three attempts been unable to find a suitable coach.   

Omar Kelly on the Dolphins: “Bad Roster, Soft Team, Soft Mentality.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnjG30Y1jIk

Ideally what you want is a head coach whose personality is consistent with the mentality of the city in which the team plays, and who obtains players whose style of play reflects that as well.  If you're coaching the Philadelphia Eagles for example, you want a hard-nosed blue-collar type head coach who has a Brett Favre type at QB and a central leader on defense whose style of play reflects that as well.

This is what attracted Dan Campbell to the Detroit job for example -- he had a certain kind of respect and admiration for how that city functions and what it stands for, and he wanted to infuse that into the organization both with his own personality/style and with the players he obtained.

In Miami that's a little tougher because the flavor of the city itself (and I grew up there) isn't consistent with football -- it's a laid back, glitzy, glam sort of environment.  For that reason the team has to give additional effort to overcome that with coaches and players whose mentalities and styles of play are consistent with football.

Unfortunately where the team is at present runs totally counter to that.  They have a meek, clownish head coach and a diminutive, oft-injured QB.  Those are the faces of the franchise at present, and they aren't consistent with the nature of football.  Consequently the team is just as soft as the city.

More of this kind of stuff, this time from Richie Incognito:

https://x.com/DavidFurones_/status/1980791927692788166?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1980791927692788166%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=

Everyone who has sat on their hands for the past three years of Mike McDaniel being a football nerd is coming out of the woodwork with their axes to grind.  They couldn't say "This is not how a Football Coach acts" when the Dolphins had the #1 offense in the league, but they can damn sure say it right now.

Note how you didn't see this kind of piling on when Brian Flores was 1-7 (twice!).  Because he was coaching football the right way.

Immediately after McDaniel was hired, I made the same case I am here for McDaniel's personality being a problem:

http://www.thedolphinsmakemecry.com/forums/index.php?topic=27201.0

This is what I said way back in February of 2022 (copied and pasted from the thread linked above):

No telling how it will play out, but I'm concerned about the fact that virtually all of the greatest coaches in college and NFL football history haven't been silly or goofy or whatever you want to call McDaniel in terms of the demeanor we're seeing, but have instead been serious and stern disciplinarians.  When that's a trait that's seen in virtually all coaches in that category, I think you have to wonder what the absence of that trait (apparently) and in its stead sort of the opposite -- silliness or goofiness -- will mean in terms of one's ability to be a successful head coach in the NFL.

Yes, you objected to McDaniel's personality from the beginning.

Which is why you disappeared when his team was having success, and only show up here when the team is doing poorly.  It's the same reason why these "He doesn't have the demeanor of a Football Coach" pilers-on had nothing to say when he was fielding the top offense in the league.

The problem you've had continually with regard to this topic is that you define making the playoffs as "success."

14 of the 32 NFL teams make the playoffs every year -- roughly 44%, slightly less than a coin flip in terms of probability.  A tremendous number of NFL head coaches have made the playoffs, even multiple times, and were nonetheless never highly successful overall as head coaches.

So whether I've badgered the forum like you do throughout McDaniel's tenure or whether I have more important things occupying my attention is immaterial -- he's never been successful enough to obviate my initial concerns, which were right on target.

Again, you didn't show up to make these "Only playoff wins count" points when the Dolphins were 9-3; that would show intellectual accountability.  Instead, you simply disappear, wait for them to lose, then come back to talk trash.

This makes these kind of threads ring extremely hollow.  If the Dolphins went on a run (like, say, the last Dolphins team to be 1-6) and made the playoffs, culminating in a playoff win, you wouldn't come back and admit your error.  You would simply disappear until the Dolphins start losing again, then come back and crow about how right you were.  It's exactly what you did with everyone who said Ryan Tannehill wasn't the problem in Miami.

And you STILL can't take accountability to this day: you're currently trying to represent that the reason why your comings and goings precisely track when your narratives are being reinforced or refuted has something to do with other important items demanding your attention in the real world, which no one buys.

Being 9-2 during a single season doesn't obviate the initial concern (McDaniel's personality) because it doesn't distinguish highly successful head coaches from unsuccessful ones who are eventually fired and do nothing extraordinary in the league.

Again you're generating criteria for "success" that are neither valid nor reliable and then using your own erroneous, self-generated criteria to determine whether someone should be eating crow or not.  You're way off-base.

An analogy:  if someone was skeptical about whether a highly-drafted QB was going to pan out, should he come back here and eat crow after the QB has a few good games?  Of course not, because a few good games have happened often enough even for QBs that never become highly successful that the criterion of "a few good games" is meaningless in determining the overall quality of a QB.

The problem isn't necessarily that you don't post when the Dolphins are playing well.
The problem is that you are a fixture when they aren't.  You only want to post when the team is doing poorly.

A person who only shows up when they can claim they are right but disappears when others have strong evidence they are wrong has no intellectual credibility.  The moment the facts on the ground contradict your position, you'll just disappear again.  You've shown this multiple times.

Again you're not grasping the point:  the facts have never contradicted my position.  McDaniel has never distinguished himself from coaches who are eventually fired and do nothing extraordinary in the league.

Yet you didn't have the confidence (or intellectual honesty) to make that argument when Tannehill was playing in the AFCCG, or when the Dolphins were sitting in the #1 seed with their best offense in 30 years; instead, you preferred to log off.  But the moment the cracks started to show, your schedule suddenly freed up and you were right back offering your "See, I told you this wouldn't work" analysis.

It is easy to claim prescience in hindsight.  An Eagles fan who disagreed with Andy Reid's hiring can disappear during his four straight CCG appearances, but pop back up in 2012 saying, "I told you he would never win anything."  A Patriots fan who disagreed with Belichick's hiring can go hide in a hole during his six titles, then miraculously resurface in 2023 saying, "See, I told you it was all Brady this whole time."

You keep doing the same thing.  Neither of those is a valid or reliable criterion for the overall success of a QB or head coach.  Therefore they don't adequately determine the (in)correctness of anyone's position regarding the overall success of Tannehill or McDaniel.

OK, fine:

Nick Saban was not a successful NFL coach.

Andy Reid was not a successful NFL coach in Philadelphia.

Dan Campbell is not a successful NFL coach.

We can play the "winners are winners" game... but then there are exactly 7 successful NFL coaches in the league.  (Unless "only one ring" doesn't count, in which case there is exactly one successful head coach and one successful QB employed in the NFL today.)

The good news is that Doug Pederson and Joe Flacco should both be available next year if Miami wants to hire people with a proven record of success.

Not to mention the coach with the greatest post-season proven record of success of all time. 

His entire line of argument is so vapid and useless.

So in order to be successful at football, you need a "hard-nosed blue-collar type" attitude.  You know, the kind of atmosphere that a city like San Francisco (with 5 rings to their name) is well-known for.  Furthermore, the "laid back, glitzy, glam sort of environment" in Miami isn't consistent with successful football... which is why the winningest coach in league history spent his career there.

Meanwhile, the "hard-nosed blue-collar type" cities of Detroit, Buffalo, Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Chicago have a total of one Super Bowl win among them.

This is astrology for men.  Absolutely worthless.

I don't hold positions about any of the above.

I've done enough posting on message boards to know that when accurate reading comprehension becomes the issue in a conversation, it's not worthwhile to continue it.

Spider you seem to think that because the Dolphins went 11-3 two years ago that McDaniel and/or Tua should never be criticized, sorry but it doesn't work that way.

11-6 and two key losses at the end of the season blew the divisional title for them.   It's amazing to think that this team has won the division only twice since Shula left. 

Same thing occurred with Tannehill -- he had a brief period of elevated play with Tennessee that didn't distinguish him favorably from a similarly elevated brief period of play Jim Harbaugh for example experienced in 1995, during his otherwise more or less mediocre career as an NFL QB.

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/H/HarbJi00.htm

A swallow doesn't make a summer.  When the stars align around a QB, he can elevate his play significantly.  The problem is that it's very difficult to maintain the stars in such an alignment due to free agency, injuries, retirements, trades, etc.  The great QBs play at a sustained elevated level even when the stars aren't aligned, and neither Harbaugh nor Tannehill was one of them.

You forgot to include Ryan Tannehill, whom I am also defending.

In any case, criticism is entirely valid and warranted.  What isn't valid is launching a barrage of attacks on a person when they are doing poorly, disappearing to avoid accountability when they are doing well, then reappearing the next time they are doing poorly to say, "Well, the time that they did well didn't actually count because they are doing poorly again now."

If the Dolphins were playing well right now, the person who posted this thread would not be here saying, "Oops, I was wrong."  They would simply not show up at all.

For a person who claims to base his opinions on analytics, I have yet to see any statistics from Pro Football Focus (or similar outlets) on "most hard-nosed coaches" or "top 5 culture rankings of the 2010s."

As I said before, you're basically just pushing astrology.  It's totally vapid circular reasoning; "successful" teams have "good culture" and it's impossible to prove otherwise.

When they are doing well doesn't actually "count" unless it distinguishes them in such a way as to make the position held by someone invalid.  Thus there is no onus on anyone to avoid "disappearing" as a measure of "accountability," as whether they are appearing or disappearing is irrelevant to the correctness of the person's position.

If someone's position for example was "McDaniel is going to be a terrible coach," should that person have "appeared" here merely after McDaniel's first win for example and eaten crow as a measure of the person's "accountability"?

Of course not, because a single win doesn't invalidate their position.  Neither do the samples of play you've nominated here, with regard to the positions I've held about Tannehill and McDaniel.

So your expectation of my "showing up here for the sake of accountability" is off-base.  There should be no "accountability" expected in these instances, because the samples of play you've nominated here aren't influential enough to invalidate my positions.  They're influential to that degree only for you, apparently.

Yet another former player saying exactly what I said here:

https://youtube.com/shorts/hzrTckY7-rk?si=bdUa3TxZvNdqyoiV