A Study in Team Culture

[Spider-Dan]

Do we need to rewind all the way back to the point in the thread where I pointed out that any team is fully capable of responding to a win that makes it 3-7 entirely differently than the Dolphins did?

Of course their record is a part of what made their behavior clownish.

Let's try this once more:

1) If you are a losing team (e.g. the 3-7 2025 Dolphins) and you display silly behavior after a win, it means you are not displaying the culture of a winning team.  Which is already proven by their record.
2) If you are a winning team (e.g. the eventual champion 2005 Steelers) and you display serious behavior after a win, it means you ARE displaying the culture of a winning team.  Which is already proven by their record, including their Super Bowl victory.
3) If you are a winning team (e.g. the 8-2 2025 Rams or the 11-2 2025 Patriots) and you display silly behavior after a win, it means... nothing?  We can't take anything meaningful from it, because their record makes their culture that of a winning team and not a losing team.  Which is already proven by their records.

In conclusion:

"Unserious teams that are 3-7 have a Bad Culture, while unserious teams with a good record are outside the scope of this discussion."  This seems like a whole lot of words to repackage "Teams that are 3-7 have a bad culture."

[Dolfanalyst]

This seems like a whole lot of words to repackage "Teams that are 3-7 have a bad culture."

I said this way back on page 3 of this thread, response #39:

Two teams both have 3-7 records.  One celebrates a single win in the way the Dolphins did in the video in the original post.  The other experiences the win like the Steelers did in the video in the original post.  The two teams likely have significantly different cultures, despite having identical records.

Why are we going down this road again?

[Spider-Dan]

You gave a concrete example of a losing team with a "clownish" culture (the 2025 Dolphins).
You gave a concrete example of a winning team with a serious culture (the 2005 Steelers).
Multiple people gave counterexamples of (currently) winning teams with "clownish" cultures (2025 Rams/Patriots).

So give an example of a losing team with a serious culture.  Not a hypothetical team that we can imagine; specifically identify an existing team with a bad record THIS YEAR that exhibits the kind of serious culture that you claim is consistent with winning.

That's what this entire exercise is supposed to be about, right?  You are making a claim about the future prospects of Mike McDaniel's Miami Dolphins: that his personality, which you have labeled "a clown," is an obstacle for the team's success.  So if this theory about "culture" is accurate, and not simply restating that "Bad teams are bad and good teams are good," you should be able to tell us which similarly bad teams - but with a culture of seriousness - will lead to winning in the future.  That would show that your theory has predictive value, in contrast to what it has been doing so far: telling us what we can already see from a team's record.

[Dolfanalyst]

You gave a concrete example of a losing team with a "clownish" culture (the 2025 Dolphins).
You gave a concrete example of a winning team with a serious culture (the 2005 Steelers).
Multiple people gave counterexamples of (currently) winning teams with "clownish" cultures (2025 Rams/Patriots).

So give an example of a losing team with a serious culture.  Not a hypothetical team that we can imagine; specifically identify an existing team with a bad record THIS YEAR that exhibits the kind of serious culture that you claim is consistent with winning.

That's what this entire exercise is supposed to be about, right?  You are making a claim about the future prospects of Mike McDaniel's Miami Dolphins: that his personality, which you have labeled "a clown," is an obstacle for the team's success.  So if this theory about "culture" is accurate, and not simply restating that "Bad teams are bad and good teams are good," you should be able to tell us which similarly bad teams - but with a culture of seriousness - will lead to winning in the future.  That would show that your theory has predictive value, in contrast to what it has been doing so far: telling us what we can already see from a team's record.

This year's Houston Texans after a 44-10 win at Baltimore on October 5th, which gave them a record of 2-3 at the time:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaSvvh6_rN8

Again Houston after a 26-15 win at home against the 49ers on October 26th that made them 3-4 on the season:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65zp8jWUFhA

The Texans again after beating the Bills 23-19 in a Thursday night prime time game three weeks ago -- they were 5-5 going into that game:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A63mm1BOtAk

Far from a circus in any of those videos.  The Texans are now 8-5.

There is nothing special about the Texans in those videos -- they aren't exhibiting some sort of exceptionally good culture that guarantees a deep playoff run or Super Bowl for example.  They are simply exhibiting the normal behavior of a losing team after a win.  It's the Dolphins in the original post who are far from normal.

I suspect if we were to take on this task with a larger scope and greater effort, we'd find that almost all teams with losing records would likewise celebrate wins in a manner far unlike the circus the Dolphins exhbiited in the original post.  The Dolphins would be in the extremely small minority, deviating considerably from the NFL norm in that context.

[Spider-Dan]

You identified a team that has won a home playoff game in the prior two postseasons, when they were one game under .500 this year, as a "losing team" that your theory predicts will have "future" (i.e. NOT RIGHT NOW) success; a team that, at the time of your post, is 8-5. Well done.

But even if you had chosen an actual "losing team," your response still would have been terrible.  In the three videos you cited, we see the head coach speaking in a calm, yet motivated manner, congratulating his players on their win but encouraging them to focus on the task that remains.  This is no different than Mike McDaniel's behavior in the video you repeatedly criticize!  McDaniel was not "silly" or "clownish"; it was the players in Miami who were clowning, and those HOU videos don't show how the players reacted after the game (save the QB for a brief moment).

If you cut the MIA video down to just when the head coach is speaking - as it is for almost all of those three HOU videos - it is virtually indistinguishable from the three videos you just posted.

[Dolfanalyst]

You identified a team that has won a home playoff game in the prior two postseasons, when they were one game under .500 this year, as a "losing team" that your theory predicts will have "future" (i.e. NOT RIGHT NOW) success; a team that, at the time of your post, is 8-5. Well done.

Ah, so you want me to focus only on teams that are established and sustained losers.  Well in that case it's all the more likely they'll have poor cultures as well.  However, that isn't the focus of my point here -- the focus is on the response to single wins when a team simply has a losing record, not when it's "an established and sustained loser."  So once again, you've misunderstood the point.

Nevertheless, the difference in culture between the Dolphins and the Texans in these videos more than overwhelms whatever other difference there is between the two teams.  In comparison to the Texans and in supporting the point here, the Dolphins are so far off the chart on the dimension of "clownishness" that whatever other differences there are between the two teams hardly matter.

But even if you had chosen an actual "losing team," your response still would have been terrible.  In the three videos you cited, we see the head coach speaking in a calm, yet motivated manner, congratulating his players on their win but encouraging them to focus on the task that remains.  This is no different than Mike McDaniel's behavior in the video you repeatedly criticize!  McDaniel was not "silly" or "clownish"; it was the players in Miami who were clowning, and those HOU videos don't show how the players reacted after the game (save the QB for a brief moment).

If you cut the MIA video down to just when the head coach is speaking - as it is for almost all of those three HOU videos - it is virtually indistinguishable from the three videos you just posted.

Reply #30 in the thread.

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

That could have -- and should have -- easily been a reality check by the head coach, where he stops and says something along the lines of, "what are you all doing? -- we're 3-7! -- we got a long way to go and a whole lot of work to do before we can celebrate like this."

I can almost guarantee had he done that the Dolphins would be a four win team at best.  And lets be clear you want him to scold and demean the team for celebrating a win.   

I have seen people (parents, teachers, coaches) do what you are suggesting and it almost always results in devastating consequences. 

When someone (or some group of people) have success after repeated failure you want to encourage the dopamine boost that comes from winning.  You want to maximize the positive feelings of a win.   Scolding or demeaning the success is the last thing you want to do.

I have had it happen to me.  I can handle being scolded for failure, but being scolding after success is devastating and never makes me want to try harder but just quit, because if winning is enough for approval their is no point in trying. 

[Dolfanalyst]

I can almost guarantee had he done that the Dolphins would be a four win team at best.  And lets be clear you want him to scold and demean the team for celebrating a win.   

I have seen people (parents, teachers, coaches) do what you are suggesting and it almost always results in devastating consequences. 

When someone (or some group of people) have success after repeated failure you want to encourage the dopamine boost that comes from winning.  You want to maximize the positive feelings of a win.   Scolding or demeaning the success is the last thing you want to do.

I have had it happen to me.  I can handle being scolded for failure, but being scolding after success is devastating and never makes me want to try harder but just quit, because if winning is enough for approval their is no point in trying.

Here is an interview with a head coach who was just featured on 60 Minutes for the biggest turnaround of a program in college football history:

https://www.facebook.com/100083784289106/videos/a-little-curt-cignetti-mentality-on-big-ten-championship-eve/2113638659377706/

[MyGodWearsAHoodie]

Here is an interview with a head coach who was just featured on 60 Minutes for the biggest turnaround of a program in college football history:

https://www.facebook.com/100083784289106/videos/a-little-curt-cignetti-mentality-on-big-ten-championship-eve/2113638659377706/

Thanks for FUCKING WASTING my time.  Absolutely nothing in that video had anything to do with your proposed plan of scolding players for celebrating a win. 

[Dolfanalyst]

Thanks for FUCKING WASTING my time.  Absolutely nothing in that video had anything to do with your proposed plan of scolding players for celebrating a win.  

The point is that head coaches in the real world, and highly successful ones at that, don't always respond to success with rainbows and unicorns.  They take context into consideration.

And "scolding players for celebrating a win" is nothing more than a caricature of my position.  The Dolphins weren't merely "celebrating a win" in the original post -- they were conducting a circus.  There a lots of ways of "celebrating a win" that don't involve conducting a circus, and that don't require any reality check by the head coach.

Again, the Steelers in the original post were similarly "celebrating a win" -- in a vastly different manner.  But you seem incapable of grasping that distinction, time and time again.

[Dolfanalyst]

And speaking of "wasting time," what was this garbage you posted earlier and didn't even apologize for?

Both teams had the same record.  And even though the game was in Cinci the Steelers were favored by 3.  This was not an upset.  Please get your fact straight before applying analysis.