The Miami Dolphins have gotten off to an awful 0-2 start this NFL season and things at the moment are pretty tough. Their situation isn’t getting easier as there are already calls for the head coach’s job and they have to go to Buffalo to play the Bills on Thursday night.
Yeah, this isn’t good. And the players are now having to respond to questions – which they love for sure – about Mike McDaniel’s job situation.
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“At the end of the day, it’s not him out there on the field,” linebacker Chop Robinson said. “It’s us out there playing the game, making the mistakes on the field and stuff like that. So at the end of the day, it may look bad for him, but it’s really on us. We’ve got to get it better.”
And, of course, that’s the right thing to say. But, as he noted, McDaniel is the one who will ultimately pay the price.
Other players respond to Mike McDaniel rumors
It’s safe to say that the Dolphins’ locker room will continue to be peppered with questions from reporters about McDaniel’s job security. Barring something completely unforeseen by the Bills Mafia, the Dolphins are about to fall to 0-3. If the players think they are getting questions now, wait until Friday.
“He believes in his players,” offensive tackle Patrick Paul said of McDaniel.
“He inspires us,” linebacker Tyrel Dodson added.
To an outsider, it sounds like the players genuinely like McDaniel, but that doesn’t mean he’s a great leader of men who has everyone pulling in the right direction.
Dolphins players held players-only meeting last week
After the team’s Week 1 loss to the Indianapolis Colts (which can only be described as a shellacking), several Dolphins’ veterans held a players-only meeting. Not only is that incredibly odd timing, but it’s also a harbinger of a coach firing.
Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer said exactly that recently.
“My understanding is that there was a message from the captains to the rest of the team (during the players-only meeting) about accountability, and it was about accountability to each other and accountability to yourself,” Breer said. “More or less, it was ‘the NFL is going to judge you regardless of your circumstances, regardless of your coaching — the NFL is going to judge you in a vacuum’. And (that) it’s on everybody to take personal responsibility, and more or less closing ranks and saying, ‘This isn’t about anybody else but the players.’ And sometimes that happens at the end for coaches, you know.
“So I think, you know, that message was received by…the players in that building.”
For what it’s worth, McDaniel doesn’t sound overly concerned about his head-coaching job. Surely he is, but he can’t say that publicly.
“I think if I worry about my job security, I won’t be doing my job and I think that inherently is against all things that I believe in,” McDaniel said. “I’ve never felt entitled to this position and it’s very important for me to spend all my waking hours worrying about exactly how to do my job and all the residual effects of that are — there’s a lot of people affected.
“I won’t spend one moment thinking about all the things that, whatever people want me to think about. I’m thinking about this team and the Buffalo Bills here after I get done with this podium.”