MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — Here’s how Mike McDaniel’s grand player empowerment experiment is going:
The Miami Dolphins are 1-3, have been embarrassed on national TV twice in three weeks, and their best player was just as invisible after the game as he was during it.
Have Miami Dolphins Players Stopped Listening to Mike McDaniel?
Tyreek Hill, the NFL‘s most explosive player and the Dolphins’ second-richest employee, torpedoed his team’s chances against the Tennessee Titans here on Miami’s very first drive by nonchalantly dropping a swing pass that was really a lateral and (after review) a lost fumble.
Hill — who convinced the Dolphins to give him more guaranteed money this offseason despite having three years left on his contract — got no better as the game went on.
He finished the night with four catches for an inconsequential 23 yards in a 31-12 loss to a Titans team that hadn’t won a game all season before Monday. And as ESPN’s broadcast crew caught, he was heated on the sidelines late in the game.
Tyreek Hill is visibly upset 😳
Should the #Commanders try to acquire Hill? 👀 pic.twitter.com/XQAZBlBQHi
— brandon (@JayDanielsMVP) October 1, 2024
But instead of taking accountability postgame like a team captain should, Hill bolted the locker room before reporters could get in. In doing so, Hill allowed others — like quarterback Snoop Huntley, who’s been with the team for just two weeks — to face the tough questions he should have answered.
Why is this important? Because Hill is more than just the team’s most dynamic player. He is the offense’s most important leader and tone-setter while Tua Tagovailoa is out.
And if he is unwilling to stand up and take the slightest bit of heat after another terrible performance by arguably the worst offense in football, how can he do the hard things — like put his cleat in the backside of his teammates (figuratively, of course) and fix all that’s gone wrong this first month of the season?
McDaniel’s instinct is to let the players run the locker room, but that’s clearly no longer working. Being a player’s coach only works if the players hold up their end. They’re not.
So McDaniel needs to be the heavy. If that means running a tighter ship and benching (or cutting) players who can’t do the simple things — like lining up the right way — so be it.
“There was a tremendous disconnect between preparation and execution,” McDaniel said postgame after the Dolphins went 2-of-12 on third downs, 1-of-3 on fourth downs, and put together just three drives of five or more plays all night.
We’re not saying that the Dolphins are tuning their coach out. But if they are, how would the on-field product look any different?
Mike McDaniel: Major changes needed on offense pic.twitter.com/efarYDHnRT
— Adam Beasley (@AdamHBeasley) October 1, 2024
Asked late Monday if he needs to be more assertive in the delivery of his message, McDaniel said:
“Yeah, I think we have to assess everything. I hesitate to overcook before I watched the film, kind of marinate on this whole situation. But there will be things that will change. It’s kind of hard to say exactly what those things are, but we’re definitely in need of it.”
Sloppy Dolphins Offense
What’s the most maddening part of this disastrous start? How undisciplined McDaniel’s team is. Forget making big plays — they can’t do the most basic stuff.
The Dolphins on offense haven’t yet looked like they have the faintest idea what they even want to do, let alone how to do it.
They’re not good enough, particularly with Tagovailoa on IR, to overcome their many mistakes. For large chunks of Monday’s game — which featured 10 more Dolphins penalties — it seemed like they didn’t practice all week. Whatever message McDaniel and his staff have been preaching simply isn’t getting through.
Certainly, Huntley (14-of-22 for 96 yards) was not good in his first start with Miami. But he also was sabotaged by the other 10 Dolphins on the field.
“Playmakers got to be playmakers,” said Jaylen Waddle, who needed seven targets to gain 36 receiving yards. “We have to be better than good when your starting quarterback is out. We have to be extra open to clear it up for the quarterback. He’s new here. We just have to go out and make plays for him.”
Is it too early to panic? Absolutely not. The season is a quarter over now, and the Dolphins are closer to having the No. 1 pick than they are hosting a playoff game.
And McDaniel’s offense is singularly to blame.
This means changes are coming to his approach — presumably both in scheme and tone.
“Bottom line is I think you have to make some tough decisions, but that’s what this league is about,” McDaniel said. “That’s what my role is. It’s never void of adverse situations. This is as big of one that we’ve had to overcome since I’ve been here, and in those times you get to find out a lot about who you think people are and get to identify whether or not they’re the guys that you thought they were, including myself.
“So tough times bring out the best in people if you have the right people. That’s what I’ll be expecting from everybody, and they’ll get a chance to prove me right or wrong.”