Mike McDaniel's seat isn't getting hot but it easily can become lukewarm

Mike McDaniel is entering his third season as the head ball coach of the Miami Dolphins. Since his arrival, McDaniel has done something that nobody has done since the great mustache aficionado, Dave Wannstedt did and that is taking the Dolphins to playoffs in back-to-back years. McDaniel has also taken a team that for years never had any kind of offensive identity and has made it one of the best and scariest offenses that there is in the NFL. 

The other thing McDaniel has done - and this might be the most unlikely thing given how things were two years ago - is make Tua Tagovailoa not just a viable NFL quarterback, but he has made him a quarterback who has gotten MVP praise and attention late in the year in back-to-back seasons. That is something nobody thought was possible after Tua’s first two years in the league. 

Because of all that and the fact that McDaniel has a wonderful dead-pan delivery of information at the podium ala the late great Norm McDonald (I know he’s not 100% like Norm. Nobody is.) and that McDaniel is beloved by pretty much everyone that comes in contact with them due to how genuine and uplifting he is, the media can’t get enough of the young HC.

That’s all well and good. It doesn’t change the reality, however, that for the past two seasons, with an incredible collection of talent, at the end of each season, McDaniel’s teams have cratered like the surface of the moon. Two seasons in a row the Dolphins were white-hot entering December and even mid-December only for the lifetime fatal flaw of the Dolphins of not being able to play well in the cold coming to pass. 

Is the pressure on for Mike McDaniel to win a Dolphins playoff game this season?

McDaniel’s offense, which takes care of business and imposes its will on opponents in the first half 2/3 of the season, has gotten put in a box when they have to go on the road. It even got halted in Miami in the last game of the season vs. Buffalo when the division was on the line. A division that Miami had a 2.5 game lead on entering December last year only to see the Bills right their ship and Miami abandon its own.

Due to these realities, McDaniel enters the 2024 season not on the hot seat. He doesn’t enter the season like Robert Saleh will be that he is automatically gone if struggles arrive. But, if the Dolphins start off slow and have something like a 1-3 record, then McDaniel's seat will start to get a little bit warmer, like one heating up in a new car.

The general rule, unless you’re a Nathaniel Hackett type, is that a coach has three years to do real winning. If you don’t do that, then you’re axed. McDaniel has won. He has made the playoffs in his first two years. That’s not nothing considering the mediocre results the Dolphins have had in the past

However, still not winning a playoff game since 2000, with all this talent, with last season being one where the Bills were a hair down, is not what anyone wants. The expectations have been raised and if McDaniel wants to equate that to his favorite phrase, one that if you’re like me makes your skin crawl, then “adversity is opportunity” needs to mean something in '24.  

The point remains that McDaniel needs to improve what he does and he knows that. McDaniel, from all accounts, is a very self-aware guy, but just because you’re self-aware doesn’t mean you can put into motion the changes that need to be made to elevate a good football team into a very good and consistent football team. 

Whether it’s how he uses personnel, like not forcing every pass to Tyreek Hill, or play-call selection such as refusing to run the ball on 3rd and short, and for whatever reason loving to call goal-line fades to receivers that are 5-10 all the time, McDaniel has in-game improvements to make.

Off the field, the perception is that he is a bit too friendly with the players. Of course, the players love that because who wants a coach that gets in their face about minute details all the time? We had that with Brian Flores and look where that went. What McDaniel needs to figure out is that balance between fun teacher and being a guy who doesn’t let the little details go when they happen. 

This team is still loaded with talent. Are there some holes? Sure there are, but every team has a unit or two that they know is below average. You hope you get lucky with some players in those units and you hope your stars pick those units up. 

McDaniel has everything in front of him to change the narrative, one that he admits exists. That narrative is that the Miami Dolphins will fold like a lawn chair come December and that you can push them around when the stakes are high.

Whether or not the media starts to wonder, it could be time to think about McDaniel’s seat getting warmer and warmer based solely on how the team starts the year. But, it’s the end of the year when McDaniel will be truly judged. Can he buck the trend that the Dolphins can’t win late? I suppose we’ll see.