In the last thirty-two years of continuing to embark on the annual emotional roller coaster that is being a Miami Dolphins fan, I personally cannot recall a time when more pessimism and less hope were going into the offseason.
We all know the reason for this is based on Stephen Ross and the executive team’s decision to keep both Chris Grier and Mike McDaniel for the upcoming 2025 season. The retention of the team’s leadership duo, coupled with being tied to quarterback Tua Tagovailoa for likely two more seasons, has many fans thinking about canceling both season ticket plans and NFL Sunday Ticket memberships.
The Culprits
Chris Grier has been responsible for the devastating drafts and free agent misfires, mortgaging the future with questionable salary cap extensions and restructures and completely missing the shift back towards a running game and strong defense leaguewide beginning in the 2021 season. The guy is the quintessential example of someone in C-Suite corporate leadership who constantly fails yet consistently finds a way to accrue more power and wealth despite poor performance.
Mike McDaniel is a generally likeable guy who players gravitate to, but do they do so out of respect, or more so out of friendship and as a peer? An NFL head coach must lay out a vision for success tailored to their specific team’s strengths and weaknesses with clear and definable action steps for achieving that success. And if those action steps and regular routines are not followed, there must be true accountability.
Under the McDaniel regime, players are empowered to make decisions. There seems to be little to no ramifications for poor player performance or detrimental activity, and there is no clear leader in the room laying out a vision for success. Additionally, McDaniel’s regular game day mismanagement and questionable play-calling and player utilization have been chronicled all year by many on this site and channel. Folks, the game-day stuff is so bad we are approaching early Andy Reid days in Philadelphia or, more recently, Nathaniel Hacket or Matt Eberflus levels.
And that brings us to Tua. Again, another likable guy on the surface (when not yelling “show me the money” or repeating that “the market is the market”), but someone who has shown a proclivity for “keeping receipts” and having pretty thin skin in the face of criticism. There is plenty to dislike about the way Coach Brian Flores conducted himself during his tenure in Miami, but I will bet you my paycheck that marquee quarterbacks like Joe Burrow, Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes, and Lamar Jackson would have used a coach’s constant contempt and apparent belittling as more fuel for the fire to excel instead of responding during halftime in Tennessee: “You can’t talk to people like that.”
Furthermore, Tua’s performance in season and career-defining games is abysmal. Since 2020, Tua is 2-5 in regular season games with playoff or seeding implications after the third week of December. He also didn’t play in the wildcard round in 2022 due to injury and lost in that same round in 2023. That, unfortunately, does not engender much confidence. But perhaps more problematically, Tua can’t stay healthy playing the position the way he is naturally inclined to since he was a high-school star. Yes, he played through the 2023 season by learning to throw the ball away or going down for a sack when the play started to break down, but that mode of operation just won’t cut it in a conference with the previously-mentioned stud quarterbacks. Those guys can not only make every throw on the field but can also improvise whenever needed. So our choice moving forward is not having a quarterback due to injury or trotting out on the field an above-average quarterback that will always be somewhat limited and not quite good enough to go against the big boys of the AFC.
What’s Different This Time Around
Now that we have clearly identified the problems (some of them at least), one may ask what makes this offseason different from last since the trio of McDaniel, Grier, and Tua have been working together in Miami since 2022. I would argue there are three fundamental differences this offseason:
(1) Even if we ignore scrutinizing Tua’s performances in clutch games at the end of the season, it is abundantly clear that he cannot be relied upon to be available to the team on a regular basis.
(2) If you watch how the NFL playoffs have unfolded since 2021 (excluding Super Bowl games), you can see that successful teams making deep runs into the playoffs all boast high-caliber and adaptable defensive units coupled with powerful running games with excellent trench play, whether powered by running backs or in tandem with a mobile quarterback. It is almost impossible to advance in the playoffs by playing ball the way Miami is built—by relying on speed and finesse. This point has become abundantly clear in the playoffs this year.
(3) We are also seeing breaks in the dam that is the Dolphins’ hierarchy of power in several ways. Remember that for whatever reason; the team decided to let it be known that Mike McDaniel advocated for Tua’s contract extension and keeping Calais Campbell instead of trading him for a mid-round draft pick. Could those have been intentional leaks from Grier’s camp in case things went awry this past season?
David Long, a team captain who many viewed as a vocal leader in the locker room, was cut after poor play, while other underperformers stayed in the lineup throughout the season. Tyreek Hill was caught blatantly yelling at the coaching staff in primetime and quitting on the team on national TV. And then made sure to follow up his season finale behavior with a social media ode to Antonio Brown abandoning the Buccaneers AND proclaiming to his Twitch followers that he is entitled to feel the way he does and say what he wants because he is a competitor that “busts his ass” and is used to winning. I could go on with the list of weird or dysfunctional things happening with this team for quite a while.
Early Signs of Trouble Ahead
Let’s start with the coaching changes that we know of as of today. The firing of wide receivers coach Wes Welker came as a surprise due to his track record with the team, his relationship with Mike McDaniel going back to San Francisco, and his diligent work ethic. His firing likely speaks to Mike McDaniel being on thin ice or at least feeling like he is. Next was the firing of special teams coordinator Danny Crossman. While this was a long time coming based on their horrible performance, his presence on the team underscored a culture of nepotism, favoritism, and friendship. After all, he remained with the team in previous years due to allegedly being a rat against Brain Flores. So, his firing could speak to further cracks in the leadership structure that previously took care of him due to his allegiance to them and defiance of the former head coach.
Also, consider the departure of Reggie McKenzie from the front office. He left his role with the Dolphins in a lateral move to Tennessee. Yes, he does have a home and background in the state, but Tennessee is not exactly light years away from Miami, and surely Stephen Ross could have sweetened the compensation pot. And Tua’s personal QB whisperer, Darrel Bevell, is reported to be in the running for a job in Las Vegas under Pete Carroll, a coach who actually fired him in the past.
It sure seems that some within the organization are beginning to see the writing on the wall that this upcoming season will be the last ride for Grier and McDaniel, absent getting the elusive playoff win that this franchise has been missing for more than 24 years. And even worse—we cannot quantify or know about the missed opportunities presented by potential free agents and coaching candidates who opt to avoid Miami like the plague knowing the precarious position the team’s leadership team finds itself in going into the upcoming season.
Hopefully, everything written in this article will prove to be wrong, and we have a fantastic 2025-26 season. But we will need to be on the lookout for further developments that indicate further cracking and splintering of this team’s leadership structure and foundation during the new league year.
