If you have a physical talent advantage over your opponent, your mentality as a team matters less, as you're likely to simply outplay them physically. However, when physical talent between teams becomes more equivalent, then emotional factors like team culture and leadership can become paramount. And that's exactly where this team exhibited repeated difficulty this year -- in competing with good teams that were presumably highly driven to win.
As opposed to the teams that are tying to win and they just barely beat them. I don't really recall except for the Denver game, a game that was a blowout. "in competing with good teams that were presumably highly driven to win" - these are professional athletes. You don't think they are highly motivated to win/ Were the Chargers in the 1st game? They were coming off a great season prior. What about the Dallas game? The Bills game was won on a punt return - they just weren't serious and didn't try hard on that play. They were in the playoffs? Those don't count? Based on last year's schedule we had one of the hardest schedules. But they all just bad now.
When the team encounters another good team that's serious and highly driven to win, they find it difficult to switch gears from the fun and games their culture revolves around to a serious and driven mentality that can match or overcome that of the opponent. That is all the difference necessary to lose when the opponent is roughly as good physically.
I think you're way off on this. I don't know if there's another guy that takes football more serious and less for granted than McDaniel does, if you actually knew his backstory.
We play 9 teams next year with winning records most in the playoff. Are they good physically, serious and highly driven to win teams? Or will that change next year too like it did this year for the teams that had winning records last year? What a crock.
He can be entirely serious about football himself and nonetheless relate to his players in such a way that it creates a culture of fun and games. If his demeanor with the media can reflect something other than ultra-seriousness about football -- and it certainly does -- then certainly his demeanor with his players can follow suit.
Well, we‘ll see. Fact is he’s going to be here next season and we went to the playoffs with him the 2 seasons he‘s been here. I think he has problems with being a gameday coach, abandons the run in games and has problems with halftime adjustments. The thing is, he’s young and he’s a great play designer, I think he has the tools to be a great coach, he just has to put it all together.
He gets into his own head. They just had an end of year press conference and he said that him taking away play calling from himself is on the table.
The Steelers I guess just aren't serious about football either. They are getting shut out by the Bills. OR maybe the Bills are just better then the Steelers and the Dolphins. It couldn't be that could it?
Are you really not understanding what he's saying? Or are you being intentionally obtuse? The issue I have over the past 4 games, it's not that they lost, it's how they lost, and how they looked losing. They looked like they didn't care. Joking around, laughing, smiling...play on the field had no intensity. I know we had tons of backups playing. I still expect to see effort. I didn't see that. Now you can demean his points all you want, and act like anyone who agrees with him is some sort of idiot, but the reality is, when players are lackadaisical and don't put forth effort, it's generally on the HC.
You read way too much into everything. Most of the time about something that isn’t there. He already admitted it’s just a guess and he has no idea. There’s no way he could. No way you could. But its me being obtuse? Yeah you’re right it’s me. I see it now.
I didn't see any of this laughing and joking around on the field and general sense of not caring from this team down the stretch. The defense played their asses off against Kansas City and Buffalo despite the roster they put out there. I just didn't see any evidence of the picture you're trying to paint.
You are acting like there could be no possible way what he's saying is true. You act like anyone who disagrees with you has a completely ludicrous position.
That the Dolphins' difficulties were possibly explained by an inadequate team culture doesn't mean that every team's difficulties are explained similarly. Again, what points toward the above explanation is the discrepancy between first- and second-half offensive performance over the last five games of the regular season and the wildcard. That discrepancy wasn't present earlier in the season. The teams the Dolphins played in weeks 14 through 18 and the playoffs didn't suddenly "get better" at halftime, nor did the Dolphins suddenly "get worse," in terms of skill and ability.
I asked how he knew this was true and he admitted he had no idea if it was. It was just him guessing. Where did I say his position is Ludicrous? This is a message board. We take differing opinions. The “I’m so persecuted” take isn’t a good look. He’s not crying about it. But you do you.
No, that can't be how football works, LOL. Good teams beating less good teams...that sounds like a fairy tale. People can spin this however they want in their heads, but that does not make it any less true or false. We played the Bills with 12 of 22 starters missing, and 10 of 22 against the Chiefs. That's not counting Waddle or Tyreek, both of which were limping and would have taken the week off if it wasn't the playoffs. The injuries were devastating- every starter does matter. Plain and simple, Miami was the "less good" team the past few weeks. Our offense is built on speed from Tyreek/Waddle and a power run game. We didn't have that and it's not shocking that McDaniel couldn't create a completely new offense in December to compensate. Again, we're not talking about missing one key starter...we did that in November and compensated. We're talking about over half the team being injured...including Tua with the shoulder. I get that many need their hot takes about not winning a playoff game makes this team a complete failure. To me, that's a child's reaction, a temper tantrum where the facts don't matter. Some actually believe that we can walk into a frozen stadium with half our starters and beat defending champions...or we're mentally weak!?! That's just not how football works. Buffalo is the healthiest team in the NFL right now and they're also currently on the biggest win streak. Those two things are not a coincidence.
I do think the loss to Buffalo was devastating to them. McD was hitting it hard as the goal from what I saw in HK. Sometimes when you don’t hit the goal that the teams been striving for so hard and consistent, when it’s in your grasp and it just slips through your fingertips it can be devastating. When I say team that could be any team like a sales team. it almost looked as if all the air was let out of the balloon after that game and they couldn’t recover mentally from that in time for KC. Is that lacking mental toughness? It it human nature? Maybe a little of both. As a leader this is where you have to shine. You have to pick up the pieces and use the disappointment as a motivational tool. I think this is all part of the “learning how to win” concept that you hear so much about. Will be interesting how McD and the team responds. Good leaders will get the “team” back into the right head space, wit a little time. Sometimes you need to let that disappointment and hurt marinate when you miss a huge goal like they did. Not too long but enough time to season the meat so to speak.
Speaking of Buffalo, the NFL has to change rules about running quarterbacks. On Josh Allen's 50 yard touchdown run he was going to slide and stopped and the defense just let him go. Then, late in the game Allen slides late and takes a hit, gets a penalty and pretty much ends any comeback attempt. It's just not fair. Allen was running the ball all game and trying to run over people as a running back. They have to make a rule where if a quarterback has established himself as a running threat in a game, just say 5+ running plays then he should lose the immunity of getting hit while sliding. Him and Mahomes have been getting away with it for years and it's just not fair.
Those are all good points about the team in general, but they don't explain the discrepancy between their first-half performance and their second-half performance offensively over the past six games. None of the factors noted above suddenly significantly "changed" at halftime of those games.
For that explanation to have merit, one would have to believe the Dolphins had the ability to counter halftime adjustments in weeks 1 through 13 of the season and then suddenly lost that ability in weeks 14 through the wildcard.
We had no offensive line and our top two receivers were playing hurt. Despite that, we produced some offense in the first half. The opponents adjusted and took away the few things we could do creatively to generate yards with a decimated team. You're seeing this backwards- it wasn't our epic offense in the 1st half that failed later on. It was our beat-down offense found a way for a bit before reality caught up and it was snuffed out.
Yeah Allen and Mahomes are major floppers always looking at the ref at any marginal hit/touch. It's embarrassing what league created to protect these guys.
There's just no objective reality that points to McDaniel's coaching as a "goofball" style. On hard knocks, with the little we were able to see, his one on one with players were very thoughtful, concise, motivating, and not at all "silly". Does he like to have fun? Sure. And that's a good thing. However, I remember, for example, his conversation with Duke in a practice. McDaniel was talking to him after Baker went down and said, "this is your team, too" and " if you ever thinks the coaching needs something else, speak up. Be a leader". To me that shows a willingness to not only lead, but instill in the players that no one person has more responsibility than another and they, too, can be a leader. That's called being a good leader and a good coach. How McD is in a presser isn't indicative of how he talks to the players. Bottom line, McD has LEAD this team to the playoffs in is first 2 years. Two straight playoff appearance hasn't been done around here in nearly 25 years. The talk of late season collapses is done totally out of context and ignores the multitude of injuries and the actual opponents being played. It also ignores the fact that he's a new coach who came into an organization that has been the Detroit Lions over the past 25 years. An organization filled with calamities, disorganization, drama, poor players, poor structure, poor culture, and poor attitude. He's taken that, in 2 short years, and totally changed it to a playoff caliber team with high character players and a culture and expectation of winning. 6 teams had road playoff games this week and 5 lost. Part of our road playoff team is directly because of coaching and the play of the players. Although, I think without the historic number of injuries we would have actually won the AFCE and been playing at home in our playoff game. Is McD perfect? Of course not. All coaches make head scratching calls and fail at times. Are the players perfect? Nope. Tyreek dropped more passes over the last 4-5 games than nearly any WR in the league. Tua, albeit against 4 of the best passing defenses in the league, didn't play well at the end of the season, but he was in the running for MVP at one point. However, he played better than Allen did over the Bills last 5 games of the season. Hell, he played better than Allen over the entire season. Allen had a cumulative passer rating of 89 with 5TD's and 5INT's over that 5 game stretch and the team went 5-0. Why? The biggest reason to me is that they were also one of the healthiest teams in the league. They've also got a core group of players and a HC that have been playing together since 2017. All that talent and they've been to the AFCCG once and choked far more often in the postseason than they've won. Hell, they were 6-6 at one point this season. Their OC changed, took the ball out of Allen's turnover laded hands, and let their very god defense put them in situations to win the game without allowing Allen to throw a game losing INT. If the Steelers don't turn the ball over in yesterday's game they likely lose that game in Buffalo. In summary, McD is a great HC who is inexperienced and makes mistakes, but seems to have progressed from year one to year two, even though he lost his starting QB in year one and lost nearly his entire team in year two to injuries and yet still made the playoffs both seasons. McD is the HC and all signs point to him being that for a long time.
Same thing happened with Duke while trying to tackle Mahomes. Mahomes feigns sliding, Duke lets up, Mahomes runs further. I get protecting the QB, but it’s gone too far. The rules have made it so the QB either gets a great run or a penalty. And then there’s the issue of some QB’s can get smashed with no flag while others can’t get touched or else there is a flag.
Do you understand the difference between "denotation" and "connotation"? The tenor of your posts seems to need mocking. The term is gaslighting.
I did. It was mainly Tyreek Hill who I saw doing it. He kept high giving and choppin it up with the Chiefs players right in the middle of the game. At times it was right after a player or even before the ball was snapped. I noticed it quite a few times and it got irritating. Mainly because we were getting our asses kicked.
I couldn't agree more. I think we just had too many injuries and the losses to Baltimore and Buffalo deflated us mentally. Getting your *** kicked will do that to you. In sports, it happens. You take a beating in the boxing ring and the next time around you're not so sure about it anymore. KC is a seasoned playoff team with the best quarterback in the game who has been the best playoff performer we've seen since Tom Brady. I definitely did not expect us to win that game. In fact, I felt an butt kicking was in the works. Still...I got mad knowing all this, and I made one jerk hot takes feel like reality. It's ok, I'll be back next fall, but I'm going to continue to approach watching this team the same way I did this year which was with minimal emotion involved.
So it’s your fragile ego once again when I’m not even addressing you. You’re boarding on stalking at this point. Plus gaslighting would look more like this…I think these loses have affected you personally even though you don’t actually play for the team. Seek counseling before it too late. LoL.
Agree, I would have loved to play for a coach like him. Run through a wall for him. Get one that screams at me or talks down to me, nope won't play for that guy.
The “fake slide” is really irritating. The defender is forced to hold up (from full speed) and not hit a qb in his slide, but he somehow has to kick it back into gear if the guy starts running again? Pretty much impossible and patently unfair for the defense.
