I hope you’re right bud.. I see a lot of horseplay and cussing and a lot of talking without people listening intently..
I honestly really like McDaniel. My concern is that he doesn't have enough fire to command the players, and it's never more than he's their cool uncle. I'm not saying that is the case, but the proof so far seems to indicate there is something lacking in the team culture regarding getting serious. I've been watching a ton of Kobe and Jordan interviews. These men, and men like them, they aren't playing a game. They are deadly serious about being the best. There is a seriousness lacking in this team.
Took me a minute to digest this thread. I think the problem is communication is getting confused with leadership. McD Communicates in his lazy kinda slow dry humor cracking jokes and taking some of the piss out of the room. That's not at all how he LEADS. Goofballs who aren't "serious" don't put together 700 play tape sessions to show their young QB, and the rest of the organization, what a great QB he CAN be. Do you want to be that Mr Millionaire football player?, great, here's how I CAN HELP YOU get there. Let's go to work. All that aside, he took a broken team to the playoffs in his first two yrs. He has been a good game manager, got to get better but not bad for a Rookie HC. We were basically 3 minutes away from a 2nd seed and played the last game with the cast of the Replacements on Defense. Front office has some work to do but I don't doubt for a second Coach is going to be back and on a mission next year
McD hardly inherited a "broken" team. In spite of his faults Flores built a team that posted back to back winning seasons for the first time since God was a boy. McD inherited a team already well on it's way.
That team won three road playoff games in a row as a wildcard before winning the Super Bowl. What you see there is a gruff and masculine head coach who extolls the resiliency of the team and then turns it over to player leaders whose demeanor follows suit. Now compare that to this:
No that is indeed how he leads. Whatever you do with your team is how you lead. You are the head coach and in the ultimate leadership position on the team. Whatever you do in that capacity constitutes how you lead. And what's more, the team takes on the personality of its coach, and so if "lazy kinda slow dry humor cracking jokes" is your personality, prepare to have that be your team's personality as well. "Lazy...slow...humor...jokes" -- those aren't adjectives readily associated with winning in the NFL.
That's exactly the concern. And it's less about whether he can command the whole team and more about whether he can inspire leaders among the players to lead in a way that's consistent with winning in the NFL, like the way you see Joey Porter and Jerome Bettis doing above. If McDaniel is instead inspiring players like Wilkins and Hill to be silly and orchestrate end zone celebrations, the Dolphins stand to get beaten handily by teams that are functioning like the Steelers did in the video above, and that's certainly what happened in 2023-2024 when the Dolphins played the good teams on their schedule. All of this fits together very neatly and is easily understood if you have the correct frame of reference.
Serious question. Have you ever been in a leadership position? Many examples have been provided to you of successful leadership that didn’t have anything at all to do with being rough tough SOB. Another angle to consider. How do YOU like to be LED? I’ve been told I’m a scary looking dude. Be easy for me to get people to do thing’s because they’re afraid. I have never led that way. It doesn’t work for long. I’ve led teams of two to a hundred, multi million dollar businesses to fishing boats. My job as a leader was always pretty simple to me. Set our goals, identify the right people to help us get there then empower them to be successful and remove obstacles to their success. People need to know WHY they do things. Because I told you to isn’t enough. I started every meeting with a joke and finished with praising accomplishments. Did I fire people? Yep. Did I counsel them and hold them accountable? Absolutely. Did I ever need to yell at anyone in order to get them to do their job. Nope. Times have changed. Compassionate leadership is cool. And effective.
Wilkins acted the same way with Flores. I guess he doesn’t “reflect his coach”? The 1985 Bears, many other NFL teams, and players disagree. I think we’re beating a dead horse at this point, but there’s just no reason to believe that end zone celebrations are harmful to team morale, attitude, or play. And the notion that players reflect their coach, in regard to their own innate personalities and attitudes, is also lacking in any proof. Good coaches teach and motivate. Both things have more than one way of getting done. Great coaches adjust their teaching style to individuals and are malleable. Some players need sternness while others need patience. Some players needed to be less aggressive and others need more. With the latter mostly being due to lack of confidence. Tua lacked that. McD built him back up. Telling Tyreek he can’t do a back flip after a TD isn’t going to turn out well.
Have you ever seen that part of Moneyball where the As are losing all the time and Brandon Beab walks by the locker room. He hears music playing and Giambi is dancing on the table. He come in throws the radio and everyone shut up. It’s totally quiet. “That’s what losing sounds like”. I think that’s what some are saying. They also want this lost season to hurt them as much as it hurt us. And it just doesn't seem like they are really feeling our pain to the degree we are.
Again, characterizing McDaniel's style and "scaring people" or "yelling at them" as the only two possibilities for a leadership style is a false dichotomy. Also, leading an NFL team and leading other kinds of groups of people can be fundamentally different in many ways. In that context you're leading a group of men who will be the targets of aggression from an opposing group of men on a football field, with both teams' trying to win by physically and mentally overpowering the other one. The manager of a grocery store for example (not that that's you or anyone else here by any means) is also a leader but his job pales in comparison in the leadership style required. The manager of a grocery store doesn't have to instill toughness and resiliency in the bagboy to face the adversity required in the parking lot as he gathers the carts and brings them inside. He simply has to make that person's job clear, support his needs on the job, and hold him accountable.
No, but there are similarities, in that two groups of people are trying to overcome the other with physical and mental aggression. If there are USMC leaders who function as silly goofballs in war zones, I suspect ones can be found with better and more effective approaches, in terms of keeping their men alive and overcoming the enemy.
Yeah, my time in Afghanistan was filled with a lot of what you call “silliness” and “goofiness”. It’s called relieving stress and is greatly needed. Again though, scoring a TD isn’t the same as clearing a house.
Every watch Band of Brothers? David Swimmers character is what it seems you're asking for. It didn't work out well for him or his men. He go replaced with an even keel guy who wasn't a hard *** but was fundamentally sound. I know its a movie but it seemed like a good reference.
Was that the general character and culture of your unit as well? And if so, were you able to readily flip a switch from that to serious high alert if the need arose? That was something this Dolphins team couldn't do -- flip a switch from silliness to seriousness when the need arose. They were simply trounced under those circumstances. No, and no USMC leader is leading with silliness or goofiness under those circumstances, either.
Our character and culture was that of Marines. How many USMC leaders have you been in a war zone with? I’ve been in one with plenty and you’re wrong.
Once, before we were about to enter a house with suspected bad guys and weapons, my SSgt said, “If anyone doesn’t make it out I hope it’s Amendolare because I want to give his hot girlfriend a call.” We all laughed, cleared the house, and no one got hurt.
If you've experienced USMC leaders who led you with silliness and goofiness as you were clearing a house in a war zone, then I stand corrected. I certainly don't profess to know your life experience.
Was that SSgt a bad *** as well, or just a silly goofy guy all the time? If he was a bad *** as well, did that have any impact on the character of the unit and how they functioned?
He’s a damn good Marine. His jokes, toughness, teaching, experiences, and attitude all helped the platoon. And none of these things had more of an effect than the other except for maybe his teaching. His lessons kept us alive. His jokes relaxed us.
So the critical comparison to be made there in my opinion is whether the leadership fostered an ability for the unit to flip a switch from relaxed joking to serious drivenness and aggression if necessary. Again that's what this Dolphins team couldn't do. When the need arose for serious drivenness and aggression they couldn't flip that switch and they were totally overwhelmed by other teams that had flipped that switch and were functioning in that manner.
Or they just flat got out played. And out coached. In the Bills game they were leading at halftime. Somehow they flipped the switch off after the half??? It just doesn't make any sense to what you're saying.
The average number of points the Dolphins lost by to the teams they played with winning records on the season (including the win against Dallas) -- OVER AND ABOVE THE CLOSING POINT SPREAD -- was 13.6. When the Dolphins played a winning team in 2023-2024, they lost by nearly two touchdowns more than expected, on average. If you want to compare the Dolphins in that regard to Buffalo for example, consider again that the Dolphins' margin of defeat against winning teams, over and above the spread, was 13.6 points. Buffalo's was 7.1 points in the other direction -- Buffalo did better than expected by 7.1 points on average against winning teams in 2024 (including beating the Dolphins by 28 points when they were favored by a mere 2.5 on October 1). In my opinion that's strongly indicative of a culture in which the team is overwhelmed and overpowered by the good teams it faces. Label that culture whatever you'd like -- "soft" or what have you -- but it certainly isn't good. And before that's blamed on injuries, consider that the expected margins in those games considered the injuries that were present for both teams before those games. Consider as well that the Dolphins were the 8th-best offense in the league in EPA per play in weeks 14 through 19 -- their late-season push and the wildcard -- in the first halves of those games, yet 29th-best in the league offensively in the second halves of those games. So unless they underwent a magical transformation in their skill and ability at the halves of those games, they have a culture problem consisting of the inability to match or overcome teams that are bearing down on them in the second halves of games, during both teams' late-season push for the playoffs. Their opponent goes into the locker room and becomes galvanized and redoubles their efforts, whereas the Dolphins are incapable of doing so themselves and are subsequently manhandled. That's a culture problem that can again be characterized by the inability to flip a switch from silliness and goofiness to serious drivenness and aggression. And this was epitomized in the game against Tennessee, where the Dolphins played poorly throughout against the physically inferior Titans and were largely gifted the lead via Tennessee's unforced errors. Despite that, the rehearsed and orchestrated end zone celebrations ran rampant, and the team was unable to overcome Tennessee's late-game charge to the tune of one of the most improbable losses in NFL history. The Dolphins were 99.7% likely to win that game with four minutes left and lost it. Again, a team that couldn't flip a switch from silliness and goofiness (rehearsed and orchestrated end zone celebrations) to seriousness and aggression (fending off a physically inferior team's charge late in the game, with the playoffs and the #1 seed on the line). That prompted this commentary the day after, by a former NFL player: There is a serious culture problem here, folks.
I don’t think there was a problem with this “switch” you’re speaking about. What I saw were injuries and just getting beat because a player with more talent was better than a guy who was sitting on the couch, bench, practice squad the week before.
I disagree. To me it shows that the Bills were healthy, practicing with and playing their starters, had continuity in their offensive and defensive coaching, and have played together for 6 seasons. I get that they changed OC’s in week 14, but that OC changed nothing except he took the ball out of Allen’s hands more often. The OC got the RB’s more involved and that helped the team.
That doesn't adequately explain the first- to second-half discrepancy in the Dolphins' late-season performance, noted in the post you quoted, nor does it explain why the Dolphins were beaten so much worse than expected by the winning teams they faced.
The first to second half discrepancy isn’t due to “galvanizing”, it’s due to adjusting and game planning. And those adjustments and plannings can’t be fully implemented when you’re fielding your back-ups. They can only do what they can do and practice. I can’t imagine the limited playbooks being used on offense and defense just from the lack of practice. You can’t adjust, as other healthy teams do, when you’re just out of plays to run or the margins are so thin because you can’t get even one penalty without it stalling a drive. The Dolphins had to pretty much play perfectly in order to win with these back-ups.
That's certainly plausible. However, consider the following. Here is a quote about halftime adjustments -- the technical kind you're speaking of -- by perhaps the greatest technical mind in the history of the NFL: https://fanbuzz.com/nfl/bill-belich...again-hes-one-of-the-best-coaches-in-the-nfl/ A larger article on "the myth of halftime adjustments," with many coaches weighing in: https://theathletic.com/4816091/2023/08/30/football-halftime-adjustments/
But there are adjustments. People, all people, grow when they make mistakes as long as they have the physical and mental capabilities to do so. The coach is there to ensure that the players have the tools to succeed. He’s not a cheerleader and he’s not their parent. Making the game fun isn’t a detriment. Being open and honest with players about who you are isn’t a detriment. When a player makes a mistake knowing that he can count on his coach to help rather than berate isn’t a detriment. Anyhow, I wrote that we’re beating a dead horse at this point a while ago so I’ll just leave this after my final point. I feel as if I’ve shown that not only do we not know how McD is with his players in private, and even if he likes to have fun, it’s not a detriment. It’s subjective to think that McD is “goofy” all the time and it’s objective to say that “goofiness”, joking, and levity aren’t necessarily bad things.
We don't know how McDaniel is all the time, no. But it's noteworthy that it's fairly easy to find video footage of other coaches being other than silly and goofy, whereas it's difficult if not impossible find such footage of McDaniel. In fact this was apparently the team's very recent attempt at a social media makeover of McDaniel in that regard: https://www.facebook.com/share/v/dkfYKAdszs2dHycH/?mibextid=WC7FNe If that's all they got for the effort to make McDaniel appear other than silly and goofy, they're hurting.
lol… Hindsight is your favorite thing isn’t it? It’s been nearly 10 years since Campbell coached here. He learned as an assistant for 6 more years before he became a head coach. If he had been hired here as HC at that time he most likely would have failed. In his first year in Detroit he went 3-13-1. In his second year he went 9-8. This is his 3rd season and he’s got his team rolling. Compare these wins/losses with McD over his first 2 years.
Well, I don't see silly celebrations as a problem, per se, but when it seems that you only care about getting a big play or a TD so that you can do your celebration, that's a problem. The focus seems to be wrong. I think McDaniel, if he is the problem, can add some layers to his personality, so he can connect with the players like he always had, but also get then to focus and get serious when necessary.
