The Miami Dolphins were at it again this past weekend, losing to a Carolina Panthers team that could be better than expected, although that might not be saying much. The Dolphins blew a 17-point lead amid some awful defense and questionable decision making.
And when the head coach does a little finger pointing afterwards, well, that doesn’t look good. And it sure looked like Mike McDaniel was trying to blame defensive coordinator Anthony Weaver.
“If you can’t get it right during the game, they will continue to do the least risky thing,” McDaniel said. “It’s not how you win football games in this league. We have to figure that out immediately. I’ll start on the plane…We need guys playing on the same page. You don’t give up that many line of scrimmage yards unless you’re uncoordinated in certain ways.”
That points to overall team dysfunction and a frustrated owner in Stephen Ross.
NFL insider says the “end is in sight” for Mike McDaniel
The Dolphins are 1-4 and have looked pretty dreadful in accumulating that record. There has been speculation about the job security of McDaniel for quite some time now, but whatever it was before, multiply it by 100 now.
NFL insider Tony Pauline says that he’s hearing that McDaniel is all but gone, even though it might be a few weeks before the hammer comes down.
“Now, after a horrendous Week 5 loss to Carolina, sources tell me the end is in sight,” Pauline writes for Sports Keeda.
After their Week 1 disaster when the Dolphins lost to the Indianapolis Colts by a score of 33-8, I reported that league sources were telling me that owner Stephen Ross would pull the trigger and fire head coach Mike McDaniel if the team was not competitive over the next 6-7 games. Since that article, the Dolphins lost three of the four games, winning just a single contest over the lowly New York Jets last Monday evening.
Mike McDaniel certainly feels the heat on his seat
According to Pauline, the Dolphins would have to start turning things around in the next few weeks. A good place to start would be this Sunday at home against the Los Angeles Chargers and the bye week isn’t until Week 12, so Ross won’t be waiting for the break to pull the trigger.
“When could Mike McDaniel be sent packing?,” Pauline continues. The same sources who told me that McDaniel was on very thin ice after their Week 1 loss to the Colts predict that Ross will wait 2-3 more games before deciding whether to pull the trigger on his head coach.
McDaniel is a lot of things, but he’s not stupid. He’s well aware of his own head-coaching mortality and it sounded like he got an earful from Ross following Sunday’s loss.
“He was really frustrated, just like I was,” McDaniel said Monday of his chat with Ross. We talked about the challenge ahead to get ready for the Chargers, and that was really the extent of it.
“It’s frustrating because there’s a lot of talking, and we need to major in doing. I don’t think anybody wants to hear me talk about it as much as I don’t feel like saying it, but it doesn’t change the steadfast reality that is: You have to get better at things or you’ll continue having the same results.”
It doesn’t sound like if, but when.