By Miguel Mike Medina
Photo Credit: Sam Navarro-Imagn Images
The Miami Dolphins have fired head coach Mike McDaniel after a 7-10 season.
The news doesn’t come as a surprise. We’ve been hearing the noise all season about McDaniel being in the hot seat. It almost looks like he lost the team, and the players stopped listening to him. We don’t know if this is accurate, but the Dolphins didn’t look like a team that had fun playing together on the field this season.
In four seasons as the head coach, McDaniel led the team to the playoffs twice (2022, 2023). In 2023, the Dolphins won 11 games, which is the most during his tenure as coach. Dolphins lost both years in the wild card game—no playoff victories under his leadership. He finished his coaching career in Miami with a 35-33 record.
McDaniel is not a bad coach. Does he need to improve in certain areas of his coaching skills? Yes. There’s always room for improvement. We have seen many more lousier coaches in the NFL. McDaniel needs to continue studying and working on his weaknesses. He’s still very young, and he will find another job in the NFL.
The Dolphins have had many coaches throughout their history. However, he won’t go down as one of the greatest coaches in the history of the Dolphins franchise. But it’s fair to see that Mike is the best Dolphins coach since Dave Wannstedt, who coached the Dolphins from 2000 through 2004. Wannstedt, just like McDaniel, led the Dolphins to two playoff appearances. Dave had a better record than Mike, 42-31.
Who will the Dolphins hire as the next head coach? Could they target someone like John Harbaugh? After 18 seasons, he was recently fired by the Baltimore Ravens. The Dolphins might want to use his service to help turn this team around. Let the coaching search begin.
Miguel Mike Medina is the publisher of The MMM Journal. He can be reached at medinamiguelmike@gmail.com and themmmjournal@gmail.com
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