The Phinsider
The Miami Dolphins expected players to police themselves in 2024, and it faced obstacles. In 2025, it seems the players are starting to figure it out.
Miami Dolphins head coach Mike McDaniel looked to the players to police the team in 2024, expecting the leaders to step forward and add professionalism to the club. The players said the right things, but the results never really appeared. The team struggled both on and off the field throughout the season and crashed out as the regular season came to a close, missing the playoffs and opening the door to doubts about the club's future.
“I’m going to say last year, we were lying honestly. Point blank, period,” a laughing linebacker Bradley Chubb told the South Florida media on Wednesday as the team held their 2025 mandatory minicamp. “ We felt it. We put our toe in the water, but we didn’t dive all the way in. We didn’t get all the way there with each other. We weren’t making the effort to go the extra mile and I would say this year, we’re doing that. I’m not sure how it’s going to turn out for us, but we are putting forth that foot to change it because last year, like I said, we said we wanted to change, yeah, we’re doing this, we’re doing that; but it’s not going exactly how we want to.”
The players not taking full accountability for themselves and their teammates was a significant issue for the team, where players were arriving late for meetings, creating off-field problems, and becoming distractions, even if the team never acknowledged it.
What is different this season?
“This year, I feel like everybody has the right mindset and moving forward, so if it works out, it’s going to work out. If it doesn’t, we’re going to get back to the drawing board and make sure it works out,” Chubb explained.
McDaniel spoke this week about the culture changes he is seeing with the team this year, compared to the 2024 version of the club. “I think first and foremost, things that we collectively established as non-negotiables to improve from one season to another, we attacked, and I think communicating that in a fashion that’s very direct. It wasn’t a surprise to me that this is a question of this press conference or it’s been talked about this offseason, considering that I did have a team meeting that was very pointed at the subject right before guys had media and the point is you can’t run away from things that need to be fixed. Let’s identify them and collectively, either we’re going to not be in the gray – if it’s going to be a player responsibility, we need to be adept at communicating exactly what that looks like, being accountable on the communication part, and then holding players accountable and identifying what that looks like from a player perspective.
“Ultimately, cultures are people, a collection of people, and each person has a...
