Pro Football Rumors
The Dolphins gave Mike McDaniel an extension just before last season, but the team’s progress has stalled. Although McDaniel is the only Dolphins coach to engineer back-to-back playoff berths since Dave Wannstedt in the early 2000s, the team’s disappointing 8-9 record last season — as relationships with Jalen Ramsey and Tyreek Hill deteriorated — brought signs of trouble for the three-year Miami HC.
Entering his fourth season, McDaniel is a respectable 28-23. He played the lead role in revitalizing Tua Tagovailoa, while the QB’s concussion issues have been the chief factor in limiting McDaniel’s offense, which fell from second in 2023 (when Tagovailoa started 17 games) to 22nd in 2024 (11 Tua starts). Regardless of how this situation has reached this point, some execs around the league view McDaniel as a candidate to be the first coach fired this year, the Washington Post’s Jason La Canfora notes.
The atypical HC personality is responsible for numerous memorable quotes during his tenure, but his style is among the reasons Ramsey wanted out. One anonymous GM described the Miami situation to La Canfora as a “ticking time bomb” and referred to the Dolphins letting Ramsey and Hill “walk all over them.”
That may be more on GM Chris Grier than McDaniel, as the veteran exec handed both lucrative contracts — Ramsey’s an extension, Hill’s a reworking — despite multiple seasons remaining on each’s previous deal. Neither contract thus far has worked out. Hill slogged through an injury-plagued season that ended turbulently — via the mercurial wideout’s trade request he eventually took back — while Ramsey maneuvered his way out after not justifying Grier’s extension. The Dolphins are eating a non-QB-record $35.86MM in dead money — spread across this year and next — from the Ramsey trade.
McDaniel’s extension runs through the 2028 season, but teams — as the Cardinals and Titans showed in the not-too-distant past — have shown they will pull the plug and eat coaching guarantees if the operation is flailing. In seeing the Dolphins as too player-friendly — a topic we covered in a Trade Rumors Front Office post earlier this year, as Grier also gave in to Xavien Howard‘s contract demands with multiple years left on his deal back in 2021 — many (via La Canfora) compared this Dolphins situation to Robert Saleh‘s Jets setup last year.
Like Woody Johnson, Stephen Ross has seen his influence — via the Tom Brady/Sean Payton tampering penalty and Brian Flores‘ tanking allegation — cause issues. And the Ramsey trade has accompanied a number of Hill offseason comments. McDaniel admonished Hill in April but indicated he still wanted the wideout back. That is a situation to monitor, but the Dolphins may need to start fast in order for McDaniel — and possibly Grier — to justify remaining at the helm.
Like Ramsey, the Dolphins have not seen Bradley Chubb justify a trade investment. Ramsey only cost the team a third-round pick and tight end Hunter Long, but Chubb [brought first- and fourth-round picks...
