Mike McDaniel – August 29, 2024
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Thursday, August 29, 2024
Head Coach Mike McDaniel
(Jack Driscoll’s release, should we take that to mean that there is optimism that OL Aaron Brewer will be available Week 1? Also, where in the world has LB Anthony Walker Jr. been? We haven’t seen him. Is he safe? Is he fine? Is he injured?) – “Oh, so it’s a correlation versus causation? And you’re just trying to trip me into injury reports that I’m not responsible for yet, right? (laughter) I think there’s a lot of things that are involved when you’re talking about the roster and when moves are made, sometimes they have to do with the position group, sometimes they have to do with the overall complexion of a different position group that’s always adjusting. That was a tough decision to let go of Jack (Driscoll); he’s a good player and will do tremendous things in this league, I think. But overall, Aaron (Brewer) included, I feel very confident in where we’re at from the offensive line position, and that confidence comes from not 2023 or a version that maybe people are exposed to. I’m talking about 2024, these individuals and the group and what I’ve watched every practice, even to the point of how we blocked Atlanta’s defensive line in joint (practice) versus a year ago. The group itself has given me confidence because I don’t base any of my thoughts or opinions of the former production or the former self of someone; I let them define what they are right in front of me that day. The group has given me more confidence at the o-line position, really, in general, than I’ve had since I’ve been here.”
(And then with LB Anthony Walker Jr., has he just been injured? Do you expect him back soon?) – “He’s made his presence known within the team. We just – we like to give you surprise parties and surprise visuals. He’s working his way back. He’s been a part of walkthroughs and making sure we don’t have any setbacks as he gets himself more involved in full-speed stuff. He’s one of my favorite individuals on the whole team. Really, really grown to have an appreciation for him; you talk about a galvanizing person and a teammate, he’s created relationships that you’d be surprised are only six months long. I can’t wait for him to play, because you can tell his love for football by – he’s a very high-spirited guy, but man, conversations with him about football when he’s unable to play football, just with me, I’m doing all the work. I’m doing the questions, he’s not that excited to talk about it. He’s a competitor, he’s excited to get back and he’s done himself well by not having any setbacks in the process of getting back on the field.”
(Has OL Aaron Brewer tried snapping yet? Or is that a next week thing?) – “Well that’s part of – gripping is part of the process of his return. He’s doing well and I’m very comfortable with his projection which, what is that projection? Well it’s not league mandated that I tell you, and it’s no offense to you; it’s more being responsible with competitive advantages.”
(From a play calling perspective, how much do you have ready now that you purposely save understanding it’s very important to win the games in January and beyond?) – “I think it’s more of a constant evolution from where guys are at, what things they’re good at, what you’re working on and what enables you to do the next step. It’s an evolution that it’s not like you ever save bullets, it’s more I look at it from the lens of, all right, if you execute something properly, if it’s impactful enough to be an explosive gain or a big play, then people have to address it and try to take it away. So then you anticipate that, and that shapes how you do things moving forward. There’s always so much learning involved in this job, and particularly calling plays at an NFL level, in one season – at the end of the season, I feel like a different playcaller than how you start it. You learn just a ton of different things on the ramifications of different decisions you make, and I think every year it’s gotten a lot easier to call plays in training camp off the script in move the ball situations and in preseason games, it just becomes more natural to your game day experience for me, which I’ve been fortunate enough to have two years and can’t wait to start the third.”
(What’s your view on how the size of a player’s contract should impact the expectations of him on the field? I guess particularly with QB Tua Tagovailoa, should there be heightened expectations for him in 2024 because he’s gotten his contract?) – “I think expectations are important from one vantage point, for the personal expectations that one has for themselves. I think it’s very important to draw a line between your input and what you are executing in the play and the result. I think those expectations of how you do your job and then a bigger understanding about how much other people have to do with your job, I think that as you – you’re on a journey to earn, whether it’s a position, you’re on the journey to be a starting quarterback, then you’re on a journey to solidify yourself with a commitment from the franchise, and then the second you do that, it just transfers to inherently you want to prove your worth. So I think naturally it’s important to have expectations evolve over time; if you’re trying to be the best version of yourself, you better be getting better, because if not you’re getting worse. But then I think it’s also you have to understand the bigger picture and how truly dependent you are on teammates to execute your jobs so that you don’t get caught up in the fake land of result-based opinions that have a lot to do with a lot of other people. So I think the standard and really what Tua asks from himself on a day-to-day basis, his standard of how locked in he needs to be, it all starts with him and he’s really embraced that where there’s no days off when you’re in a situation where you’re the highest paid employee. If you want to be on a good team, then you better bring everything that you can control, or you should have nothing more than marginal expectations for your team at best if you don’t have that mindset on a daily basis and dictate the terms that you want your teammates to follow. I think that’s fair, that’s very natural. You’d have to be completely unaware not to expect; external expectations will adjust, but I think it’s important that you focus on your internal expectations because that’s the best way to lend the most powerful results that hopefully satisfy all your friends, fans and every other person.”
(I wanted to ask you about DT Calais Campbell. With preseason in the books, we obviously know the experience he brings to this team. Was there something that surprised you as a player and as a person from him?) – “Having played high school football at the same time in the same state, not in the same conference, as Calais (Campbell), there’s a lot of things that surprise me. (laughter) I think bottom line, you are so hard pressed to find someone that’s able to execute their job at the level he executes it. Like even at the least taxing physical positions, he’s – how many quarterbacks are older than him in the National Football League? Probably – wow, there’s only one. (laughter) He is doing his job over a crazy amount of time at a high level from the one-technique all the way to the five-technique, from next to the center all the way to on the outside of the tackle, and to be – it just takes such a tremendous person to be able to do what he’s done and continues to do in his career. The exuberance that he has to attack every day, what that takes in terms of preparation for your body, you can’t fake that career. You have to truly love football, love the team, and he exudes that every day. I’ll tell you what, it’s such a powerful piece to this team because you want to talk about things that are left unsaid – but like I just know his teammates that are 15 years younger than him have a hard time not finishing a drill, finishing a play, straining and having exuberance to come to work every day when they’re watching him do that. The level of guilt or expectations of how you should about your job are just raised when you have someone that has operated as such a high level, and part of his success is all his preparation and really diligence to take care of his body and execute fundamentals and techniques. So I didn’t totally – I knew he was going to be an important part of the team. I knew he that he’s an absolute freak in terms of being able to play that position for that long at such a high level. I didn’t necessarily really think through the natural influence that on a day-to-day basis, him chopping wood and going about his job, how motivating that would be for his peers that he’s – I think he was in college when the iPod came out. That’s pretty amazing that he’s now executing jobs that guys were barely alive when he started executing that job and he’s doing it alongside them. So he’s an inspiring person and player, and we’re very fortunate to have him.”
(You guys had to be a couple years apart. What are your memories of him as a high school prospect in Colorado?) – “That in early 2000s, there was this monstrosity of a human in Denver, Colorado athletics. Colorado football, there’s some good players that come out there but it’s not Florida, Texas, California type stuff, and he was getting recruited to ‘The U’ (University of Miami). Do you know how many players from Colorado were getting recruited to ‘The U’ in the early 2000s? (laughter) It was a guy that I have no problem stating that if he was about to tackle me as a high schooler, I was turning the down down. There wasn’t people built like him anywhere really, but especially in Colorado. So pretty much every person of my age range still follows him, because he was a unicorn for sure coming out of Denver, Colorado football.”
(Annual question about the locker room seating chart. There were some things I noticed in there – S Jordan Poyer between QB Tua Tagovailoa and CB Kader Kohou, LB Chop Robinson near RB Raheem Mostert, LB Mohamed Kamara near LB Bradley Chubb. Is there any seating arrangement that you’re really proud of?) – “One of my first decisions I make in a football year, so that’s really funny that your interest in something where I was deep diving in thought, but it was months, months, months ago, so it’s cool to hear your musings of it. It is calculated in terms of trying to – I always look at it like this; you spend a ton of time with specific people in the course of the year, your position group namely, during the course of the year in the NFL season. You’re talking about all these meetings that you go to, and you have your boys, and then you go to stretch and it’s the same thing. Individuals and it’s the same thing. Then in practice, you’re subbing in and out with your position coach. There’s so much time spent with specific players. And then you also, at the same time, there’s so much time, over the course of the year, spent at your locker. So the locker design for me is as simple as trying to connect players that, for one reason or another, I think it would be interesting if they connected. Most of the time forecasting that they’re not spending three quarters of their day with them, like the players in their position groups. And then I think if there’s somebody that maybe has a low-key personality but is pretty funny and has maybe some subtle dry humor to him, I think it’s added value for the team if I put an overtly loud, humorous guy next to them and be like, ‘Hey, we’re kind of the same even though we’re way different,’ that type of stuff. So I think the connectivity of the team, I try to have an impact on that with locker room selection – I’m pretty predictable. There are the situations where in training camp – I have a pretty strong memory of this type of stuff, in training camp, if somebody gets into a fight with another player, probably in a year you’re going to be sitting next to them, just because that’s my speed.”
(Can you talk about why TE Tanner Conner made the 53? And what WR Erik Ezukanma needs to do to get back to the 53?) – “So Tanner Conner, really cool year, offseason for him. I think a lot of the stuff, his teammates had firsthand experience with his journey. He was a position switch; he was a wide receiver that we moved to tight end and now owns the entire playbook. One of the rare, rare players that – there’s probably three in my whole career – that knows fullback and then can line up at the slot receiver and run two-minute, which is all memorized word association. There’s nobody that has the rules of our offense and how to execute at every level down more than Tanner Conner does, and I’m excited for what he has in store for the Dolphins, both on offense and on special teams. And then Erik Ezukanma, I really like where he’s at because he’s on our team. And for me, there’s a lot of players that – I look at it as a 69, or with the extra international player, 70-man roster and how you’re able to get that and get the best version of that. Sometimes you’re on the active roster, sometimes you’re a practice squad player that has to be flexed up. There’s a lot of different things that go on in that. I like where he’s at. I think the team likes where he’s at, just based upon the reactions to him and still have very high expectations for him and the group.”
(What was it that you saw that made WR Grant DuBose a claims guy?) – “It’s something that I knew of him coming out, and when you’re high on specific players that you’re kind of targeting in different areas of the draft or wherever, and then another team takes him, you pay attention. So I’ve been paying attention to his game, and I think also, it didn’t hurt that I have a strong relationship that’s very communicative with their head coach Matt LaFleur, so I kind of knew what Grant (DuBose) was like day-in, day-out. For what we’re trying to do and the roles that we have on our team, I thought he was a very good fit for his skill sets and what we’re looking for to add to our wide receiver room. The connectivity of what he has done, it was very clear and what he could offer us in terms of adding to the group, it was a really good fit. I’m very, very happy we got that claim.”
(This offseason the majority of your moves on the offensive line was retaining the incumbents. I’m curious to hear how you would describe the value of chemistry and continuity in that group in this system?) – “Particularly in the way we play football, you would be – I’ve just had the fortune in being within the same system for 18 years. And in that process, you learn that if you pre-judge something early in the process in understanding how to truly execute this scheme, if you take a player in Year 1 and forecast that as being how he’ll be in the system, you’re wrong way more than you’re right. So that – and then you just get so much invaluable information from each and every player when you go through the journey of a season. And in that, I know if we didn’t have the right type of combination of people and skill set, we wouldn’t have just stayed steadfast, or the moves would probably be a lot different. I think you react to what people show you who they are, day-in, day-out. In this circumstance, we had some guys that were really buying in that started to make plays in their prospective roles and assignments. So you decide that, ‘Hey, no. I want to invest in these guys more.’ What I can say honestly from hours upon hours upon hours of instruction and then evaluation, the group has really proven the organization right in believing in them based upon how they are performing. What would be interesting is asking any veteran defensive lineman on the different versions of players, the different version of Liam Eichenberg when we got here and to where he is now. A different version of Austin Jackson, it goes across the board. I think it speaks even to Terron Armstead is feeling more confident in his game than he ever has in his career, and you’re talking about one of those guys, one of those super-athletes that is the fastest offensive lineman ever at the Combine, and where he’s at in his game, feeling more confident in playing football than he ever has before in his career. That’s because there’s a group of people diligently working at their craft, excited to make a name for themselves under the current version of who they are in 2024.”
