Mike McDaniel – December 5, 2023
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Tuesday, December 5, 2023
Head Coach Mike McDaniel
(I was going to ask if you and General Manager Chris Grier have decided if you’re going to put LB Jerome Baker on IR or will you just go week to week with him on the 53? And also, OL Rob Hunt, might you need to sit him and rest him a couple weeks with a hamstring aggravation?) – “Both of those guys, I guess fortuitously, Baker will not go on IR. So, it’s a week to week deal. But I think there was stuff reported about his MCL. And the good news is that report is true. So it will be non-surgical and we’ll be taking it week by week. Rob Hunt was unique because we had been extremely proactively conservative with him so we didn’t anticipate him having a setback. However, it was a unique situation where the defense brought a different blitz pattern and he had to kind of recover in a unique way that you would never – bottom line is it was extremely stressful and pretty abnormal for him to have to open up his gait as much as he did. We’ll go back to our conservative nature with that and do our best. But it was just kind of a perfect storm for him, but he’ll be week to week as well. So, we’ll see.”
(T Terron Armstead, how has he progressed? And S Jevon Holland, is he closer this week?) – “I think the time off helped Jevon. We’ll be conservative with him for the sake of the football team. He’s a guy we rely on and fortunately we have good depth at that position, I think case and point this past game. So, we’ll be conservative in nature but I’ll be hearing from him all week I’m sure. And then, yeah, the Armstead deal – what has snowballed with his injuries is kind of par for the course where he’s going to do everything he can. We’ll make sure to give him some opportunities to feel confident going into this next game before we make that decision. But, if he’s unable to go, as you guys have seen, we have several players at that position that we’re confident in.”
(How has T Terron Armstead been from a mental standpoint dealing with this year? I know it was so important for him to be healthy this year and it just hasn’t?) – “I am absolutely so proud of him in particular because it frustrates more than anybody even being on the injury report, battling through the stuff he took measures to try and get in front of this. And it hasn’t worked out. Having said that, he understands his role on the team with such wisdom. While he’s going through the trials and tribulations of wanting to be out there in the worst way and then having some setbacks, he is not making it anybody else’s problem. He’s supporting his teammates. He’s completely invested on a day-to-day basis. I don’t think people give credit where credit’s due. It’s abnormal to play that position on a shortened work week regardless because typically for the normal player, that’s a high-anxiety position. Pass protection, a lot of third downs, a lot of games that fall into the balance where you have known pass rushers, the best athletes in the game, and you’re on an island a lot of times. That’s not everybody’s cup of tea. People have anxiety on a normal work week. To be able to battle through stuff and sometimes not get all the reps, but then be able to perform on Sunday, I think that is extraordinary. I don’t think he knows going out to a game sometimes that, ‘Hey, I’m going to have to be conservative at the point of attack here, here, or I’m going to have to do what I have to do.’ That selflessness knowing that he makes us a better football team regardless is pretty much unheard of. He’s just really grown. He came to this team as a leader, and he’s just really thrived that way. You’d be hard pressed to find many players that I’m taken aback by. And what’s he able to do and contribute to us when he’s literally capable at all has been humongous for our team and for our offense.”
(13 weeks in with five games remaining, you’re number one in the AFC. Your reaction to that?) – “Call me when it’s a 13-game season and I’ll be excited to talk about the next game (laughter). I think for all of us that have been around the NFL long enough, you get about five games, four games left, and that becomes a lot of the conversation. And it does take a lot of execution to get there. But it’s kind of one of those tricky things. There’s a lot of distraction, like look over here while this is going on, that you have to battle to be successful in the National Football League. And the only thing that really matters is how we continue our development of mastering each and every day. That’s cool to know. It’s always cool to know that you are doing well relative to your peers. But I think when you start focusing on, alright, a group of games or we go this or – the only reason why we’re 9-3 is because we haven’t penciled in any of the wins that people have told us to pencil in. That’s why other games that we have won, typically each and every team isn’t discussed with regard to, ‘Oh yeah, they beat the teams they’re supposed to.’ Well, there’s a lot of teams that are below .500 that are getting wins against teams above .500. It’s interesting, kind of cool and I’m happy for the fan base to get that excitement. That’s all nice, but we have a job to do today. If we shortchange ourselves – we just did film review of the game with our players. If we shortchange ourselves and what we learned from this last game on what is a typical NFL Monday, if we shortchange and are worried about anything other than the Tennessee Titans when we’re game planning on NFL Wednesday which is Thursday here, then all those conversations and stories literally don’t matter at all. So we have to – I firmly believe you have to be, it’s almost like being in shape – you have to be on top of your process and how you prepare and how you play together. You let that slip for one game and you can lose all of your momentum. My reaction to it is, ‘Oh.’ But irrelevant and erroneous for what’s the most important thing and that’s a game that will be played this week on national television. It will be the only game that matters to each and every player in that locker room. I can just tell by the way they’ve approached the whole season.”
(50-some odd starting quarterbacks this year. You’re going to see a team that’s healthy there. Obviously that was part of their plan, but can you remember a year that’s like this? I mean it feels like half the league is falling apart.) – “Yeah, I think this is the second time it’s been brought to my attention. And you’re so invested in your own situation. I’d be like, to me, it feels like the healthiest year for quarterbacks ever. (laughter) But I don’t remember – I mean that seems like a lot. It does. And who knows what the correlation or causation of that is. But I think typically it feels like it’d be 35-40 total in a given season. That’s completely not factual, just a guess. But that seems pretty excessive because by my math there’s 32 teams. So yeah, that feels like it’s almost half the league that’s dealing with it, plus the guys that are on two or three. But shoot, for the Miami Dolphins, this is the year of quarterback health.”
(QB Tua Tagovailoa mentioned after the game about preparation this team has been putting in. He says he notices guys stay longer, really put upon themselves to do that. As a coach, I got to imagine that makes you feel pretty proud, that’s got to be a proud moment. Who are the guys who lead that charge?) – “For this team, I reference it a bunch. Obviously it’s a proud – you want to win in this league. And I know that to win consistently, that’s part of the formula, being on the various teams that I’ve been on. For this team, if you have a ‘C’ on your chest, like we reference it a lot, the captains and there’s a player in each position that represents the Leadership Council. The collection of those two groups make a lot of decisions that I put in the players hands. It’s kind of filtered through them. I think a lot of guys have been trying to go above and beyond. You have various people come in the building to speak to your team over the last two years. It shows me people are listening. And it’s really hard to not go above and beyond when Christian Wilkins is mandating that guys – Christian and Zach (Sieler) are mandating that groups meet together. The way that Tua has grown in that regard is monumental, but on top of that, you have guys like Tyreek Hill who have taken a complete giant step as leaders, understanding how much their investment impacts how much other people invest. You have guys like Alec Ingold that do a tremendous job with that. There’s a lot of orchestration that Terron Armstead does. The step that ‘X’ (Xavien Howard) has taken and then with Jalen (Ramsey) joining the crew and Jevon Holland has always been outstanding with that. I think Jerome Baker has taken a step in that regard and that’s always kind of been the mantra of Duke Riley. The list is lengthy and you can go to every position. The fact of the matter is on NFL gamedays, this team is very prideful about doing their best. And you see a team that strains, that plays together, that cheers for each other, and all these things are an accumulation of what you see on Sundays is all about the investment during the week. And when you’re challenging guys during the week, as a player, you’re challenging a peer and then they rise to the challenge and then make a play on Sunday, then people lose their mind. That’s where all the energy and excitement comes from within the team on Sundays is because they’re putting a lot of work, a lot of due diligence into the work week. That’s why we’ve gotten better at things.”
(I wanted to ask you about LB Duke Riley and how confident you guys are that he can handle not just an elevated role, but potentially being the green dot player?) – “Yeah, I think he did a tremendous job this past game. I think it’s more difficult in-game to adjust, although he takes reps that way each and every week. But I think case in point, they called it a completion and fumble, but a third-and-long that a series after ‘Bake’ (Jerome Baker) went down and he makes a play that he really has no backup on because he’s very locked in to the keys and didn’t hesitate at all. Just triggered and made a big-time play to get the defense off the field. Very confident because he’s shown me reason to be confident. He takes reps being the communicator from coach to players each and every week within practice for that exact reason. And also he did an unbelievable job in the offseason. It was not like – I mean he competed and really pushed ‘Bake’ immensely to be where he’s at. We’ve known the entire season if he’s in there, we’re expecting things to progress as they normally would because he’s that type of player that’s capable. It’s one of those positions that we have some good players at. So, happy for his opportunity because I know he’ll take full advantage of it.”
(And where is LB Channing Tindall in this as far as his ability to possibly fill in if needed?) – “Channing got out there with the defense and did a good job in his snaps at the end of the game. Everybody is really called upon when you have a fixture of your defense that’s usually not missing from the games. So he’s part of that nucleus as well. I think the way that really this locker room looks at everything is that injuries do happen. We’ve had a number of them all across the board at almost every position. I think the answers to the plays that are lost when a person’s going down, they all feel like those answers are within the locker room. So, we feel pretty good about the same way we’ve been saying the same thing about the offense line for months. It’s just an opportunity for guys that have been diligently working so that when their opportunity comes, they take full advantage of it.”
(It seems like five years ago, if a guy threw a no look pass to the flat, it would break the internet. Tua threw like an 18-yard dig route no-look on Sunday. I’m just curious when you watch it on tape, what’s your reaction to that when he makes those plays?) – “Well it’s kind of like – I try to point them out to the team every time because yes, one part it’s extraordinary by Tua. But really, that’s something that he can’t even do unless the hours upon hours of deliberate practice are accumulated with the players that he’s throwing to. When you watch him do it, each and every player that he’s throwing to – he probably had like three or four this past game, he does it a lot. But it’s always to players where he knows exactly where they’re going to be. He can trust. And you bank those types of reps where he has a crazy memory of timing and just the physiological memory of executing a ball to a certain distance, he can spend his time making sure that window is open. I think the guy he probably does it the most to is Tyreek Hill. I kind of see those two players as the same guy now, where is it either one of their incredible plays? I don’t care. I think it’s more they’re able to do what they’re best put on the planet to do at their very best because of the diligent work they’ve put in to prepare themselves for those moments.”
