Mike McDaniel – October 25, 2024
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Friday, October 25, 2024
Head Coach Mike McDaniel
(As you know WR Tyreek Hill was on the injury report with a foot, WR Jaylen Waddle with a quad this week. Do you expect both will be available this Sunday?) – “Yeah, I’m feeling good. We’ll see how today goes, but yes, I feel very optimistic and feel good about where they’re at.”
(Did QB Tua Tagovailoa indeed clear concussion protocol?) – “He did. After going through the process and having a practice where we were able to initiate some contact with him and then he met with an independent doctor and was fully cleared. He is out of the protocol.”
(He will play Sunday?) – “Yes.”
(Offensive Coordinator Frank Smith had a cool story about how QB Tua Tagovailoa was popping into his office at 5 a.m. Can you just speak to his eagerness for this moment?) – “I think he’s done an outstanding job not doing anything but controlling what he can control, so in that he’s put his best foot forward to take care of himself, as well to be the leader of this football team just in a different way. All of that is – he’s been fully engaged, but he’s also become very aware that he is not interested in becoming a coach anytime soon, that his love is playing football. I think he’s eager, as everybody is. I think if you had any questions about how valuable he is, I think it’s pretty obvious. I think the team is excited to play football and have him be a part of it. He’s excited to play with his teammates and I’m very happy for all of those involved, but yeah, pretty eager.”
(What do you think some of those questions he had when he was at those early coaching sessions helped him learn about, maybe the offense or the team or your role?) – “First of all – if you needed another reason to go above and beyond with your actions and how much he appreciates every meeting, every time on the field, you don’t know what you have until it’s gone. Having that and being able to try to help the team without playing, you lean into how many different players need to be reached on a given week, how many different problems – it really forces you to get outside your own experience is the way that we’ve kind of talked about it. So like, all right, well this guy is running his route short, our cadence isn’t where it needs to be. Instead of just sitting there and stewing over it, he took action. That connects him to his teammates in a unique way because typically he’s not coaching them. And then understanding just looking at… it’s simple as when things aren’t successful, you can kind of have a better attachment to what’s most important on certain plays and certain things that we do in our offense and how valuable – people talk about his timing all the time. He plays convicted, he’s very coachable, but I think he’s found more confidence based upon how he plays and more reasons of why he does certain things, why we do stuff with technique and fundamentals, all of that. I think the simplest thing I can say is he’s – as a quarterback, you have so many things on your plate and you see the world through your own eyes, and this process gave him an opportunity to see the problems of other people. To really clear – the NFL work week, you put a gameplan in and how do you execute that gameplan, what needs to happen, how does walkthrough need to look, how does his tonality need to be. You can see when you’re observing – how should you respond to a bad play. I think all these things, he really took the time to be present, and because of that, you can feel even more even-keel player when he’s playing, understanding that it’s all about this next play, my technique and fundamentals, and then that play happened and then it’s the next play. If it was good or bad, should that affect your focus on the finer details of your job? Absolutely not. Should you be lashing yourself if your throw is off? That probably doesn’t help anybody. Maybe I can keep my frustration about whatever to myself when my teammates need me to, those types of things. It’s been a cool process and I think he did a great job, an unbelievable job controlling what he can control and making the time valuable.”
(Now that we know who’s starting at quarterback on Sunday, have you settled on who your backup will be?) – “I’m pretty sure I know who it is, but I want to make sure. After this practice, I think we’ll know with absolute certainty but I need to let the full work week playout before I stamp it. I think I know and I’ll let you guys know in my Sunday press conference after the game if I was right in my guess.”
(Do you expect to have LB Emmanuel Ogbah and S Jevón Holland on Sunday?) – “Yes, and yes.”
(Any sense at this point if QB Tua Tagovailoa’s injury or concern about what could happen is creating any unique tension in the locker room, something you’ve had to work through at all with the players?) – “No, I think the most important thing is that for anybody that’s concerned enough to ask, Tua met with a litany, a laundry list, a long list of medical experts, and zero of them recommended that he shouldn’t play football. So that means 100% of them were supporting the continued journey and I think that is as easy of a relay as possible. I think there’s a lot of things out there, a lot of – so I can’t tell you how many people or if many people asked him, but I know that’s what drove his confidence is making his decision in step with medical experts who fully support what he’s doing. So I think everybody feels good about that.”
(Will CB Storm Duck, CB Kader Kohou and OL Liam Eichenberg be available on Sunday?) – “No, no, yes. Oh, probably not, no, yes. So Storm (Duck), there is an outside, there is a small percentage chance for sure, but I’m pessimistic about that. Kader (Kohou), no and Liam (Eichenberg), yes.”
(What about DT Zach Sieler? Any reason for concern there?) – “Yeah, that was a kind of a – it was a first in my football history. He will not play this game. Timeline is unknown, and that’s kind of where it stands.”
(Was he poked in the eye in practice or something?) – “Yeah, there was a – yes.”
(On a personal level, how excited are you to see QB Tua Tagovailoa back?) – “Words can’t describe how excited I get for all players that have opportunities that I know they don’t take for granted, that they’ve earned. It’s very exciting from a human perspective as a coach of this team, it’s meaningful to watch people go after their dreams. And when you see someone with absolute certainty boldly go after something, then have it taken away for whatever time period, there’s nothing better than having football players that are all in. Not only because of who they are, not only because of their teammates and what they love about that connection, but because they truly love doing, exercising their gift and I think it’s hard not to be inspired by that.”
(It’s rare that you’re very adamant that a player will not play this many days before the game. How serious was the poke to DT Zach Sieler’s eye?) – “When I have certainty, I don’t like to BS. I think I want our team to win based upon winning the game, so I wouldn’t – it’s hard to say, however, it’s week to week. I just know he’s not going to be available for this game, so I like to trim the fat sometimes.”
(You had mentioned that nobody recommended that QB Tua Tagovailoa stop play football. Is there anything else you can tell us about what they either recommended he do, precautions he might take, protection he could wear? Anything that would involve responding to this injury to help prevent him from having another one or at least keeping him as healthy as possible.) – “Beyond getting into his personal nitty gritty – I’ll say what I’m comfortable saying (and) speaking on his behalf of is I think there’s been no stone unturned from just how you do everything perspective. From all the way to the most minimal thing with hydration and how you eat – I know in the locker room, he is my foremost expert on the brain. He knows a ton because we didn’t – no one in this process has trivialized any of this. As you’re coaching, I think he has a different understanding of the ramifications of his decisions, and I think in terms of how he plays the game and whether or not that one or two yards is worth everything else, I think that has been firmly put in perspective. I think he’s really gone above and beyond since 2022 really, and he’s taking it with that same seriousness, just probably leveled up a little bit. There’s not – it’s all encompassing and he’s doing everything he really can, in my opinion, to make sure that he’s on the field and not off of it.”
(You mentioned earlier this week that QB Tua Tagovailoa is not the savior. I’m just curious, how do you tell that and really sell that to your guys who know his impact and believe that maybe that will make the inference of forward?) – “Because from the starting point, I think that’s been the tonality of this team, 2024, since we got together April 15 was that all right, well what we’ve done is not what we want to do. We have goals and it’s not to – the goals aren’t statistically driven. The goals aren’t to just get to the playoffs or something, and in that, you have to continuously get better as a team. So I think understanding how we’re all pieces of the puzzle and that the main thing that I’ve been pressing guys through this entire season, but particularly after the three-game losing streak and then after this last loss, is that you don’t have these losses – you don’t experience them in vain. They have to mean something, so what can you learn from it? That incessant coach-to-player accountability and then player-to-player accountability, we have a lot of guys – we have a team full of people that are trying to be the best versions of themselves. And when you lose games, when you have four losses out of six, your margin for error, you don’t get those opportunities to just, ‘Oh, that one got through our fingertips,’ and I think they understand that. So being very prideful individually, we all want to win, but what is our piece in that puzzle? We never stepped out on the field when Tua was our starting quarterback and just won the game because of Tua; we won the game with Tua and there’s 10 other players every down with him and then there’s 60 to 75 plays where our defense is on the field and then there’s the 30 plays that special teams is on the field. So I think the frustration of each and every game that we haven’t won, the frustration of football not being to our standard in different places, that affords you if you’re going to go through it, if you’re going to experience that failure, you have to make it purposeful. Because you’re talking about a group of – our locker room and our coaching staff and just everybody involved, the losing has been miserable, so you don’t just forget that. You have to do something about it to change the result, not hope. So I think there’s a lot of motivated guys that have enough on their own plate, super excited about Tua playing but we have to get better at our individual technique and fundamentals and how we play together each and every week, especially after losses, because you don’t do all the work, you don’t do all this – the only thing that you can learn are the lessons. Not that – yeah, I don’t like when our score is less than there, let’s do something about it so that’s not the case move forward, and all we have is today. All we have is today’s practice in preparation for the Arizona Cardinals, which is what our focus has and will continue to be for the next 48 hours before the game.”
(With CB Cam Smith coming back and CB Jalen Ramsey working in the nickel, what’s the thought process there with replacing CB Kader Kohou who has been an experience nickel player for you?) – “I think we have a lot of – some of our versatility within the secondary and how we kind of resourced jobs is a strength of ours. I think we have a lot of players playing in that position. Whether you have Jalen (Ramsey) playing nickel, Jevón Holland, whether you have – it can be different players of different positions to keep offenses off-balance and to utilize your really good players and put them in different positions for success. Within the whole secondary, I think not knowing who is the next man up or where they’re going to be, especially when you have some really elite players in the secondary, offensively you want to know where those guys are. You want to know, all right, well we do this formation, we’re doing this – we’re putting this guy over here because Jalen Ramsey is going to be over there. That adds layers of preparation, that adds just layers of uncertainty to the opposing team, and it allows guys different opportunities to make plays. I think that in a very similar way that we kind of attack offensive football where sometimes is this guy a receiver, is he a running back, is this a tight end or a running back; we put people in different positions, utilize different skill sets but also to keep the opposing team off-balance, because if it’s easy for us to execute and more difficult to prepare for, that’s a competitive advantage that we want to take advantage of.”
