Mike McDaniel – October 30, 2023
Monday, October 30, 2023
Head Coach Mike McDaniel
(It’s cool weather so a good time in Germany to have the windows open. So will T Terron Armstead travel and have his window open to practice? And also OL Robert Hunt, if you guys have ruled out anything serious with his hamstring?) – “Wow. (laughter) Well, I can say this, we’ll probably be evaluating Terron Armstead’s performance in another country other than the United States this week. So that’s pending yes, and all signs point to evaluating that, which will require some moving and shaking as we are used to. Robert Hunt is kind of a day-to-day evaluation. We’ll see how it progresses but evaluating the severity of it, kind of letting it cool down for a second to see too.”
(So T Terron Armstead will travel?) – “Oh, he’s traveling.”
(And then if T Terron Armstead looks good, the window you think would open this week or is it not 100 percent sure that he’ll practice?) – “You just never know what the latches are in another state let alone – I’ve never been to Europe. I don’t know what the windows (are), so you don’t want to get ahead of yourself. But I would think I would figure out how to open a window. Yeah? We’re good? We’re good there? (laughter)”
(With you not ever traveling to Europe, how excited are you about this trip and obviously taking on the Kansas City Chiefs?) – “I’m excited for a lot of things currently in life. All of the above. I think the opportunity to play NFL football is a privilege. I talk about it a lot, you prepare to play against the best and there’s not a better opponent to play than the Kansas City Chiefs. They are the current Super Bowl winners in terms of the last ones to win it. That will be a really cool opportunity for our team. They know how to win and do it at a high level. Then I’m excited for the team to go to Germany. Outside of maybe an hour that I may be able to get on Friday, I’ll be hanging out in the hotel. But the team has the opportunity to experience a different country and culture together. I think that’s a really cool opportunity. Teams win and lose so anytime you have an opportunity to do a bonding experience like that – I know many people are like myself that have never been there – so that’s just exciting in itself. You feel it’s an opportunity, a privilege, to take this game that we devote our lives to and perform in front of an audience on the other side of the world. I told the team today that if you make a play in a game, there’s some kid that speaks German that is wearing your jersey for the rest of his adolescence. You have lifelong fans, that is kind of what happens in those type of environments. Their first exposure is you making this play, and that’s a really, really cool opportunity. A lot of fun stuff for our team and it’s maturation journey for the season for sure.”
(I wanted to get an update on three players who had injuries of varying degrees yesterday, T Kendall Lamm, LB David Long Jr., DT Zach Sieler? I saw Long and Sieler went into the tent briefly.) – “All three I would expect to be getting treated and be some sort of participation during the week. We’ll evaluate closer on Wednesday for Wednesday but they’re all in the day-to-day process and expecting good things. I feel like the plane we have chartered, has healing elements to it.”
(Any must-have essentials that you pack for this trip besides your work stuff?) – “People kind of cut me out of the equation of essential things to bring. It’s an unintended consequence of being present all the time that you’re just like locked in and I forget stuff all the time. All the important stuff will be delegated to people that are more pack-responsible. So I’m just going to take myself, have a notebook and a backpack and then there’s going to be all the video and computer stuff that we need to gameplan which is why we’re going to Germany, is to play game.”
(Speaking of adolescents wearing jerseys, one of the hot costumes of Halloween is you. I’ve seen it posted on social media of kids dressing up as Mike McDaniel.) – “That does not compute. That doesn’t make any sense. (laughter)”
(One kid did your run on Sunday Night Football.) – “Was I faster than the kid? (laughter)
(I’m just curious, what, as you see it, goes into dressing up like Mike McDaniel?) – “I have no idea. I refuse to accept that as reality. I don’t even know what that means. I guess that there’s a compliment in there to the Miami Dolphins organization and locker room because there’s got to be some really, really, really good players for someone to dress up like me.”
(But I guess the knapsack would be essential? Or the glasses?) – “I don’t know.”
(He had the watch too, the hoodie, he had everything. The capris.) – “Probably the essential would be the broad chest, right? (laughter)”
(You’re speechless for the first time ever) – “Yeah. (laughter) No words.”
(You guys completed 15 passes yesterday to guys not named WR Tyreek Hill or WR Jaylen Waddle. How does that open up the offense so you can get all those guys involved?) – “So much of what’s lost in execution of offense or defense really, in general, is that even when Tyreek and Waddle are doing damage in the pass game, it’s such a concerted effort by the entire group. The route distribution has to be exact. The protection has to be on. The quarterback has to be right with his progression. But I think in terms of the way defenses play, you can definitely influence them by distributing the ball and making them pay for over attention. That’s something that to beat a defense that’s adept at minimizing the top player or most productive player of teams, you go into the game knowing that it’s going to take the commitment and execution from everyone and all skill (players) have to make plays across the board, because there’s going to be times where it just doesn’t make any sense to throw to a certain eligible. We knew we were kind of going to have to do that to win the game. And I think the whole team was confident that we could execute that.”
(A check on S Jevon Holland and if he’s out of the concussion protocol. And also we saw TE Durham Smythe is in a boot. Is that something that is in the FB Alec Ingold category or something we should be concerned about?) – “Jevon is doing well. He’s still in the protocol but is doing well. It’s been progressing as we’d want. Durham is like half Alec Ingold, half Durham just doing Durham. Just wearing boots, that’s kind of his swag. Medical boots. (laughter) He’s a guy that’s as tough as they come. It’s hard during a game to assess the severity of anything because he’s so tough and is willing to play through whatever that he probably says less, and you kind of just have to – between Kyle (Johnston) and (Assistant Head Coach/Tight Ends) Jon Embree, they kind of manage when he tells them he shouldn’t be managed, which is the way you want people to be. But he’ll battle through that and yeah, I definitely wouldn’t bet against Durham Smythe playing in any game.”
(I wanted to ask about your conversations with the players. You obviously want them to enjoy Germany when they can. Kind of a fraught time internationally right now. What kind of talks have you had with them about being safe, being smart and all that?) – “I mean that’s prerequisite. Part of being an NFL player and part of being a teammate is understanding that you carry all the obligations that are required of people. You carry the logo and how you act and what you do affects everyone. And then I haven’t really gone into dark and desolate scenarios. I’ve more been emphasizing the opportunity for us to do things as groups and experience and be together and not be off as individuals, but to take advantage of the time as a collective. Strength in numbers.”
(WR Tyreek Hill seems to be super excited about playing his former team. I’m sure that’s common when you’re playing the other team that you played for. Do you worry about the emotional end of those battles?) – “No, I think for this particular team, that’s something that so many of his teammates take – since they’re so invested in Tyreek and we have the locker room structure that we have – I think his teammates are going to take it more personal for him then ultimately he will take it. One of the reasons he is able to have the production that he has, which is at a historic rate through eight games, is because of how fiercely competitive he approaches each week and understands how important each game is, so he comes to play every game. I know he’s going to come to play to this game. I think it will be a bigger deal for his teammates in support of him. In actuality, I mean he’s as Miami as it comes now. He’s on a new chapter and worried about being a captain for this team.”
(Yesterday the snap count was about the same for RB Jeff Wilson Jr. and RB Salvon Ahmed. That’s a little different obviously from how it was last year. It’s a new year. Is that a by-product of Salvon doing things that impress you guys and want to carve out a role for him? Is it partially because Jeff is coming off missing six games this year?) – “Absolutely. I would attribute that to ‘SA’ (Salvon Ahmed) and his development. It’s more about deserving opportunities and doing whatever you can control with those opportunities. What ‘SA’ has carved out since last year is he necessitates the opportunity to make plays. He’s proven and did it all preseason, and has proven in games this year that he’s a playmaker. We’re fortunate to have multiple and we try to disperse it and give guys an opportunity to be their best selves, and when they get hot, we keep feeding the hot hand.”
(Shot in the dark here, did you look at Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes before he was drafted as well?) – “I refused to look at him. No eye contact. Don’t look at me. (laughter) Yeah, no that was in 2017 when he came out. It was pretty cool because he had the arm talent that’s out of this world that you see. You kind of knew he had a chance to be the exception to the rule which, is he wasn’t playing in any sort of rhythm or timing offense, it didn’t feel like, or it just felt very different then the NFL game. But he could make every throw. You could tell that there was a special human being. So yeah, it’s been cool to watch him develop into what might be the best player in the NFL. And that wasn’t promised to him. Henceforth, he was picked at least 10th I think, not first. He’s earned every bit of it and he’s an unbelievable player.”
(From an outsider’s point of view, it appears you guys have taken a more measured approach to bringing guys back from injuries this year with a bigger eye towards December and January. Is that accurate?) – “I think I can only speak on since I’ve been here. I’ve been here for I think between the time I’ve been here and the time the training staff has been here before, you learn more about people. So, the more knowledge you have, the more you invest into them, the more you can kind of properly assess, ‘Hey, well, this didn’t work out in this way for this individual for this reason. Okay let’s adjust it either way.’ So there’s been times that we’ve been a little on the aggressive end and there’s been a lot of times that we’ve been on the conservative end. All just adjusting to the facts as the facts change and as we get more of them.”
