Mike McDaniel – September 12, 2024 (Postgame)
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Thursday, September 12, 2024
Postgame – Buffalo
Dolphins Head Coach Mike McDaniel
Q. Have you talked to Tua and what have you observed from his condition?
MIKE McDANIEL: Yeah, I talked to him in the locker room. Obviously I talked to him on the field, then talked to him in the locker room before he was headed home. He was in good spirits.
Q. What was your immediate thought when you saw him go down into the fencing position?
MIKE McDANIEL: My thought was concern and I was just worried about my guy, so yeah, it’s not something that you ever want to be a part of. You hope not to.
Q. Obviously it’s very early in the process with Tua. Do you foresee a trip to the injured reserve list? Do you have any insight on that?
MIKE McDANIEL: Right now it’s more about getting a proper procedural evaluation tomorrow and taking it one day at a time. The furthest thing from my mind is what is the timeline. We just need to evaluate and I’m just worried about my teammate, like the rest of the guys are. But we’ll get more information tomorrow and then take it day by day from there.
Q. Regardless of how he progresses through protocol from here, how will what happened in 2022 impact how you and the team handle Tua this time around?
MIKE McDANIEL: I think it’s important to approach each and every situation much like you approach every injury, which is basically we’re going to handle this particular situation with this particular player. Every situation is unique to its own. I think for me, I’m not worried about anything that’s out of my hands in terms of I’m just worried about the human being. And he’ll drive the ship when we get the appropriate information. But it’s day-by-day health really. Try to approach all that stuff that way, particularly with concussions.
Q. Do you think it’s safe for Tua to play football considering he’s had four concussions in I think four or five years?
MIKE McDANIEL: Yeah, I think from a medical standpoint, I don’t approach things that I’m far inferior of expertise. I’m just there to support my teammate, like I said. I think for me to go ahead and forecast things that I don’t know in my non-field of expertise, I don’t think that’s appropriate. I think we’ll find out some more information tomorrow in terms of where Tua’s at. He’ll be able to spend a good amount of time being evaluated, then we’ll have conversations and progress as appropriate. Like the rest of his teammates, who he went around the locker room and connected with as a leader, he was trying to keep the guys’ heads up, he’ll be in the office tomorrow to have the appropriate care.
Q. Even before that injury, it wasn’t the kind of night you probably expected. How do you explain what played out there?
MIKE McDANIEL: It’s a tough one that I think there was a lot of high expectations and ambitions for the game, fully knowing that it was going to be a tough one. But I think every person on the team would tell you when playing a good football team, if you’re minus three or four, whatever it was and then with the fourth downs on top of that; no one foresaw that. You might be able to win one out of a hundred with the nuts and bolts of that. And I think that’s the main thing that the football team is feeling, is supreme disappointment, because they’ve put a lot into it. They have high expectations. And you can’t even evaluate appropriately when you’re playing football that way and giving it to the opponent, giving them extra possessions, especially a quarterback like that. I think football’s a tough, tough business. Like I told the team, this hurts for a reason. And then you have to find out if you need – I think we have enough veteran players in that locker room that understand the belief will come from within because quite frankly, you can already turn the page, know what’s going to be said about us. And that’s probably going to last for a while. We’ll have plenty of opportunities to really take the sheer frustration and anger out on the way we approach our jobs day in, day out. It’s also very much Week 2 and that was our first division game. It feels way bigger than that because there’s a lot of history to this matchup and there were a lot of things we thought we were going to take care of that are definitely not taken care of. So I think it’s a gut check for the team early in the season. I look at things like if we would have won by 30, what does that mean? I think that puts the game in perspective. It’s one loss that really cuts deep. But that can either be a good thing or a bad thing depending on how you respond to it. So I really believe in the locker room. I believe in the coaching staff and I better believe it cause it’s going to be a while before it’s going to be anybody but us believing that and that’s okay. I think these types of moments where your expectations and what you put into things far exceed the result, you can’t hide in situations like that. And so I am expecting to move forward as a team and have this be a galvanizing moment in our season as we look back on it down the road. And how do you do that? You handle tough situations, you come together as a group and you make sure that you clean up the things in your game that led to this. The team wasn’t given a fair shot necessarily tonight because we had some absolutely catastrophic misgivings with the football. That’s what’s going to happen. I suppose it’s best to know that. It’s better to learn that sooner than later. We have a gigantic season ahead of us. We’re 1-1. There’s some adversity. Welcome to the NFL.
Q. That said, the adversity and the season ahead, with the uncertainty on what’s next for Tua, how much confidence do you have that you’re going to be able to bounce back with this Skylar for whatever foreseeable time it is?
MIKE McDANIEL: I think as a rookie – I know everyone doesn’t get to see Skylar play. I don’t know what our timeline is. I’m not concerned with that. We played with Skylar as a rookie with the season on the line, and found a way to win an elimination game and go toe-to-toe with this very same organization in a playoff game and he’s a much better player than he was then. Those are things that the team feels. I think guys really believe in Skylar. I have the utmost confidence in him. That’s why he’s our backup quarterback. And you’re always very aware that injuries happen in the National Football League. You can’t do anything in the National Football League getting ahead of yourself. You can look at one opponent and you can look at the next day and try to get better at something, then build on that and get better at something else the next day. That’s kind of the way this team will approach it. I think we have a very experienced team with a lot of leaders and leadership is called upon in moments in like this. I don’t see people putting all their – this was not the Super Bowl, although it was a very, very hard game to take. I know this will be imprinted in the minds of all our guys for the rest of the season, for sure. Storylines evolve every single year in a multitude of ways and you have to as a team, just like you can’t – a season ago or the season previous, it was new to the team to get excessive praise. That’s something that you have to defend yourself against. On the same token, when you’re 1-1, there’s going to be a million people that say we can’t and so you have to decide if you want everyone to be right or wrong. I think that’s what’s at stake. Is your team motivated by outside sources or is your team worried about the right stuff and getting better and continuing to evolve as a team together? Adverse times really, really suck on the front end, but are very, very validating when you push through them, especially on a team collectively. So that’s what we’ll be chasing here in the near future.
Q. You’ve grown particularly close to Tua. I was curious how you just focus your mind completely on football after seeing a scene like that? I think you gave him a kiss on the side of the head when he walked off the field. How do you coach the rest of that game thinking about his well-being?
MIKE McDANIEL: Yeah, I always have those extremely human moments just with all the things that come in football. In particular injuries are difficult for me. But at the same time there’s so many people depending on my focus that if I don’t really see, like, there’s a lot of other people that are also depending on me, just like Tua is. You have to look at it like that. That’s where my mind goes. It’s not the easiest thing in the world, for sure, but nor is having this job, so you’ve got to step up.
Q. Terron – is he okay?
MIKE McDANIEL: I’ll get more information. He was battling and I don’t really have much beyond what tomorrow’s assessment will be. It’s always super fast right after the game to be able to sort through that. We’ll have more information tomorrow, for sure. To be determined, I guess.
Q. How would you assess how De’Von played tonight, especially with the injury?
MIKE McDANIEL: I thought De’Von really showed some really cool professional growth in a short week. He was in the training room non-stop trying to take advantage of this opportunity. He knew we had already taken a shot at that position so what he was able to do tonight, I thought he performed very well. The only reason he was able to have the opportunity was because he really went all in, and in the process showed his teammates how much he can be counted on. He was literally living in the training room to get out there. I thought it was a cool individual piece of growth in an otherwise pretty miserable experience.
Q. On the first interception, why were neither Tyreek Hill or Jaylen Waddle on the field for that?
MIKE McDANIEL: On that interception, they were coming off. We were trying to put Jaylen back in the game, but we were kind of downing the clock and quite honestly, the way the defender was playing, the ball was a little behind Grant (DuBose). I’m not sure what difference that would have made. Early in the game, you’re trying to rotate guys and make sure that they’re fresh. We do that often. It was unfortunate that that was the result.
Q. When you see Tua checking on other guys in the locker room after the night that he’s had with a smile on his face, what goes through your mind?
MIKE McDANIEL: How much he loves his teammates, how much he loves being out there with his teammates really. Just another example of his great character and leadership. I think that when something happens to an individual and you see their response is less – I mean, he’s concerned about his teammates. That tells you everything about the type of person he is. He knows what he means to this team and shows a lot of awareness in that regard because he knows there’s a lot of guys that are worried about him, so yeah, I think what goes through my mind is he’s a great, great human being and a great teammate.
