Anybody who has seen the Emmy winning TV series Ted Lasso could tell you how vitally important it is for a team to have someone at the helm who holds an unwavering belief in his team. Call it the Lasso Way, the Richmond Way, or hell, just call it common sense, but either way, it's still a winning concept. The power of positivity cannot be ignored, and right now, the Miami Dolphins are the embodiment of this.
In Miami, this concept might as well be called the Mike McDaniel Way, because in short time, the 41-year-old third year head coach has uprooted and revamped what was once a horrendous locker room culture and turned the Dolphins into a flawed, yet tremendously fun pseudo contender… something that couldn't have been said in the previous regime under former head coach Brian Flores.
During a recent appearance on the Dan LeBatard Show, Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa offered a remarkably honest and important perspective on the differences of playing for Brian Flores compared to playing for Mike McDaniel. And it's a response that every coach, player and fan out there should listen to.
Brian Flores was 24-25 as the head coach of the Dolphins, with back-to-back winning records in his final two years with the team — it was the first time that the Dolphins had finished consecutive seasons with winning records since 2002 and 2003. Even still, following a 9-8 campaign in 2021, Flores was surprisingly fired following his third season in Miami after numerous conflicts with the Dolphins front office. From the sounds of it, Flores didn't have an overwhelming amount of support within the locker room either. Given everything Tua Tagovailoa had to say about his former head coach, it's easy to understand why.
In two seasons under Brian Flores, Tua Tagovailoa was 13-8 as the Dolphins starter, throwing for under 200 yards a game with a passer rating of 88.8. In thirty games under Mike McDaniel, Tagovailoa has a 19-11 record and has thrown for 272.4 yards per game with a 102.9 passer rating. Thanks in large part to the accurate left arm of their very rich franchise quarterback, the Dolphins led the NFL in total offense last season for the first time since 1994… a season in which Dolphins Hall of Fame quarterback Dan Marino made an All-Pro team for the first time in eight years.
Tua Tagovailoa, Dolphins come together for crucial 2024 season
Clearly the philosophical approach of Mike McDaniel has made a substantial and positive difference on the development of Tua Tagovailoa, but that doesn't mean we should discount how impactful McDaniels' play-calling expertise or the addition of dynamic wideout Tyreek Hill has been either. Tagovailoa has the luxury of targeting Hill well over 100 times each season, along with arguably the best no.2 receiver in the NFL, Jaylen Waddle. As a nice change of pace, Tua can simply hand the ball off to either Raheem Mostert or De'Von Achane, who regularly pick up somewhere in the neighborhood of six to seven yards per carry.
On both sides of the ball, Miami has all of the tools to once again be a regular season powerhouse, but there are still valid concerns as to whether this team is tough enough to win when the weather gets cold and games tend to get ugly. Conventional wisdom may say that a hard-nosed disciplinarian like Flores would be the ideal sort of coach to get Miami over the hump, but I'd still argue that the McDaniel Way is the way to go.
Follow Us
Subscribe