Mike McDaniel’s seat may not be as hot as it looked a few weeks ago, but the stakes are still massive for the Miami Dolphins. After a statement 30-13 win over the Bills in Week 10, owner Stephen Ross is reportedly looking for every reason to keep McDaniel in place for 2026, banking on how the locker room responds and whether the team can stack results down the stretch rather than reset the entire operation.
As Joe Schad lay out on X, the Dolphins, now 4-7 heading into their bye, still have a mathematical path. Miami should be favored coming out of the break at home against the Saints and then on the road against the Jets.
If they can claw their way to 6-7, New York Times/Athletic models put their playoff chances at roughly 1 percent. If they rip off four straight to get to 8-7, those odds jump to about 6 percent. Should they somehow win out and finish 10-7, that number spikes all the way to 41 percent.
Those odds underline the tightrope Miami is walking. There is just enough possibility to keep everyone locked in, but no margin for another flat performance. That is why the 16-13 overtime win against Washington in Madrid felt more like survival than a turning point.
The Dolphins needed extra time to escape after failing on a fourth-and-goal run call in the final two minutes of regulation when a short field goal would likely have sealed it.
Fans lit McDaniel up online for that decision, ripping everything from his game management to his job security, even in victory. Critics argued that chasing a touchdown instead of taking the lead against a Marcus Mariota-led Commanders offense was reckless, especially with the season on the line.
Yet the same aggression is part of what ownership still likes about him, and the overtime win at least keeps the campaign breathing.
Now comes the quiet part: a bye week that will be anything but calm, followed by a stretch where every snap will be judged as evidence for or against keeping McDaniel and Tua Tagovailoa together as the long-term core. The math says the playoffs are a long shot.
