It Sure Sounds Like Mike McDaniel Has Reached the Breaking Point With Tua Tagovailoa

Megan Briggs. Getty Images.

This image above was in happier times for the Miami Dolphins. About 13 months ago, to be precise. When they were fresh off an 11-6 season with a playoff appearance. Mike McDaniel was a media darling, being hailed across the land as not only the innovating offensive wunderkind who saved Tua Tagovailoa's career, but the next Big Thing in coaching tackle football. The prototype of the next generation of his profession. 

But in the grand scheme of things, those supportive manly hugs and tender, platonic forehead kisses were a long time ago. The landscape has changed in Miami since then. The ground has opened up under the feet of both men. And they find themselves fighting for their professional lives as of late:

The hot seat McDaniel found himself on to start the season is now the temperature of the core of a neutron star. And yesterday's performance by his quarterback didn't cool it off any:

On the day, Tua produced an astonishingly ugly stat line of 12 of 23, for 100 yards, 0 TDs, 3 INTs, a 24.1 passer rating and a QBR of 3.4. Which only demonstrates that quarterback ratings stats can't go into negative numbers, or else his day would have. 

Which brings us to how McDaniel responded when asked:

Pro Football Talk -  McDaniel was asked this question: “What will your conversation be with Tua after this game?”

Read the full answer, as transcribed and distributed by the Dolphins.

“Yeah it will be tape-driven, I will have to take a look at the tape but before watching the tape, I don’t want to overconclude anything,” McDaniel said. “I think, when you turn the ball over, you know, it is the number one indicator of wins and losses, and it negatively affects the team. I think there’s multiple factors in those turnovers, I know at least one or two of them were extremely preventable from Tua and he knows that just wasn’t good enough. We’ll watch the tape and change our style of play if we [have] to. 

“Everything is on the table, when you go to a game you fully know you have the capability to win and get handed a very, very humbling loss. There’s no if and or buts about it, guys need to be professionals and step up to the plate, and every person on our team, if you’re saying it’s me, it’s you. I told the team, that’s what I have to subscribe to and we will be diligent in our cleanup of this game and the opponent for next week, because you’re not just going to win games and our team, you know, we say we want to win games so we have to do the things necessary to win games. Until that happens, we will lose games.”

While I'm ordering the Thousand Island on the side of this word salad, and also don't want to "overconclude anything," the bacon bits and croutons to focus on are "everything is on the table" and "we have to do the things necessary to win games." And I don't know how that can spell out anything other than McDaniel is about to bench his quarterback, who still has $56 million in fully guaranteed cash money coming to him next year. 

But that's not for the coach to concern himself with, because he's fighting for his professional life. His only chance at keeping his job is to go on one hell of a run over the remaining 10 games. And he's not going to do that watching Tagovailoa panic every time he faces pressure and getting outplayed by Dillon fooking Gabriel. 

It's impossible to imagine McDaniel being a good sport and going down with the ship just to help Tua save face or whatever. By all accounts he's already lost the locker room. The players who are tuning him out and skipping out on players-only meetings:

… have to be as frustrated with the quarterback play as he is. And if he makes the switch to Zach Wilson and proves he can win with him, maybe, just maybe, he can earn some respect and live to fight another season. Slim though that chance might be. He can't keep doing what he's been doing just to get fired anyway. 

As a fan of the previous worst team in the AFC East, which is now alone in first place in the division, it would take a heart of stone not to laugh. The Dolphins' run of middling success was fun while it lasted, though.