Read the full transcript from Mike McDaniel's press conference on October 14, 2024.
Q: The QB Tua Tagovailoa meeting last week with experts, were the results positive enough where you'd expect Tua to begin practicing next week?
"I think they've continued to be positive. There is still information that he's seeking this week. As far as timelines go, I know he's not playing this week and I do expect to see him playing football in 2024, but where that is exactly, we'll let the process continue since we still have time before you even could entertain anything. We'll make sure that he's diligent this week and assess after that."
Q: I know it must be a feeling of relief to have that feeling you are going to see him play football this year. Was there ever a time where it crossed your mind that maybe he wouldn't?
"I think the biggest thing I've learned is for me as a head coach, it's absolutely imperative that I control the controllables. It was so fast from him getting hurt to immediately going into all right, what's the best thing for you, Tua, where are you at in allowing the process to really not get ahead of it. So I didn't really allow myself any sort of contemplation moments on whether he would or wouldn't; I was so concerned where he was at in his career for his family and everything that is true to be his and trying to operate on a next man up mentality from that. It is exciting that I do think he'll play football this year – I never went down that rabbit hole of rather he would or wouldn't, just because I've learned through circumstance how that's the wrong question to be asking. The right questions are completely 100% toward the human being and the player as a result."
Q: Do you have any of your IR guys you expect to have the window open for them this week?
"There's a couple of potentials but nothing that I would be able to firmly dig my heals into just because these days are vitally important. As you get closer and closer, there's a couple of guys that theoretically I think the window could open, but it's a little too early. We still have today and tomorrow before a traditional work week starts, so I'm going to reserve that to see how things play out particularly with guys that you're trying to start a small window that your roster has to support. They have to be fully healthy and you have to take every day to make sure that's the case to have a healthy 53."
Q: Where is LB Bradley Chubb specifically in that process?
"I don't expect to see Bradley (Chubb) this week. As far as weeks moving forward, we'll see but I don't expect that to happen this week."
Q: With LB Bradley Chubb, I guess the same question – you expect him to play at some point this year, right?
"The way he's attacked and the way he's really come back from a pretty serious injury, I'm optimistic that I will, for sure, just because we haven't had any setbacks or anything. I'm optimistic for that but I can promise you that whenever he is back, he couldn't have been back any sooner. He is trusting our medical staff to make sure they're his discipline for not overexerting or trying to make the time that he's missed as small as possible. I'm very comfortable with where their working relationship is at and really the work that they've done knowing whenever we are able to see him that's as soon as we could've gotten him. Just because of his sweat equity that he's put in – you wouldn't know as a teammate that he hadn't practiced this year just because he's been around for everything and made sure to keep himself involved and used his leadership voice for positive. I'll be excited for when he gets back on the field, don't know exactly when that will be."
Q: Regarding penalties, what are you expecting coming off of a bye week? I know zero penalties is unrealistic, but big reduction in pre-snap penalties or can you quantify what you're expecting?
"I think the things that have – there's two things that are going on each NFL game; sometimes teams win it and sometimes teams lose it. And part of offense, defense, special teams, self-inflicted wounds are absolutely at the forefront of our mind because those are how you lose games and being much more functional in that way allows you and enables you to be a team that wins game as opposed to just forfeiting downs and wins and losses. The only way that you improve on stuff of that nature is if 100% across the board people take full accountability for their part in it and there's a deliberate focus and intent when you're on air, when you're in walkthrough, all of the available reps you are practicing that and you hold it in the regard it necessitates by how much you are convicted to that. So to me, I was very happy with our practice. I thought we got better before we played the Patriots, and my expectation is that we have a collective understanding of how that got better – not to be confused with what we want or our desired result. There was no magic fairy dust that got that better; our operation and our communication was better because we put the work in at that, and so my expectation is to see all of my teammates double down on that and to improve up what we improved upon. I think that's the biggest thing that gets lost, especially in the first quarter of the NFL season, is there's a couple teams that have zero or one loss, there's a couple teams that only have one win and everybody else is doing the same thing – are we getting better or are we getting worse? We need to continue to get better. We don't win the last game we played if we weren't better at certain things that allowed us to overcome some mistakes that get you beat a lot of times. So I think there's eye-opening growth in that from this team that needs to continue if we want the season to be a better reflection of what we think this team is. That's not going anywhere; we are trying to clean up our football in every way, shape or form."
Q: I wanted to get some clarity on OL Isaiah Wynn. Obviously when he resigned, a lot of us expected him to be in the mix for training camp and he's been on the PUP. Is there an expectation that he will be back before November? Is this still the quadriceps injury or is this another?
"I think with Isaiah (Wynn), he would be included in the expectation of when he was going to be able to be available to play football. You could include him on your assumptions, and there were some lingering things that did come up that weren't the quad based upon the quad injury, if that makes sense. So there's residuals in the human body and stress in one area can lead to stress in another. So for me and for him, he's been so unbelievable, thirsting for what he just got started last year, but understanding his own body and putting the daily work in. I'm not sure – I haven't looked at the hand reader logs for this building in a while, but he's in this building non-stop trying to get himself back on the field. So for me, I'm just embracing no setbacks and hope to get him on the field. I don't know when that is, I'm not going to venture to guess and I definitely don't want him thinking that way either because he's had a long journey. But it's been a very positive couple weeks for him, specifically, as we hope to get him back on the field and have the best version of the Miami Dolphins that we can have."
Q: How much work were you able to get in with QB Tyler Huntley during this bye week? I'm not sure exactly what the rules are, but was he able to further acclimate into this offense?
"Yeah, so it's important in a bye week that guys use that time to regen for what's upcoming. For a guy like Tyler (Huntley), the copy-paste norm of what a bye week would look like, it was a little different for him. It was just imperative that he could have more time on task to study and to review the footwork of some of our core concepts and core fundamentals, which he did a great job working through. I mean, a couple weeks ago, he hadn't thrown any no hitch in-breaks that he's thrown. Most of our explosives have come through stuff that he hadn't done in his past, so that combination of being a quick study but then having – five days for him was like an eternity based upon the way he's had to play catch up. So the cut ups, the practice film and some of the stuff to get ahead of what we'll probably do with the Indianapolis Colts, as well as just the whys and what fors for our whole offense, he really got to jump into. It was a lot of pre-created cut ups from the coaching staff so that he could take full advantage of all the stuff that you'd typically guide him through during an offseason. So huge for him, some of the stuff that he's been able to do – I promise you that you have to be a very, very well oiled professional to be able to command the offense the way he has and he's improved every work week we've had. I'm excited for him because there's so much that gets lost in an NFL game for a player to have confidence and conviction in what's going on. And yes, you can know your assignment and you can know the details of it, but to own it and be able to turn a second language into a first language, which is kind of what you end up having to do at the quarterback position, that's monumental. So I'm very excited for the offense for him to get another week under his belt to operate to its full steam because I thought we got better, not worse from his first start to his second and that's what you want to see to his third."
Q: How challenging is it when you're not sure which quarterback you might be preparing for in a week? The Colts have been dealing with their own injuries and I guess how impressive QB Joe Flacco has been still doing it at 39?
"I think it is a different set of problem solving that you try to do your best for all players involved, and when you're trying to learn players on the fly, it does make it a little more challenging to have decisions that you feel absolutely, positively this is the best thing for this player or these players on this play. Those decisions, whether or not you do something under center, whether or not something is in shotgun, the type of run action that you're trying to sell on a play pass, the types of scheme, all of those things, you do better – at least I've always done better when I have exact reasons for everything. It does make it challenging, but we're quick studies here and I've been through the process to expedite that, so I think players are definitely better off when their coaches know the full breadth of their skill set. I think Joe Flacco has done a very good job, like he has the last couple of years, of being – the art of being a good backup quarterback, there's a laundry list of things. One of those things is how much can your offense not miss a beat, so to speak, or how much can your offense adjust around a different quarterback. To Joe's credit, I think he's won two games this year doing exactly what the team needs him to do which is orchestrate the offense, be able to handle all the different motions and keep the offense on schedule, and then make the plays that the guys that are in there with the starting quarterback, what they've learned how to make plays on within that offense with a different guy at helm. So I think he's done a very good job of executing what is one of the more difficult things in the National Football League, and that's to be one of 22 players, or if you want to do special teams, 33 players on the field that are starters that you allow the other 32 sometimes to help win the game by being a professional, knowing when you have to make your plays and when you leave it up to the ball carrier or checkdown. I interviewed him when he was coming out of Delaware – happy to see him continue his career as he's done in his opportunities in Indy."
Q: You mentioned the quarter poll here, most teams are 2-3 or 3-2. First of all, is the bye week kind of a good time so you guys can sit back and realize, OK things haven't gone great the first stretch but everything is still in front of us that we want?
"This bye week was unique, because – I guess you could say a positive of frontloaded adversity for our team is that you kind of have to do stuff you do on the bye week before the bye week comes to really take a look at yourself and when your results aren't matching the way you forecast, it forces you to really nail down some things. OK, what are we good at – we being this 2024 team – and what aren't we good at; let's focus on certain things for whatever gameplan reason that has to do with a collection of individuals out there and let's lean in on that, and then what stuff have we tried, whether it was a great idea or not, and it's not really worked out for us. I think what was interesting about this bye week was it was a couple layers deeper into something we were already doing before the bye week, just because that's kind of how you operate when you're trying to get a team right. You have to really deep dive in OK, how are we – at the time it was, how are we 1-3, what has led us to that, what would have given us a chance to win, what are the things, what are the positives, because it's not all black and white, and how do you find ways to improve, because ironically, this season for the Miami Dolphins is no different than the two previous in my mind. How do I say something like that? Well, you win, you lose, you have stats that are favorable, you have stats that aren't, but you have to find adverse situations to grow through as a team so that when you're building up for however long – when you really think about it, single-elimination or elimination games, whether that's to get into the playoffs or that you're in the playoffs, those elimination games are buildup of a lot of work and you need a team that is used to high stress situations. One way you can induce stress is have a three-game losing streak early. I think the biggest thing is that there are some teams that have maybe zero, one or two losses, that in the NFL, you can get lulled to sleep in terms of you can get comfortable. You can be like, 'All right, we're winning some games,' and you can lose – the most important, absolute, non-negotiable is you have to be playing your best football at the end of the year for you to like the results of the end of the year. I think although it's not exciting or fun, it's quite the contrary, I think what has to be done in this bye week is the same thing that's had to be done in the last two, is that we have to as coaches and players collectively evolve and have our best football at the end of the season. There's the pressure cooker that is the National Football League that when you come to work every day for, I think it was like 24 days in a row of trying to get something right and you don't get it right, that's the pressure cooker you need. Is that the best thing that happens to you or the worst thing, you allow your team to kind of dictate that, how they go to work every day and the results of the next coming games, but sometimes being 2-3 isn't the worst thing in the world when you look at it the way I look at it. If the mission never changes, if you're trying to make sure your best football is in December and January, what does that look like in September and October? It's all in what the team makes it, so I think we've had a good understanding of how we got to where we're at and how we need to continue to improve to have our record reflect what we think this team is. That's a day-in, day-out job that takes the whole collective of the team for that to get done, and that's what we're trying to do here on Monday as we prepare for the Colts."
