Read the full transcript from Mike McDaniel's press conference on December 18, 2024.
(I was going to ask you about the two guys involved in roster moves on the 53 – with WR Grant DuBose, is he doing better? Has he flown home from Houston? And then less importantly but on the other move, the long snapper move, is LS Blake Ferguson simply not ready to return yet from a physical standpoint, from a mental standpoint, from some standpoint?) – "Grant (DuBose), expecting him to travel home today. Haven't seen him (but) talked to him, and we're all just very, very excited to get to see him. He's been on the constant mind of a lot of people. He's doing well, taking it a day at a time with that. And then I don't think we'll be seeing Blake (Ferguson) this season. His focus will be the 2025 season and that's why we did the move."
(What does WR Tyreek Hill mean when he says [on] on social media platform X, "It's time for me to go coach" or "time for me to go, coach" – one of those?) – "I know that he tweeted something because of my outstanding prep but otherwise I wouldn't. I guess I read it as he's talking about coaching. There's not a comma, but probably when he was typing, it was a comma. I don't know. He was in great spirits in walkthrough. So maybe he just wanted you to ask me in my press conference, but you'll have to ask him exactly what he meant. But I think it would've made more sense if he would've said 'sir' because that's what he usually calls me. (laughter)"
(I know you've got a game coming up. With things not going the way you planned this season, have you thought about your future? Have you thought about General Manager Chris Grier's future, whether you'll be here next season? Does that concern you at all right now?) – "I'm very comfortable with the realities within the profession that I chose. I think the alternative would be to feel entitled, and I think it's very much – I don't take for granted getting a team prepared for this week's opponent and this day and those opportunities, and I think ultimately you know what it is when you sign up for it and I'm not worried about that in the slightest. I think that would be absolutely selfish and something that if I'm worried about that, I'm definitely not worried about the things that I have to offer the players that are playing in a professional football game. I think this season hasn't gone the way anybody necessarily wanted, but I mean how often do we say that in life in general? I think my job is not to predict and expect; my job is to adjust and ultimately if you're going to fall short in certain ways, then what you do is you make those reasons for improvement as you move forward. But we have enough to worry about with the San Francisco 49ers and I don't take that lightly, and neither does our team which is what I expected to walk into today. You never know, but I certainly was met with that type of focus and energy from the football team which means the guys are who I thought they were and that's where our sole focus is."
(What's your take on the 49ers this year? Obviously won the NFC last year. This year they're fighting for a playoff spot.) – "The NFL is hard. The success breeds tough times ahead because when you're a good team especially for as long as the San Francisco 49ers have been good, there's not one team that lines up on Sunday taking them lightly. It's a litmus test of sorts for every team that plays. Every team has different sorts of injuries and you have different sorts of consequences because of those injuries based on where your strengths and weaknesses are on your team. I know one thing about the San Francisco 49ers having worked there for five years, and knowing the coaching staff and a good amount of the core players there, is very, very prideful team in playing good football. So I think as you go through, sometimes you have success, sometimes you have failures in this league, but it's the consistency with which you attack things and do you let things define you or do you take from things so that you can further define the future. I think they're certainly frustrated as we are, it's been a trying year, but in no way, shape or form do I expect anything but their best. Ultimately, just knowing the quality of people, they'll get through it and find a way to make their best versions of themselves moving forward. So that's about it, I don't make more of it than I think it is. You lose some games that you have the capability of winning and your record can flip like that. And a lot of those games there's a three-point margin of victory and you have one or two plays in each one of them and the record is very different."
(They got LB Dre Greenlaw back last week and it looked like it made a big difference in their defense. How do him and LB Fred Warner challenge what you do offensively?) – "I think they challenge every offense. Both being drafted there and watching them mature, they're at the top of their class in their respective positions. Fred Warner will be one of the best players that you play during the NFL season, regardless of who's on your schedule, if the 49ers come up, and the way Dre (Greenlaw) complements his game, both very locked in from a cerebral perspective. Both very talented for the features of their position, both have a chip on their shoulder as they were told by many a team that they weren't first or second, or in Dre Greenlaw's case, third or fourth round draft picks. So they're made up of the right stuff and they present a very quality, competitive scenario for us to have to attack. And what they put on tape is that if you're not on your Ps and Qs or your technique and fundamentals aren't on it, they'll expose that, and so it will be a great challenge for us."
(How did you and Kyle Shanahan become friends or associates? And were you guys ball boys together, or how did that friendship strike up?) – "It was – I guess that's a good question because unbeknownst to most, it was like an arranged marriage, I would say, because I got a job. Coach (Gary) Kubiak hired me independently of Kyle Shanahan – giving Kyle Shanahan his first position job; me, my first professional, paying, full-time NFL coaching gig. He thought that we would work well together and be able to complement each other, so he threw me in the receiver room and we started working. I mean he was – the staff previous, the youngest coach I think was Troy Calhoun, the head coach at Air Force, and there wasn't a lot of time to train me, so I just had to fill in the gaps as it happened. Kyle was the first guy that – I had aspects to my job that he had directly done just the previous two years, so he knew the ins and outs of what the position was. He, early, onset, put high expectations on me and held me very accountable and I'm very grateful to him for that and I wouldn't be here today without him but it wasn't – I think we grew to like each other, but we were kind of thrust together and I was definitely fortunate that Gary Kubiak had that foresight."
(So you didn't know him in Denver?) – "I knew of him, but he was a busy guy. He was the head football coach's son. 'Who's this guy?' was me. We would talk from time to time, but we didn't develop a relationship until we started coaching together."
(I know it's too early to know T Terron Armstead's status for the game. Do you have a general feeling about Terron and some of your older veterans? Are you going to play them, or would you kind of take a look at youngsters such as T Patrick Paul?) – "The compass with which will set my decision-making without fail this week is whatever gives us the best chance to win. I think that's very important to everyone involved and that's what's owed to the team. I think within that, if there's opportunities for some of our younger guys, there has been the last couple weeks for sure, not just at the tackle position but across the board. I think it's very beneficial for guys and their career, but it's based upon their merit and whether or not they've proven to their teammates that they're ready to go out there. I'm optimistic about seeing both Terron (Armstead) and Kendall Lamm in practice this week and when I do that, I'll confer with the coaches and Chris (Grier) and make the decision solely upon what gives our team the best chance to win on Sunday."
(When it comes to LB Bradley Chubb, is there a point in which you would consider withholding him from coming back this season? Like if playoffs are mathematically out of the question.) – "I think that's complicated; I think the most important thing is to allow guys opportunity in their career to play football, and you do that by taking it a day at a time and making sure that you're being responsible in those efforts. There's always an inherent risk when you play football, but remember it's their careers, not ours or yours or anybody's. So I have a tough time just telling people 'no' without reason, but it's important in this business to have very good relationships so that you can have those conversations to not do something ignorant either. Bradley Chubb is a football player; he wants to play football and so he's going to take this week a day at a time. We're going to be in steady conversation and we'll do what's best for both him and the team because those should be parallel. We'll see how that progresses, but his main focus is just getting more and more confident in his body each and every day, and that comes with continuing to press and then evaluating after the fact."
(If you don't have WR Jaylen Waddle this week, or WR Dee Eskridge, I don't know if you have any updates on there, what was appealing about WR Isaiah McKenzie to add him as an elevation option possibly this week?) – "I think I would be pessimistic about Dee Eskridge this week. I think that Isaiah (McKenzie) is a guy that I've known since coming out of the draft process and then watching him specifically in Buffalo. I think he has a lot of value and skill set that we like. I like the way he plays football as a fearless competitor and so I'm excited to see him practice once, which will be today, in a Dolphins uniform because I haven't seen that yet."
(With WR Jaylen Waddle, do you think we'll see him practice this week or hard to say?) – "Won't see him today. For him, that will be a day-to-day situation. It's hard to forecast what it'll be tomorrow with that fresh injury, but again there is at least optimism for that. So I'll be hopeful that we'll see him but I don't really know."
(QB Teddy Bridgewater said that he is looking to get back into playing after leading Miami Northwestern to a high school football state championship.) – "His first year coaching – they win the championship every year, right? I mean, when he's there, right? All of his teammates were watching from a far. I knew probably five minutes after the game was over that they'd won. We've been following it all season, so it's really cool. Shoot, he's a young spry at 32 – he has years in him. We'll see if the come down stays consistent from his championship win, but I would support him doing whatever. He's one of my favorites."
(Any conversations with him coming here?) – "I've been preparing for the San Fransisco 49ers. Outside of shooting a text of congratulations to him, it's not his style to even enter into those conversations until the season would be over anyway just because he those other guys are trying to do their jobs as well. I'm sure we'll connect when this season is over, and I'll be very interested to see if he's still in the same mindset."
(I wanted to ask you about the run game. I know we've been obsessed with this for quite a while, but how do you go from the highest yards per carry one season to second lowest the next season with pretty much relatively the same line and the same backs?) – "If you take it on surface value, it can be pretty confusing. I can understand the question for sure. I think just like anything that's worth anything, it's a little more complicated than that with regard to you're playing opponents that are preparing for you and where is your game at, where is the collective game of the offensive line, how tied in are the runners to the offensive line. The numbers had been down; there's been times throughout the season where you could argue that – I think empirically you can argue that we ran the ball better than we ever have against the Patriots. There's different matchups that you felt pretty good about, but overall I thought this past game, it really bit us in our ability to execute technique and fundamentals. I'm very hesitant to just saying 'It's this.' So I go and look through schematically just as we were doing earlier in the season when we knew we had to get the run game going, when Tua (Tagovailoa) got hurt and we weren't happy with the Tennessee game and et cetera, et cetera, you go schematics. It's an easy formula of just holding people accountable and asking what are we coaching them, what are they saying, motivating guys to focus on certain details that you think are the most important, and then overall, we have to do our jobs better. But when your line of scrimmage is violated to the point you have some turnover football, that you have some hits on the quarterback and you're not able to stay on the field as long as you want, you have to figure out a way to reestablish the line of scrimmage and that problem is not going anywhere until we solve it. I think it's very convoluted; there's a lot of variables when you just flatline say, 'It's the same guys, what's the difference?' I think you have to look at the independent plays where the failures are and what are the consistent failures. Last game I thought we weren't nearly where we needed to be at the point of attack, how to engage blocks, our leverages and staying attached to players. I think we have pressing so that when we do have an advantage on the defense, we're getting holding calls left and right – probably threefold to what we had last year. It'd be interesting if guys choose to have their hands inside and fit the blocks well so they are not getting called for holdings and those holdings don't occur, what is our yards per carry then. I think that that has something to do with it as well. I think that you can be understated – we haven't done a good enough job executing in the run game, I think, since Austin Jackson left, and that's been a focus of ours because he's a very good player at the point of attack, but we have other good players too and how do we get that consistent. I think, like anything in football, it's a group effort and it starts with focusing on the right thing, not just the result but more of what does it look like and where are the failures at the point of attack."
