The Team's Central Problem

[Spider-Dan]

There is no way to determine "good culture" except as a hindsight evaluation of teams that are performing well.

If you're losing, your team has bad culture.
If you're winning, your team has good culture.
There is no exception to this rule.

It's a meaningless, tautological metric.

[Spider-Dan]

And as another example of the absolute irrelevance of any measurable value of "culture":



Ranked #1?  Your very own Miami Dolphins.
Ranked #31?  The defending back-to-back champion Kansas City Chiefs.
Doesn't matter.  Winning is winning, so KC has "a great culture" and MIA has "a terrible culture."

[Dolfanalyst]

If you're losing, your team has bad culture.
If you're winning, your team has good culture.
There is no exception to this rule.

Wrong -- again, understand the concept "necessary but not sufficient."  It's possible to lose with a good culture.  What's not possible is to win with a bad one.

[Spider-Dan]

It's possible to lose with a good culture.

Please provide examples of a losing team with a "good culture."
I look forward to seeing how one may determine the culture is good when the results are bad.

There's no such thing as "good culture" without good results.  It's impossible; the results are the only mechanism for validating "culture."

What's not possible is to win with a bad one.

This is literally the same thing as "If you're winning, your team has good culture."

[Dolfanalyst]

Please provide examples of a losing team with a "good culture."
I look forward to seeing how one may determine the culture is good when the results are bad.

There's no such thing as "good culture" without good results.  It's impossible; the results are the only mechanism for validating "culture."
This is literally the same thing as "If you're winning, your team has good culture."

So what you're arguing here is that nothing can be determined, so there's no use in providing for you examples of anything.  You'll simply say they're conclusive of nothing.

Ryan Fitzpatrick, who graduated from Harvard University and played on 11 different NFL teams over a 17-year professional career, believes this about the current Dolphins' culture:

“McDaniel is 1-14 against teams with a winning record in his 3 seasons,” former Dolphins quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick wrote on X (formerly Twitter). “This tells me they have a bit of a front runner mentality and when things get tough they don’t have it in their DNA to handle adversity as well as some of the top tier teams."

I'll go with that when determining the Dolphins' culture, over musings on a message board.

Likewise you have these folks' ringing in in a similar manner -- current and former players and a former coach:

Over in the losing locker room, linebacker Jordyn Brooks said too many players around him weren’t tough-minded in a way that keeps echoing around this team. Pittsburgh Steeler DeSean Elliott, who played for the Dolphins last year, said the same recently. Dolphins safety Jordan Poyer said it when he arrived last summer. Former defensive coordinator Vic Fangio said it when he left last winter.

But by all means, let's hear what "Spider-Dan" thinks.

[Spider-Dan]

So what you're arguing here is that nothing can be determined, so there's no use in providing for you examples of anything.  You'll simply say they're conclusive of nothing.

You're the one arguing that "good culture" can exist without good results.  So give some examples of teams that you believe demonstrate this.
You can't, because it's impossible.

But to recap:  Ryan Fitzpatrick, Harvard graduate, played 17 years in the NFL (starting just over half those games) and made the playoffs exactly zero times, while being famous for attending press conferences dressed like this:



These qualifications apparently earn him enough of your respect to cite him approvingly as an authority on "toughness."

Meanwhile, Mike McDaniel, Yale graduate, has coached his team to the playoffs in both of his first two full seasons as a head coach, while orchestrating the #1 offense in the league in only his second year.  And these accomplishments, in contrast, earn him so little of your respect that you repeatedly refer to him as "Pee Wee Herman."

Vic Fangio didn't think the team was "tough"?  Then Vic Fangio is publicly airing his own shortcomings as a coordinator who was the primary person responsible for setting the tone on the defense.  If you think the defense is soft, and you're the defensive coordinator, look inward. DeSean Elliott agreeing that Fangio's defense was soft is an indictment of Fangio, not McDaniel.  Unless your argument is that McDaniel should have been tougher... on Fangio, for fielding a soft defense?

The play of Jord*ns Poyer and Brooks does not even remotely warrant commentary from them on how everyone else is falling short.  Again, look inward.

[Dolfanalyst]

So there is commentary about the Dolphins' culture from various sources, all of them with NFL experience as players and coaches, some of them on the Dolphins' team itself, all converging toward the same conclusion, yet it's the perspective on the Dolphins' culture of one "Spider-Dan" that prevails in his mind, despite that he has zero experience with the team.  He overrules all of them.

[Spider-Dan]

YOU - not Fitzpatrick, not Fangio, not Elliott, Poyer, or Brooks - are the one arguing that it is specifically Mike McDaniel whose personal "lack of toughness" is to blame for the team's woes.  It is not any of these professional players or coaches saying, "If it's true that a team takes on the personality of its coach, and it's coach's personality is only slightly different from Pee Wee Herman's, how can the team possibly be tough?"

Don't try to pretend that your own personal grudge against McDaniel is The Opinion Of Professionals.  You have spent exactly as much time in the NFL as I have.

[Dolfanalyst]

YOU - not Fitzpatrick, not Fangio, not Elliott, Poyer, or Brooks - are the one arguing that it is specifically Mike McDaniel whose personal "lack of toughness" is to blame for the team's woes.  It is not any of these professional players or coaches saying, "If it's true that a team takes on the personality of its coach, and it's coach's personality is only slightly different from Pee Wee Herman's, how can the team possibly be tough?"

Don't try to pretend that your own personal grudge against McDaniel is The Opinion Of Professionals.  You have spent exactly as much time in the NFL as I have.

If there's a better explanation, let's hear it.

[Spider-Dan]

OK: Mike McDaniel has easily accomplished more in the league than any of the other professionals that are criticizing him.

Fangio was an abject failure as a head coach, with 0 playoff appearances, 0 winning seasons, and a record that was 11 games under .500.
Fitzpatrick was a mediocre journeyman QB who didn't make the playoffs once in almost two decades of play.
Elliott and Brooks are replacement-level players (with a combined 0 Pro Bowls) whose previous teams cheerfully let walk.
If we are to weight opinions by expertise, these people are all dramatically worse at their jobs than McDaniel is at his, and their opinions of his performance should be weighted accordingly.

The one person with a reasonable claim to competence is (the ghost of) Jordan Poyer, who said "opponents believed the Dolphins would fold under pressure."  This seems entirely believable coming from a player who was on a team that regularly beat the Dolphins, but at no point did Poyer indicate that this was specifically McDaniel (your sole point of focus).  Poyer was in Buffalo for 7 years and 3 coaches' worth of Miami collapses, so I'm sure his opinion of the Dolphins' toughness was not too far removed from, say, Tom Brady, Travis Kelce, or Joe Burrow's opinion of the toughness of Poyer's Bills.

Still waiting for you to give an example of a team that YOU believe had "good culture" without good results, BTW.

[masterfins]

Once again, understand the concept of "necessary but not sufficient."  The culture is necessary but not sufficient for winning.  If you have it, it doesn't guarantee winning, but if you don't have it, it guarantees not winning.

+1

I agree it's not one or the other, it's both to a degree.

[masterfins]

IMO the central problem is Tua, I don't think he has shown the ability to lead this team when it is against a tough opponent or when they need to come from behind in the 4th quarter.  Yes he had a good game against Dallas in 2023 and a good game against Baltimore in 2022, but that's not enough.  When a Brady, Mahomes, Rodgers, Marino, Allen, Montana, or a long list of other QB's came in needing to score late in the 4th quarter there was/is a belief that they could do it by their teammates. THAT'S CULTURE!  I've really been hoping to see this from Tua.  I was hoping his great play against lesser, or equal, teams would carry over but it just hasn't.  Secondarily, the problem becomes McDaniel; he really needs to get on Tua and the other players when they don't get it done.  This isn't Pee Wee football, if their feelings get hurt they don't belong in an NFL uniform.

[Dolfanalyst]

If we are to weight opinions by expertise, these people are all dramatically worse at their jobs than McDaniel is at his, and their opinions of his performance should be weighted accordingly.

First, McDaniel isn't great at his job -- the Dolphins are 1-14 against teams with a winning record in his three seasons.  You might say "well he made the playoffs two years though."  However, making the playoffs alone isn't a reliable measure of success in the NFL -- 44% of NFL teams make the playoffs every year, making the accomplishment only slightly more improbable than a coin flip.

Second, these folks aren't criticizing McDaniel directly -- they're criticizing the performance of the team, i.e., the following:

“McDaniel is 1-14 against teams with a winning record in his 3 seasons,” former Dolphins quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick wrote on X (formerly Twitter). “This tells me they have a bit of a front runner mentality and when things get tough they don’t have it in their DNA to handle adversity as well as some of the top tier teams."

It's by extension -- and rather easily at that -- that we can identify McDaniel's personality as responsible for a "fun and games" culture that limits the team from switching gears and becoming dominant when it needs to be -- it simply isn't their culture.  Their performance against good teams and their performance in second halves of games is entirely consistent with that.

Again, if a team takes on the personality of its coach, and its coach's personality is only slightly different from Pee Wee Herman's, don't expect that team to exemplify toughness and resilience.  Expect it to be pretty much a clown show, and when other teams bear down with their own toughness and resilience in critical game situations, expect the team to fold rather easily.

And this is exactly what we've seen over three years now, and what multiple players and coaches associated with the team have attested to themselves.

[Dolfanalyst]

IMO the central problem is Tua, I don't think he has shown the ability to lead this team when it is against a tough opponent or when they need to come from behind in the 4th quarter.  Yes he had a good game against Dallas in 2023 and a good game against Baltimore in 2022, but that's not enough.  When a Brady, Mahomes, Rodgers, Marino, Allen, Montana, or a long list of other QB's came in needing to score late in the 4th quarter there was/is a belief that they could do it by their teammates. THAT'S CULTURE!  I've really been hoping to see this from Tua.  I was hoping his great play against lesser, or equal, teams would carry over but it just hasn't.  Secondarily, the problem becomes McDaniel; he really needs to get on Tua and the other players when they don't get it done.  This isn't Pee Wee football, if their feelings get hurt they don't belong in an NFL uniform.

McDaniel has babied Tua throughout his tenure here.  He may have helped pull Tua out of the hole he was in from Flores's mishandling of him, but he's incapable of getting him over the hump from that to a player who exhibits grit and mettle because he exhibits very little of that himself.

[Downunder Dolphan]

Second, these folks aren't criticizing McDaniel directly -- they're criticizing the performance of the team, i.e., the following:

“McDaniel is 1-14 against teams with a winning record in his 3 seasons,” former Dolphins quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick wrote on X (formerly Twitter). “This tells me they have a bit of a front runner mentality and when things get tough they don’t have it in their DNA to handle adversity as well as some of the top tier teams."

As I pointed out earlier in this thread, that comment by Ryan Fitzpatrick is inaccurate - We've won at least three games in that period against teams with a winning record:

24 December 2023 home against the Dallas Cowboys 22-20 (10-3 at the time, going on to finish 12-4)
25 September 2022 home against the Buffalo Bills 21-19 (2-0 at the time, going on to finish 13-3)
18 September 2022 at Baltimore 42-38 (1-0 at the time, going on to finish 10-7)

Three wins ain't great either, but it sure isn't 1-14