Hyde: Miami Dolphins were soft at the top with Grier, McDaniel

[Sunstroke]

There's a lot of room on the continuum between essentially Pee Wee Herman reincarnate and Brian Flores.  Just because you don't want Pee Wee Herman 2.0 doesn't mean you want Brian Flores.  There are other options besides those two.

Pee Wee Herman as McDaniel? No, no, no... McDaniel is much more on the Ferris Bueller side of the nerd spectrum...

[Spider-Dan]

If "Pee Wee Herman" can get the Dolphins to the playoffs in back-to-back seasons while all the tough guys who preceded him (like Brian Flores and Nick Saban) can't, perhaps the fans are fixating on the wrong factors.

In fact, looking at the last four Dolphins coaches to make the playoffs (McDaniel, Gase, Sparano, and Wannstedt), none of them seem to be the kind of authoritarian that is being lusted for.

It's almost like it's not about the results.
Like they want a coach who is tough on these spoiled players for it's own sake.

[CF DolFan]

Like they want a coach who is tough on these spoiled players for it's own sake.

There is a world of difference between he and the middle of the road coches like McDermitt and the Harbaugh brothers that comparing him to Flores or Saban makes no sense. McDaniel is so left of tough it really does have a negative effect on the team. You can't allow players to continually break rules regardless of who they are. It will negatively affect everyone else.

[Spider-Dan]

Who is a losing coach with the correct amount of toughness?

I mean, Andy Reid is pretty widely considered the top coach in the league right now, and he's famously not an authoritarian.  So it seems to me that the issue - as always - is not how tough you are, but how many wins you are stacking.

So the actual problem is the record, not the toughness.

[Dolfanalyst]

There is a world of difference between he and the middle of the road coches like McDermitt and the Harbaugh brothers that comparing him to Flores or Saban makes no sense. McDaniel is so left of tough it really does have a negative effect on the team. You can't allow players to continually break rules regardless of who they are. It will negatively affect everyone else.

Exactly.  It's not that he's not an authoritarian -- it's that he's simply not effective.

If you used a scale from 0 to 100 to measure someone's authoritarianism, with a score of let's say 50 being optimal for an NFL head coach, the fact that Brian Flores has a score of 90 and is way over the top with regard to what's optimal is nonetheless immaterial with regard to the fact that McDaniel has a score of just 5.  McDaniel is still inadequate, regardless of what Brian Flores or the other over the top authoritarians of the world are doing.

[Dolfanalyst]

If "Pee Wee Herman" can get the Dolphins to the playoffs in back-to-back seasons while all the tough guys who preceded him (like Brian Flores and Nick Saban) can't, perhaps the fans are fixating on the wrong factors.

In fact, looking at the last four Dolphins coaches to make the playoffs (McDaniel, Gase, Sparano, and Wannstedt), none of them seem to be the kind of authoritarian that is being lusted for.

It's almost like it's not about the results.
Like they want a coach who is tough on these spoiled players for it's own sake.

Again, making the playoffs is nothing special.  Nearly 44% of NFL teams do that every year.  It's about a coin flip in terms of probability.

And again as well, "lusting for an authoritarian" is a strawman.  Just because you don't want McDaniel/Pee Wee Herman doesn't automatically mean you want an authoritarian.

Hypothetically McDaniel could be part of only 5% of the population who are totally unfit to be an NFL head coach.  That would leave 95% of the population to choose from.  Surely you could find a non-authoritarian who is also a non-McDaniel within that 95%.

[Spider-Dan]

Again, making the playoffs is nothing special.

Then why is McDaniel the only Miami head coach to make the playoffs in back-to-back years since the Clinton Administration?
If it's so easy, why couldn't the earlier tough guy coaches make the playoffs at all?

Again: perhaps the fans prioritize the wrong things.

[Dolfanalyst]

Then why is McDaniel the only Miami head coach to make the playoffs in back-to-back years since the Clinton Administration?
If it's so easy, why couldn't the earlier tough guy coaches make the playoffs at all?

Again: perhaps the fans prioritize the wrong things.

The problem there is that making the playoffs for two consecutive years has been accomplished by many NFL head coaches who never won Super Bowls and weren't considered among the best in the game, and so that achievement isn't distinctive in the NFL beyond the recent Dolphins.  The uniqueness of McDaniel's accomplishment of two consecutive playoff berths with the Dolphins is therefore more an indictment of the Dolphins' other recent coaches than it is a favorable indication about McDaniel within the context of the NFL as a whole.

Again, just because McDaniel isn't effective doesn't mean anybody wants any of the other recent Dolphins' head coaches instead.  Those coaches are non-sequiturs with regard to McDaniel's (in)adequacy.  The whole kit and caboodle of them can be inadequate, including McDaniel.

[Pappy13]

Jimmy Johnson was far from seen as being a mean coach, but players were terrified of getting cut if they royally screwed up.

What? Jimmy was the ULTIMATE disciplinarian. No, he wasn't mean but he was NOT your friend, he was your coach. That's completely different from the way McDaniel interacts with his players.

[Dolfanalyst]

What? Jimmy was the ULTIMATE disciplinarian. No, he wasn't mean but he was NOT your friend, he was your coach. That's completely different from the way McDaniel interacts with his players.

And again this is what I said when he was hired:  there has never been a highly successful head coach in college or NFL football who has McDaniel's personality.  And in fact the vast majority of the highly successful head coaches at those levels have had personalities quite different from his.

If you strain to come up with just one who is similar you might land on Dick Vermeil for example, who is a notoriously highly emotional softy, but he was far from the "Pee Wee Herman" type character McDaniel is, as has been just about every other head coach in NFL history, including ALL of the highly successful ones.

If a team didn't take on the personality of its coach as they say, all of this wouldn't matter nearly as much.  But it does.

[Dave Gray]

Is Andy Reid a disciplinarian?  I don't know, but I saw Travis Kelce yelling in his fucking face in a way that I don't imagine a lot of other coaches allowing, from your list of hard-asses.

[Dolfanalyst]

Is Andy Reid a disciplinarian?  I don't know, but I saw Travis Kelce yelling in his fucking face in a way that I don't imagine a lot of other coaches allowing, from your list of hard-asses.

People have to get away from this notion that if you believe McDaniel doesn't have what it takes because he has nowhere near enough of the toughness/authoritativeness to run an NFL team and have his team embody his personality on the field, that it automatically means you believe "a disciplinarian" is necessary.

If a guy who is five feet tall can't possibly succeed in the NBA, it doesn't mean someone has to be seven feet tall to do so.  Michael Jordan was 6 foot 6.

[Spider-Dan]

You're just saying the words "Pee Wee Herman" like it's some sort of clinical diagnosis.  You even cite famously soft Dick Vermeil while saying "but he's not Pee Wee Herman" with no further explanation.  Andy Reid is also not a disciplinarian, but that's different too, somehow.

The tell here is that McDaniel is the same coach now that he has been for three years.  And you didn't have any of this "Pee Wee Herman" commentary (or this making the playoffs is super easy, barely an inconvenience commentary) when he took Miami to the playoffs for the first time in 6 years.  Nor did you have it when Miami was getting ready to play BAL with the #1 seed on the line in week 17 of 2023.  It is a take you developed when Miami started losing in 2024.

So why bother with all this amateur psychologist nonsense?  Just say "McDaniel needs to go because he's losing" and leave it at that.

[Dolfanalyst]

You're just saying the words "Pee Wee Herman" like it's some sort of clinical diagnosis.  You even cite famously soft Dick Vermeil while saying "but he's not Pee Wee Herman" with no further explanation.  Andy Reid is also not a disciplinarian, but that's different too, somehow.

The tell here is that McDaniel is the same coach now that he has been for three years.  And you didn't have any of this "Pee Wee Herman" commentary (or this making the playoffs is super easy, barely an inconvenience commentary) when he took Miami to the playoffs for the first time in 6 years.  Nor did you have it when Miami was getting ready to play BAL with the #1 seed on the line in week 17 of 2023.  It is a take you developed when Miami started losing in 2024.

So why bother with all this amateur psychologist nonsense?  Just say "McDaniel needs to go because he's losing" and leave it at that.

It's most definitely not a take I developed when the Dolphins were losing in 2024.  This thread contains my thoughts about this topic just after McDaniel was hired:

http://www.thedolphinsmakemecry.com/forums/index.php?topic=27201.0

[Spider-Dan]

The "Pee Wee Herman" take is most definitely something you developed while the Dolphins were losing.

I would post your attempts to defend your take on coaching demeanor during times when the Dolphins were winning, but your MO is to only show up when the Dolphins are losing; a look back at your posting history during any Dolphins winning streak shows you are simply not present.  So you get to skip that whole accountability part of having a take.