Report details 2024 headaches for Dolphins and Mike McDaniel and offers insight into how Miami delivered on the coach’s offseason promise originally appeared on A to Z Sports.
The Miami Dolphins are betting big on “chemistry” in 2025. There’s little question that Miami is overhauled and, potentially, better, at a number of spots up and down the roster. The EDGE room is healthy. The running back room is diversified. The offensive guard situation projects as a significantly better situation. Miami’s linebackers may be the best and deepest unit on the team.
The list goes on.
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But there are a number of critical spots in which Miami’s talent drop off looms as a major question and concern. One of those spots is at tight end. But Miami’s secondary as a whole is where everyone’s biggest questions linger. Rightfully so — the group has been stripped down to the bones and restocked with a lot of young and unproven players. It’s a valid concern because the variance of outcomes is massive.
But Miami is hoping that the collection of players assembled for the 2025 roster are made up of the right stuff off the field, which was a big part of the battle head coach Mike McDaniel faced in 2024. We have another clue as to just how big of a battle it was.
The Athletic story spotlights a problematic collection of Miami Dolphins players from 2024
“McDaniel said five players on the 2024 roster incurred half of the team’s internal fines for distractions such as being late. So, let’s say the Dolphins were intentional about the players they wanted to retain this season — along with the kinds of players they wanted to add to the roster.”
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There’s been some pretty significant clues throughout the offseason about this sort of thing. You can go back to what Mike McDaniel’s end of season press conference last season. You can hear players throughout the 2025 offseason talk about accountability and intent. There’s no shortage of ways in which the magnitude of Miami’s issues has been hinted at. But the silver lining of a problem group as small as the one that’s now being reported as the core collection of the Dolphins’ issues last year is that Miami can flush the system fairly easily in their bid to reduce problems.
As Howe hints in his story, there’s reason to believe that Miami ejected some of these players from the locker room. Being “intentional” about players being gone and the kinds of players added to the mix hits close to home when reflecting on this very direct shot across the bow by McDaniel during the end of season press debriefing in January.
“I think it’s important that you let guys know that we’re at the point in our team where guys are firmly aware of the expectations, and if your actions continually lead to finable offenses that you’re telling me without words that you don’t want to be here. I think it’s very clear. I think it’s not an indictment necessarily of all, but we are subject to everyone’s actions as a football team so we’ll address those as such,” said McDaniel.
It seems those weren’t just words. There was action. And for some of Miami’s major roster turnover in certain spots this offseason, there’s likely clues on where repeat offenders were that comprised the nucleus of Miami’s collection of problematic individuals.
Dolphins tight end Tanner Conner seemed to echo this sentiment too during the first two weeks of training camp when he suggested that while head coach Mike McDaniel hasn’t changed, “I think maybe the emphasis around (McDaniel) and respecting him more as players has changed as we’ve gotten some players out who might have not been as respectful.”
As you add it all up, there’s mounting evidence that the Dolphins did indeed say goodbye to “some players” this offseason whose problems may not have been tied to their physical ability on the football field. You’d think such a development would move the needle more on the discussion of the 2025 Miami Dolphins outlook to give context that talent drops may be worthwhile for the more unseen impacts that could be beneficial. You’d be wrong, though.
Oct 23, 2022; Miami Gardens, Florida, USA; Miami Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill (10) runs with the football ahead of Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker Alex Highsmith (56) during the first quarter at Hard Rock Stadium. Sam Navarro-USA TODAY Sports
One such player who is safe to assume was a guilty party and is back in 2025 is wide receiver Tyreek Hill. Hill himself has spoken this summer about the intentionality he’s put into his own process this offseason to “be on time”. Read between the lines on that one.
The rest of that group is not necessarily as easy to identify — although there’s clues and breadcrumbs aplenty. Whether the concessions Miami may have made in talent for the sake of chemistry and fit come together to yield the chances the Dolphins need to see in 2025 or not is to be determined. But it’s an admirable deliverance of accountability that many were asking for amid a disastrous first half of the 2024 season. And the hope, for Miami, is that such a small group of mass offenders could be easily removed to facilitate proper messaging and buy-in from those on this year’s squad, too.
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This story was originally reported by A to Z Sports on Aug 15, 2025, where it first appeared.