{"id":386597,"date":"2025-09-21T23:37:18","date_gmt":"2025-09-21T23:37:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/386597\/"},"modified":"2025-09-21T23:37:18","modified_gmt":"2025-09-21T23:37:18","slug":"dolphins-owners-stephen-ross-willing-to-be-patient-with-hc-mike-mcdaniel-latest-on-gm-chris-grier-teams-culture-changes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/386597\/","title":{"rendered":"Dolphins Owners Stephen Ross Willing To Be Patient With HC Mike McDaniel; Latest On GM Chris Grier, Team’s Culture Changes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier this month, a report came to light indicating that Dolphins general manager Chris Grier and head coach Mike McDaniel may not retain their jobs through the end of the current season<\/a>. Prior to the club\u2019s loss to the Bills on Thursday, Ian Rapoport and Cameron Wolfe of the NFL Network said owner Stephen Ross was willing to be patient with McDaniel (the same may be true of Grier, though neither pundit substantively mentioned him in their reports).<\/p>\n

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Rapoport said Ross likes and believes in McDaniel and does not want to fire him (to say nothing of last year\u2019s extension<\/a> that tethered the HC to the organization through 2028). As such, a McDaniel dismissal is not imminent (video link<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Rapoport acknowledges that Ross\u2019 stance could change in a hurry if fans stop showing up to games or if McDaniel\u2019s players stop playing hard for him. Fan discontent was on full display before Miami\u2019s Week 2 loss to the Patriots in the form of a banner reading \u201cFIRE GRIER. FIRE MCDANIEL.\u201d borne by a small aircraft flying above Hard Rock Stadium. However, according to Wolfe, Dolphins players were not panicked about their disappointing start to the campaign and had not quit on their coach (video link<\/a>).<\/p>\n

That said, the players did express frustration and concern to Wolfe, and losing the Buffalo contest to fall to 0-3 surely did not assuage those feelings. Again, the Rapoport and Wolfe reports preceded the game, and while Wolfe said even a loss to the Bills would not change Ross\u2019 immediate plans with respect to McDaniel, it is fair to wonder how long the patience will last.<\/p>\n

Underscoring all of this is the cultural change that Grier and McDaniel tried to implement this season. In a long-form piece on the matter that will be of particular interest to \u2018Fins fans, ESPN\u2019s Marcel Louis-Jacques<\/a> says the club has attempted to improve the culture within the team facility since the 2024 campaign came to an end.<\/p>\n

Part of those efforts included a focus on \u201cplayer-driven accountability,\u201d and McDaniel told his team after the 2024 season finale that anyone who took issue with that notion could simply say as much, and that the club would look to trade or release them. Indeed, multiple sources said tardiness for, and absences from, team meetings was a significant problem last year.<\/p>\n

Jalen Ramsey<\/a> and Tyreek Hill<\/a>, both team captains in 2024, were reportedly among the repeat offenders, and a current Dolphins player said the high-profile duo took advantage of their captaincy and used it as justification for their poor attendance record. Sources said Ramsey in particular was a \u201cdrain\u201d on morale \u2013 he would show up late to team activities and even leave practice while it was ongoing \u2013 and Hill famously took himself out of Miami\u2019s last game of the season.<\/p>\n

Hill, who did not deny missing meetings or arriving late to meetings and practice, is still with the team despite trade rumblings early in the offseason, though Ramsey was traded<\/a> to the Steelers in June. Grier\u2019s recent comments on the Ramsey deal<\/a> suggest there is at least some truth to the allegations concerning the player\u2019s lack of accountability, and while Grier indicated back in April that the club and Ramsey mutually agreed to seek a trade partner, one source told Louis-Jacques that the move was actually driven by the team.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Interestingly, a former Dolphins player who worked under McDaniel said the lateness\/absence issues were not new developments in 2024. Instead, they only became problematic when the losses began to pile up.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\u201cEveryone was fine with cutting meetings, cutting practice when they\u2019re winning, but once you\u2019re losing, it\u2019s like now you can\u2019t get mad at that,\u201d the player said. \u201cYou were just enjoying it when you were winning.\u201d<\/p>\n

Multiple sources said the disregard for timeliness and attendance reflected a lack of respect for McDaniel, who was reluctant to take action other than imposing fines (which McDaniel himself later conceded did not do much to change behavior). One source said McDaniel has been more willing to publicly admonish players this year, though the comments regarding lack of respect last season will not help the HC\u2019s cause.<\/p>\n

Only six teams have qualified for the postseason after an 0-3 start, and the last team to accomplish that feat was the 2018 Texans. A source familiar with Ross\u2019 thinking said Grier\u2019s and McDaniel\u2019s job security will not depend exclusively on whether the Dolphins defy the odds and make the playoffs, and the team did put up competitive showings against the Patriots and Bills following a Week 1 blowout loss to the Colts.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Still, Louis-Jacques and Wolfe made reference to the comments Ross offered just hours after the 2024 season ended, when the owner said, \u201cI believe in the value of stability. However, continuity in leadership is not to be confused with an acceptance that status quo is good enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even though a source told Louis-Jacques that Ross\u2019 remarks with respect to the status quo pertained more to process than results, the ESPN scribe notes there is a limit to Ross\u2019 patience with undesirable results. In other words, Grier and McDaniel may need their team to start winning immediately to preserve their futures in South Beach.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Earlier this month, a report came to light indicating that Dolphins general manager Chris Grier and head coach…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":386598,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2049],"tags":[4835,217,7,1815,216,251,2087,4836,6,41692,1089],"class_list":{"0":"post-386597","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-miami-dolphins","8":"tag-chris-grier","9":"tag-dolphins","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-jalen-ramsey","12":"tag-miami","13":"tag-miami-dolphins","14":"tag-miamidolphins","15":"tag-mike-mcdaniel","16":"tag-nfl","17":"tag-stephen-ross","18":"tag-tyreek-hill"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115244921614346345","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=386597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386597\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/386598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=386597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=386597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=386597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}