{"id":629338,"date":"2025-12-26T06:48:46","date_gmt":"2025-12-26T06:48:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/629338\/"},"modified":"2025-12-26T06:48:46","modified_gmt":"2025-12-26T06:48:46","slug":"dolphins-mike-mcdaniel-declines-to-discuss-his-future-after-another-embarrassing-loss-sports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/629338\/","title":{"rendered":"Dolphins\u2019 Mike McDaniel declines to discuss his future after another embarrassing loss | Sports"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel declined to address his future with the team after Miami was\u00a0routed 45\u201321 by the Cincinnati Bengals<\/a>\u00a0on Sunday, the latest in a series of embarrassing losses.<\/p>\n

Miami has already been eliminated from the playoffs for the second straight season. And for the second consecutive game, the Dolphins unraveled in the third quarter, undone by the costly mistakes that have plagued them all year.<\/p>\n

NFL Network reported earlier Sunday that owner Stephen Ross is expected to stick with McDaniel in 2026 despite another season of unfulfilled expectations for the Dolphins, who hold the NFL\u2019s longest playoff win drought at 25 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe focus for me as a head coach, there is plenty to focus on,\u201d said McDaniel, declining to say if he\u2019s been told that he\u2019s coming back next season.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t spend my time thinking about the job I already have,\u201d he added. \u201cI try to do it to the best of my ability, and I have work to do to get our third quarters right. We\u2019re not going to have any time to waste because there\u2019s going to be a hungry Tampa (Bay) team that we\u2019re going to face in a week. My focus is there, and everyone depends on me to have my focus there.\u201d<\/p>\n

McDaniel, who has faced questions about his job security all season, was much more willing to voice his frustration about the Dolphins\u2019 poor second half. Miami turned the ball over four times, leading to four Bengals touchdowns.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just very, very frustrated and angry about this continued third-quarter thing,\u201d McDaniel said, \u201cwhere it appears … really the dam breaks and all of a sudden we play a different style of football. The way I look at it is I\u2019m furious because I\u2019m allowing it to happen. It starts with me. While I\u2019m up here after games, you probably won\u2019t get much other finger-pointing besides I need to get it fixed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last week\u2019s loss at Pittsburgh ended the Dolphins\u2019 postseason hopes, and it also became clear that McDaniel would have to make what he described as a tough decision to bench struggling quarterback Tua Tagovailoa for rookie Quinn Ewers.<\/p>\n

After naming Ewers the Dolphins\u2019 starter earlier this week, McDaniel said he was looking for conviction from the quarterback position.<\/p>\n

In his first career start, Ewers provided Dolphins fans \u2014 some of whom put brown paper bags on their heads as the game got out of hand \u2014 a look at what he can add to the Dolphins\u2019 passing game.<\/p>\n

Ewers completed 20 of 30 passes for 260 yards and led three scoring drives. He appeared calm operating Miami\u2019s offense and showed his ability to extend plays with his legs, something the Dolphins were missing with Tagovailoa this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt didn\u2019t feel fast to me,\u201d Ewers said. \u201cDuring the week I thought we did a good job of keeping our eyes on the play clock and not getting in the rhythm of practice. Like, \u2018Hey, it\u2019s just practice. We\u2019re going to continue on to just go through the motions.\u2019 But we had a play clock on me during the week, which I think helped a lot. It felt good to be out there. Didn\u2019t feel fast.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ewers appeared more rattled in the second half, throwing a pair of interceptions, but McDaniel did not critique the rookie\u2019s second-half performance too much because of the way the team unraveled.<\/p>\n

Tagovailoa was Miami\u2019s emergency third quarterback behind Ewers and veteran Zach Wilson. He stood on the sideline with a clipboard, giving Ewers pointers and celebrating after positive plays.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was good. Super encouraging to me and all the guys,\u201d Ewers said. \u201cHe\u2019s in a tough position in that spot. … I\u2019ve been there, and I know how he feels. I thought he did a really good job of helping me out on the sideline and continuing to talk to those guys and continuing to encourage those guys.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel declined to address his future with the team after Miami was\u00a0routed 45\u201321 by the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":629339,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2049],"tags":[92525,217,92532,92518,92520,92531,92522,92523,92528,92526,7,216,251,92519,92524,92530,2087,92517,90957,92529,6,92527,92533,91557,92521,90659],"class_list":{"0":"post-629338","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-miami-dolphins","8":"tag-bengals-vs-dolphins-score","9":"tag-dolphins","10":"tag-dolphins-2025-season-outlook","11":"tag-dolphins-coaching-future","12":"tag-dolphins-eliminated-from-playoffs","13":"tag-dolphins-fan-frustration","14":"tag-dolphins-playoff-drought","15":"tag-dolphins-quarterback-change","16":"tag-dolphins-rookie-quarterback-quinn-ewers","17":"tag-dolphins-season-collapse","18":"tag-football","19":"tag-miami","20":"tag-miami-dolphins","21":"tag-miami-dolphins-loss-bengals","22":"tag-miami-dolphins-third-quarter-collapse","23":"tag-miami-dolphins-turnovers","24":"tag-miamidolphins","25":"tag-mike-mcdaniel-dolphins","26":"tag-mike-mcdaniel-job-security","27":"tag-mike-mcdaniel-press-conference","28":"tag-nfl","29":"tag-nfl-coaching-hot-seat","30":"tag-nfl-week-loss-miami","31":"tag-quinn-ewers-dolphins-debut","32":"tag-stephen-ross-dolphins-decision","33":"tag-tua-tagovailoa-benched"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629338","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=629338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629338\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/629339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=629338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=629338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=629338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}