{"id":653936,"date":"2026-01-04T19:04:24","date_gmt":"2026-01-04T19:04:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/653936\/"},"modified":"2026-01-04T19:04:24","modified_gmt":"2026-01-04T19:04:24","slug":"nfl-insiders-say-dolphins-likely-to-keep-mike-mcdaniel-in-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/653936\/","title":{"rendered":"NFL insiders say Dolphins likely to keep Mike McDaniel in 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hours ahead of the Miami Dolphins<\/a>‘ regular season finale, it’s still unclear if Mike McDaniel will remain the team’s head coach in 2026.<\/p>\n

After leading the Dolphins to the playoffs in his first two seasons, the team will finish below .500 for a second straight year. That downward trend resulted in Miami beginning a hunt for a new general manager<\/a> to shepherd the franchise into a future without Tua Tagovailoa<\/a>, but will McDaniel stick along for the ride?<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Miami’s second half surge after a 2-7 start had most believing McDaniel was safe, but recent reports said “the winds seem to have a shifted a bit”<\/a> and the coach was in jeopardy. ESPN’s Adam Schefter and NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport provided the latest rumors about the coach.<\/p>\n

“The feeling of the owner right now is they’d prefer to keep him,” Schefter said on ESPN. “It doesn’t mean that he’s going to be safe. If they were making a decision today, Mike McDaniel is back in 2026 but there\u2019s still going to be conversations that occur within this organization that help determine his future.”<\/p>\n

Rapoport provided a similar assessment of the situation Saturday evening<\/a> and said the Dolphins are expected to hunt for an executive who is a good fit to “complement the existing football operation.”<\/p>\n

“Signs continue to point towards McDaniel returning for a fifth season, especially with the recent win over the Bucs and rookie quarterback\u00a0Quinn Ewers<\/a>\u00a0showing promise. Since a 1-6 start, Miami is 6-3.<\/p>\n

“Miami will launch its GM search in earnest next week, with help from Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterback Troy Aikman, who is\u00a0consulting for the team<\/a>\u00a0and is expected to sit in on interviews. The focus is on finding a candidate with a strong scouting background to complement the existing football operation and revamp the roster.”<\/p>\n

McDaniel has a 35-32 record in the regular season heading into the team’s 2025 finale against the New England Patriots.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Dolphins Wire: NFL insiders say Dolphins likely to keep Mike McDaniel in 2026<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hours ahead of the Miami Dolphins‘ regular season finale, it’s still unclear if Mike McDaniel will remain the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":653937,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2049],"tags":[4191,217,7,5328,216,251,2087,4836,249,6,126,1849,3452],"class_list":{"0":"post-653936","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-miami-dolphins","8":"tag-adam-schefter","9":"tag-dolphins","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-ian-rapoport","12":"tag-miami","13":"tag-miami-dolphins","14":"tag-miamidolphins","15":"tag-mike-mcdaniel","16":"tag-new-england-patriots","17":"tag-nfl","18":"tag-nfl-network","19":"tag-quinn-ewers","20":"tag-tua-tagovailoa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115838390809002551","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653936","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=653936"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653936\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/653937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=653936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=653936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=653936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}