Tuesday, February 25, 2025
Head Coach Mike McDaniel
(Has T Terron Armstead indicated if he would like to play this year?) – “We’ve been in direct communication with Terron (Armstead) as recent as last week, and one thing that Terron understands is from the organizational perspective we have to operate in some way, shape or form. I think with Terron reflecting his ability and all that, he’s not totally ready to make that decision. As a result, I think we have to operate as though he won’t play – just because you have to prepare for things that you can’t control. But I think he’s going to take his time with his family and loved ones and make that decision because it is not an easy one. But we will be operating as though we are moving on in that way, simply for the execution of free agency and the draft.”
(When it comes to the backup quarterback position, do you prefer a veteran or a rookie?) – “I prefer – I prioritize people that are adept at passing. That’s my first – young, old – I think all things are on the table. There’s some guys that we’re pretty interested in in free agency, and there’s guys in the draft as well. So I think both avenues afford us an opportunity to improve the room at that position, which I think was pretty obvious, it’s on everybody’s tip of the tongue that needs to be a focus of ours and it is.”
(How relieved were you to not have to hire a defensive coordinator again? Albeit meaning no head coaching job this cycle for Defensive Coordinator Anthony Weaver?) – “Those are weird situations in that I have a close relationship with Anthony Weaver. I obviously think highly of him by hiring him and our working relationship is awesome, but I know he is going to be a tremendous head coach someday. So it’s not that exciting, it is a relief just knowing that I think there’s a tremendous amount out there for us to finally have some continuity with scheme and leader, but you’re also in the car with the guys that you have relationships with and Anthony Weaver is deserving of it. It just so happens that it won’t be this year, but I’ll be sure to not take for granted my working relationship with him this coming year because my expectation (of) that whole process will be I have to be ready for it to be short-lived.”
(LB Chop Robinson is a guy that became a pretty big part of your defense as a rookie last season. He was here at this time last year at the combine. What do you remember learning about him at that time and going forward, what’s the next step for him?) – “Well, honestly that’s my favorite part of the combine, because it’s a puzzle that you’re trying to put together – how can you have a draft class impact your football team, where are you needs, where are your strengths of the draft and then the individuals. A lot of times people get caught up in, especially, I think we’re all victims of it – you get into the world of fantasy football and you start treating people like they’re (video game) console create-a-players, and these are human beings. That’s at the foundation of what makes people be able to really succeed on the NFL level because the parity is so real. So meeting him, understanding that we were dealing with a wise beyond his years type of young man, a guy that had just scratched the surface but was hungry to establish his kind of piece in the puzzle within the whole league of his game and being able to really refine technique and fundamentals to be a really good player – not for the short term results. I learned a lot about Chop Robinson that I think made it very easy in our conversations with (General Manager) Chris (Grier) and I to make that selection, and we’re very happy we did it.”
(What are your thoughts on the “Tush Push” play and do you think it should be legal?) – “It’s tough because I have a hard time making things illegal because of success. However, I think in my mind it’s a different thing if it’s a safety issue. For me in the game of football, when your job is to take 11 people, possess the ball, move it down the field to try to get in the end zone to score points, I think because it’s successful I have a hard time being that the teeth of the argument to move on from it. That’s just my opinion; I do understand both sides.”
(At the 13th pick, how do you value upside versus positional growth?) – “I think you value upside because you want growth, but it’s a happy balance of – we don’t have a farm system. You are playing live bullets if you are on the 53 (-man roster), and generally when you are drafting someone, you don’t have the luxury of redshirting them in the National Football League. So there has to be – for me, I’m looking at the college game and extrapolating it to the professional game. So taking what’s happening in college football with the players on any given play and extrapolating that to what that would look like on the NFL level. If there’s a ceiling for, ‘Oh that’s good enough, and…’ that’s extremely attractive and that’s probably what you want the most, is you want the NFL ability with room to grow into greatness.”
(Did WR Tyreek Hill have wrist surgery?) – “He had surgery on his wrist. It was a ligament issue; it wasn’t a broken wrist. He’s scheduled to be running very soon, in which he’ll be relying upon that in his training until he can catch the football which will be more around summertime going into training camp.”
(With the change at wide receivers coach, did that have anything to do with keeping that room, specifically WR Tyreek Hill in the room?) – “I could see why one could come to that conclusion; however it wasn’t at all. In coaching especially – I have a high regard for Wes Welker – and generally in my position, I have to do the hard thing which in this case is look past the relationship. For me, I take the job and the responsibility of being a head coach super serious and I don’t play with people’s livelihoods. So for me, it’s very important that I outline specifically what I’m looking for on the front end with a coach, and in certain situations those things can’t be delivered upon, so who else is going to do the hard but right thing? That’s my job, but it was motivated in things that were much beyond what happened with Tyreek (Hill) at the end of the season.”
(Why is it important for you to be here in person at the Combine? Some coaches don’t come. Why is it important for you to be here?) – “Because I can’t replace that face-to-face energy and human element that is so important. Like in this game, it’s the one time that you – however it is for us a little inefficient in terms of time, there’s some downtime in the middle of the day – but for me, I’m hard-pressed with how important the decisions are for the fabric of your team when it comes to the NFL Draft. Everybody can do it a different way. I need to see people in person for me to kind of complete the whole picture of what I’m seeing on film.”
(When you become a coach at such a young age, what were the benefits of that and the challenges that came with being a first-year head coach?) – “It’s a cool question because there were some tangible benefits I learned live that I didn’t forecast this – being it kind of fit in the same bucket as my physical disposition. Like I’m young, I was at an Ivy League school. You better have information that players can easily digest that they know immediately that helps them do their job. You have to become an asset to players with your information, and you can’t be guessing. It can’t be guesswork. So the amount of preparation that I felt that I had to have to feel comfortable instructing Andre Johnson or my first training camp, I was in Denver and it was one of Jerry Rice’s last training camps. For me to have information that’s worthwhile for those guys, it better be on point. So I think it was very fortuitous in many ways but one of which was my ability to do my job because I knew I had to prove myself each and every day which is kind of the mantra that I kind of take still to do this day.”
(As the NFL world is giving up on the quarterback, how do you know when you need to give it more time?) – “Evaluating all the compounding variables, that’s the biggest thing. Results are something that need to be focused on, however, compounding variables – this is not a science experiment. You can’t – if you just take the results, you’re leaving yourself vulnerable to missing out on people that can be very adept at the job. So I think you have to assess all the variables, one of which is schematic situation that they’re in, what they’re asked to do, the eligibles that they’re around, the situations that they’re put in. All these things, the quarterback position has a lot of uncontrollables that you’re at the mercy of, so you try to do your best to put yourself in the player’s situation and evaluate from that standpoint. And often that can lead to, ‘All right, we need to give this guy another chance. He might have a better shot at the results that everybody wants in this situation in this scheme,’ et cetera, et cetera.”
(Parks Frazier was with you last year, he’s now with the Eagles. I was just curious what was your experience working with him?) – “I have a very strong relationship with Parks (Frazier). He did an outstanding job for us and was deserving of a little more responsibility. I think it’s a great place for him to go knowing his relationship with Coach (Nick) Sirianni. He did a great job with us assisting Coach (Darrell) Bevell in the quarterbacks room, and I expect him to continue to progress in his career.”
(How do you feel about VR training with quarterbacks and is that something Miami is interested in?) – “I’m very emphatic about that resource tool being beneficial to non-starters in the regular season. Typically their ratio of reps – the backup quarterback and the third quarterback – goes down in the regular season. I’ve witnessed firsthand, I had an experience I think from 2018-19 where we had a quarterback, Nick Mullens, that didn’t get any burn really on the field, showed up at training camp better the next year and had done so through stealing reps with VR. So to answer your question, I think it’s very powerful to be a tool to gain reps where otherwise they’re lost based upon the natural constraints of a practice.”
(Can you get extra reps from that as a starter?) – “Absolutely, absolutely. Extra in reps is what it allows you to do, and you’re at the mercy of 21 other players generally to get a rep. VR, you can go solo only-child style – have no friends, get reps, so it works out for everybody. (laughter)”
(After waiving RB Raheem Mostert and with RB Jeff Wilson Jr. set to be a free agent, how would you evaluate the current state of the running back room?) – “I’m fired up of the incomplete room. The nature of the National Football League, you guys would have to fact check but I feel like there’s 40% to 60% roster turnover on every team ever year; that’s something that’s the nature of our business. Right now, I feel extremely strong about who is in the room knowing it will grow by two to three people. I think part of our vision moving forward is we have high expectations of that tandem of De’Von (Achane) and Jaylen (Wright) and think that they give us an opportunity to really be effective handing the ball off and doing stuff in the pass game. I’m excited to see how the room fills out knowing that we only have two under contract, but I’m very excited about those two and motivated to make that more than two.”
(It seems to be a pretty deep running back class. Is that a position you guys are looking at in the draft? Or is that two or three additions to the room you want a more veteran presence?) – “(General Manager) Chris (Grier) shares the same foundational anxiety as I do which is a lot of times, the player that you ultimately in hindsight should draft may not be the exact position need. To keep yourself from missing out on the opportunity to draft good players that you think will help your team, you kind of go into every draft – it’s non-negotiable, I have to focus on the entire draft class to see where its strengths are. I think between ‘E’ (Associate Head Coach/Running Backs Coach Eric Studesville), Chris Grier, (Offensive Coordinator) Frank Smith and our whole personnel department, I feel very confident in our ability to match skill set with scheme. So we’ll look at that position and quite honestly look at every position, because I don’t want to be in a situation ever, and Chris is the exact same way, where you have an opportunity to pick somebody that is elite that you didn’t put any time into. We’ll put in healthy time just like every other position, but I’m excited for that room even though it’s incomplete.”
(Is S Jevón Holland likely to test free agency?) – “I think Jevón has earned the right to go out and test his market, and that’s something that I don’t look at as a negative because what I don’t want is players being here and wishing they were somewhere else. So testing the market – this has been a guy that has been a contributor from his rookie year on that a lot of teams have had the ability to watch him. We feel good about his ability to test his market, and if business works out appropriately, his ability to be back here. That process will start, I know he’s looking forward to it and he’s earned that.”
(When you look at how you construct your staff, you have one of the largest assistants group in the league. How do you balance having specialized division of labor without having too many cooks in the kitchen?) – “One thing that I think is paramount in an organization’s not fleeting but maintained success over time, I think there’s a competitive advantage that we try to lean into on player development. Much of the girth of the staff is because we have position assistants that their job is to focus like they were the primary position coach on the back half of the room. We have a structured after-practice developmental program that we do with guys and then something on Mondays from the past game plan. So the long-short of it is that it is an issue if you have too many cooks in the kitchen. I think we have a good format where guys get the individual attention that I think is deserved of an NFL player who is trying to best contribute to a team, just like we all want him to.”
(Have you always believed in having positional assistants? Or is that something that you’ve kind of evolved to want to adapt?) – “It’s been more of an evolution. I recognize, one thing – you’re forecasting with the idea of overall things happen in an NFL season. You have a season that you’re pumped about, you have a down season, but overall, if you’re in a successful program, you have to have basically a situation where guys can grow within the program themselves and be ready to be a lead guy when that opportunity presents itself. That’s been kind of something that I didn’t necessarily come in looking at but solving the problems year after year, it has become a priority.”
(General Manager Chris Grier has mentioned the need to invest in the offensive line this offseason. What does that look like for this team in terms of surveying free agency and this draft?) – “To me, I’m excited because I think we have a tangible opportunity to improve that starts in free agency with a couple of guys that we have targeted that you think you can get a deal done with them, and that continues into the draft. I think it’s a very good time to have some need. We have – it’s time for us to invest in that position and excited to. That can come – I would expect it to surface itself in both free agency and the draft.”
(There’s a prospect in this draft who has deep Dolphins roots in Mason Taylor. Have you gotten a chance to meet him, talk to him and what have you seen?) – “I’m only one day deep, right? And we are meeting hundreds of players here throughout the week. I will end up – I can’t remember what day; every day is the same at the combine. When I do get to talk to him, I’ll be excited about it. He has a reputation from his play style on the field that I’m excited to dive into more, as well as to get to know the human being, which is why we’re here.”
