The Miami Dolphins nearly came back to defeat the Los Angeles Chargers during Week 6. But despite a 14-point surge in the fourth quarter, Mike McDaniel’s club lost on a field goal in the final seconds.
With the loss, McDaniel’s coaching seat with the Dolphins will likely get a little warmer. It could be scorching hot this week after quarterback Tua Tagovailoa ripped into the team’s leadership following the 29-27 loss to the Chargers.
McDaniel’s postgame press conference was after Tagovailoa’s on Sunday. That gave the Dolphins head coach an early opportunity to respond to Tagovailoa’s criticism.
“Clearly, he’s sending a message. But from my standpoint, everything I’ve asked of guys, they’ve delivered on,” McDaniel told reporters. “So I’m sure whoever he’s talking to, they’ll deliver.”
The quarterback mentioned players missing and/or arriving late to meetings. But McDaniel made it clear those meetings are not team organized but “extracurricular.”
Tua Tagovailoa Criticizes Dolphins Leadership After Another Loss
The Dolphins starting quarterback was obviously pretty frustrated after Sunday’s loss. Miami took a 27-26 lead in the final minutes of the fourth quarter but gave up the game-winning field goal to lose by two.
Following the defeat, Tagovailoa put his teammates on notice.
“I think it starts with the leadership and helping articulate that for the guys and then what we’re expecting out of the guys,” Tagovailoa told reporters. “We’re expecting this. Are we getting that? Are we not getting that?
“We have guys showing up to player-only meetings late. Guys not showing up to player-only meetings. There’s a lot that goes into that. Do we have to make this mandatory? Do we not have to make this mandatory?
“It’s a lot of things of that nature that we have to get cleaned up, and it starts with the little things like that.”
Clearly, pundits and fans are going to see that answer as an indictment on McDaniel. NFL insider Jordan Schultz called the answer “a very honest and glaring set of comments” from Tagovailoa.
The Dolphins coach tried to get out ahead of a potential controversy, saying players are fulfilling their requirements.
At best, though, he’s going to come across as the good guy in a good cop, bad cop routine.
A coach saying players are doing what’s required of them but maybe not going above and beyond is going to be a hard pill to swallow for a fan base who has a team sitting with a 1-5 record.
Kurt Warner Puts Tagovailoa on Blast for Leadership Comment
It’s important to note that Tagovailoa didn’t specifically address McDaniel in his criticism. The quarterback was generally ripping the Dolphins’ leadership.
But the issue with Tagovailoa’s answer is he’s part of the team’s leadership. And it’s not as if Tagovailoa played well Sunday and the players not attending meetings didn’t. Tagovailoa threw three interceptions in the loss to the Chargers.
Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterback Kurt Warner turned the quarterback’s criticism around on Tagovailoa while addressing the situation on X on Sunday.
“Being a PRO means you have a standard that you hold yourself accountable to no matter what … it’s not expecting someone else to hold you to that standard, get you ready to do your job or motivate you to want to be great,” posted Warner.
“To blame another person/coach/etc for your lack of professionalism is a cop-out.”
Social media users pushed back on Warner for that opinion, arguing that Tagovailoa took accountability for his mistakes with other answers during his Week 6 postgame press conference.
“We gotta look at the film again. We have to see where we can go. I contributed to a lot of that as well with the three turnovers. You can’t do that and expect to win games,” Tagovailoa said. “But we’ve all got to look at ourselves not pointing fingers. We’ve got to look at ourselves individually first about ‘What I could have done to help our team win that game.’
“Then we can come together.”
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