The Dolphins are on a two-game winning streak. Is McDaniel still on the hot seat?
By now, every Miami Dolphins fan should know the mandate Stephen Ross gave at the end of the 2024 season.
“As we now look towards 2025, our football operation will continue to be led by Chris Grier and Mike McDaniel with my full support,” the Dolphins owner said in a statement posted Jan. 5 after the Miami’s 32-20 loss to the New York Jets in the season finale. “Their positive working relationship is an asset to the Dolphins, and I believe in the value of stability. However, continuity in leadership is not to be confused with an acceptance that status quo is good enough. We will take a hard look at where we have fallen shot and make the necessary changes to deliver our ultimate goal of building and sustaining a winning team that competes for championships.”
Such words have already led to the departure of not only co-directors of player personnel Adam Engroff and Anthony Hunt but most notably the general manager in Grier. In the two games since, the Dolphins have not only built their first winning streak of 2025 but also drubbed the Buffalo Bills, their first victory over their AFC East rival since 2022. The win streak has not only bolstered the feeling in the locker room, but even cooled down McDaniel’s hot seat in the eyes of many national pundits.
“I wouldn’t call it likely, but in my mind, there’s a plausible scenario where he sticks in Miami,” ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler wrote Wednesday. “The team is coming off back-to-back wins and the vibe seems to be good. The Dolphins are responding to McDaniel more than they are tuning him out, which players will do when the message grows stale.”
“He did something like this last season, when the team started 2-6 and then won six of its next eight to claw back onto the edges of the playoff race,” ESPN’s Dan Graziano added. “He might still end up gone, but he has made the case that he can hold onto the locker room even when things are going badly, and that says something about him that ownership will surely consider when making its decision.”
Through it all, McDaniel stood tall even as the losses piled up. The 42-year-old coach always maintained the same verbiage amid questions about his coaching future.
“If I’m thinking about having a job, I need to be doing my job,” McDaniel said Oct. 19, deeming anything else as “offensive.” “As long as I’m the coach for the Miami Dolphins, they will get everything from me. I refuse to spend my time thinking about something that you have your job, you do your job, and you do it to the best of your ability, and that’s where my concern lies. I think it’s offensive to all coaches, players, and the organization, if I’m spending that precious time thinking about myself.”
McDaniel later doubled down on that sentiment.
“There’s a piece of me, from an integrity standpoint, to go into the world of speculation when I’m currently holding the job. I think that’s kind of irresponsible,” McDaniel said Oct. 20. “I do recognize the hard part is the residual consequences — other staff members, players — just the uncertainty of that. But at this point, I don’t think anybody is focused on any of that now. You got to focus on winning the game.”
As Fowler said, the fact that the Dolphins team continues not to quit could be viewed as a huge plus in McDaniel’s favor.
“When you go through a season that we’ve gone through, your character gets tested, your resolve gets tested, the community gets tested, the brotherhood gets tested, and allowing for guys to respond when you aren’t seeing the results, but you know that you’re getting better is really challenging,” fullback Alec Ingold said. “To continue to encourage the guys around you to keep going, to correct guys and make sure that we're all being accountable for our mistakes, that is as tough as it can possibly be when everyone can see the immediate results and impact week in, week out. Honestly, the way that we’ve been trained all training camp with the coaching staff, I think it’s all been about the process, constant improvement and battling that noise and that human nature to the best of our ability.”
Ultimately, however, whether the team improves the “status quo” — which, by a record definition, means 9-8 after the team finished one game below .500 in 2024 — could be the deciding factor. For that to happen, the Dolphins would have to go at least 5-1 during their next six games. These matchups include two bottom-five teams in the New Orleans Saints and New York Jets, three franchises currently slotted for the playoffs in the Pittsburgh Steelers, Tampa Bay Buccaneers and New England Patriots as well as one squad — the Cincinnati Bengals — in the hunt for the postseason.
This story was originally published November 20, 2025 at 4:23 PM.
