Kelly: Are Dolphins keeping things status quo? | Opinion
We must have a different understanding, definition of the term “status quo.”
Clearly Miami Dolphins fans think it’s one thing, and team owner Steve Ross, who at the conclusion of the 2024 season, warned, insinuated, uttered that the status quo wouldn’t be good enough when announcing that general manager Chris Grier and Mike McDaniel would return for the next season because they had a good working relationship.
“Continuity in leadership is not to be confused with an acceptance that status quo is good enough,” Ross wrote to Dolphins fans [or better yet, approved as a statement] at the conclusion of Miami’s 8-9 season.
How did the team Grier built, and McDaniel coached that next season end up?
The offseason featured a soft rebuild — which began with Ross closing up his wallet, forcing Miami to invest in young, cheap, and unproven rookies who were solid, but fell short of impressive — to produce a 7-10 record.
In fairness to Ross, he fired Grier two months ago because of the team’s early 1-6 struggles.
But isn’t seven wins less than eight? My 4-year-old daughter knows that.
Isn’t that actually regression, especially considering quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, who missed six and a half games in 2024, was healthy (but not good) for a full season in 2025?
There must be something loss in translation….
Siri, what is the definition of the “status quo?”
[Insert Siri voice] It is the existing state of affairs, especially regarding social or political issues.
The Latin root of the term literally means ‘the state in which.’
Synonyms for “status quo” emphasizes the existing, unchanged state of affairs, with common choices being current situation, existing condition, present state, how things stand, normality, reflecting the accepted way things usually are.
Other related terms to “status quo” highlight lack of change, such as stasis, standstill, or stagnation.
That describes the Dolphins franchise accurately for the past two decades, and here we are taking the same spin on the mediocrity merry-go-round.
I choose to take an optimistic approach (it’s part of my 2026 New Year’s resolution since folks say I’m so pessimistic…. but I call that realism) and conclude that McDaniel’s fate will be decided later, possibly by the General Manager Ross hires.
I can see the pros and cons of keeping McDaniel, especially since there is no clear-cut better coach out there looking for work. At least not yet.
Fortunately, through back channels the Dolphins’ decision-makers clarified that McDaniel isn’t part of the general manager interview and hiring process like he insinuated on Monday in his exit interview with the media.
However, let’s not pretend it isn’t a big deal that McDaniel has ties, relationships — either working, or personal — with four of the six named candidates vying to be his boss, or equal counterpart?
Why is it so difficult for people to understand, comprehend, rationalize that the next general manager Ross hires will decide McDaniel’s fate? Or at least all candidates meeting with the team via Zoom interviews this week won’t feel pressed to present a plan that features McDaniel.
They should get that choice, which is where Ross has gone wrong in so many of his searches.
By the way, should the Dolphins really be hiring the head of a $10 billion corporation over zoom?
Maybe letting them feel the warmth and sunshine of South Florida, and walking them through Ross’ state-of-the-art practice facility will help sell the job to those who have other suitors.
But Ross and his companies are worth billions upon billions, so he should clearly know this, right?
Whether Ross does, or doesn’t, it shouldn’t be hard to understand, comprehend, rationalize that the Dolphins franchise needs fresh eyes on what’s clearly a cultural problem, one Ross inherited, and has seemingly done little to shed.
Ross has been in position to hire one general manager for the Dolphins franchise before this, and that was Dennis Hickey in 2014, who was his fourth, or fifth choice (depending on whether we count candidates who turned down Miami’s interviews for the job), for one of 32 jobs.
Since then Ross put someone (Mike Tannenbaum) ahead of Hickey after one season, after supposedly realizing Hickey wasn’t up to speed on sports science and analytics, which was becoming in vogue a decade ago.
Ross put Tannenbaum, whom he never held an interview process for, at the top of his NFL franchise after using him as a consultant working with/for Hickey, and then promoted a longtime assistant and executive, Grier, to general manager without holding an interview process again.
That’s technically two high-level NFL jobs that Ross didn’t hold an interview process for. Hopefully he has learned from that.
Ross hired Gase with the assistance of Tannenbaum, and Brian Flores with the assistance of Grier, once Tannenbaum and Grier were removed at the end of the 2018 season.
Ross supposedly took the lead on McDaniel’s hiring, which was a fallback plan since Miami struck out [and was penalized for] back-channel negotiations with Sean Payton and his camp after New Orleans denied their request to speak to the championship-winning head coach, and everyone was along for the ride.
This 2026 search is supposed to be different.
It’s early, so it’s impossible to tell if it really is.
At this point, let’s hope that Ross realizes he can’t keep doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting different results.
That’s pretty much the definition of “status quo.”
