Kelly: Where are the changes Mike McDaniel vows to make coming from? | Opinion
As the Miami Dolphins players and coaches walked through the bowels of Huntington Bank Field all you could hear was the clicking and clanging of cleats, and nylon pants rubbing together.
Zach Sieler hung his head and shook it in disbelief twice.
“I’m tired of this [expletive],” a seemingly frustrated Ollie Gordon II said, breaking the five-minute silence.
The Dolphins’ 31-6 embarrassing loss to the Cleveland Browns pushes the team’s record to 1-6, and that kind of snail-like start puts everybody at risk of losing their job. But according to coach Mike McDaniel it’s not just coaches who are on the chopping block this week.
“We have found a different way to undo our game,” McDaniel said immediately after the loss. “If you are negatively affecting the football team I have no choice but to assess a different player.”
McDaniel, who had his usual 10 minute-ish chat with owner Steve Ross after the game, had a more declarative, authoritarian tone, seemingly making threats.
“Every person on our team, if you are saying ‘it’s not me,’ [then] it is you,” McDaniel said later, seemingly trying to avoid the finger pointing period that often occurs when a team’s season — if not a franchise’s rebuild, and regime - is circling the drain.
Every player, to a man, mentioned how Sunday’s loss to the Browns — a game where Tua Tagovailoa had his worst NFL performance, which included three interceptions, the offense converted 1 of 13 third downs, and the defense allowed yet another team to rush for 100 yards, and its penalty-prone play extended drives that would have likely resulted in a punt — was an embarrassment.
Miami’s offense was 0-2 in red-zone conversions.
Browns rookie quarterback Dillion Gabriel, who had a 89.1 passer rating, got the first win of his NFL career against the Dolphins.
Brown rookie tailback Quinshon Judkins produced his first two-touchdown day.
“We have to go to work regardless,” linebacker Jordyn Brooks said. “When you start out like this, it makes it hard to go to work. People have been saying stuff all year. I don’t really care about all that. I just care about the group of guys we’re going to war with, [that] we somehow find a way to dig ourselves out this whole.”
That might require an influx of new players — whether via trade, poaching another team’s practice squad or waiver wire claims — and/a change up of the depth chart at some spots.
NFL teams will likely be flooding general manager Chris Grier’s phone with calls, proposing trades for Miami’s players of value.
According to McDaniel, who is clearly aware he’s on the hot seat, nobody is excluded from the forthcoming shakeups he threatened.
That means the investment in playing time Miami’s making to three rookies — offensive guard Jonah Savaiinaea and defensive tackle Kenneth Grant and Jordan Phillips — might be tabled because all three are clearly struggling to play with a level of consistency this team needs to win in the trenches.
Miami’s weaponry arsenal whispered against the Browns, and it was clear that Miami’s offense clamped up playing the second half without tight end Darren Waller (who suffered a pectoral injury) and Malik Washington (who seemingly suffered a head injury).
Nick Westbrook-Ikhine, who has been serving in a more prominent role since Tyreek Hill suffered his season-ending left knee injury three weeks ago, could possibly lose some playing time to Dee Eskridge, Cedrick Wilson Jr. or Tahj Washington because of his nonexistent chemistry with Tagovailoa.
Gordon’s 2.2 yards per carry average against the Browns, and his 2.5 yards he’s averaging on 25 carries, might open the door for Jaylen Wright to regain his backup role at tailback.
And the Dolphins have a couple of cornerbacks — Storm Duck, Kendall Sheffield and Ethan Bonner — on the roster who regained their health, and might push for a starting role they held during training camp and the exhibition season, before injuries forced Rasul Douglas and Jack Jones into the starting lineup.
Seeing as how opposing quarterbacks have a 113.9 passer rating, and the Dolphins secondary has produced one interception in six games, everything should be on the table.
It will be interesting to see if that includes quarterback, where McDaniel altered the depth chart, making Quin Ewers the No. 2 quarterback this week, putting him ahead of Zach Wilson, and allowed the rookie to play in his first NFL game.
At this point, what else can go wrong?
“This is the time we look inward towards each other, and we keep fighting, keep battling, try to make the corrections and keep going,” Sieler said. “We have the guys with the resolve, and the determination to get it right.”
This story was originally published October 19, 2025 at 6:55 PM.
