Mike McDaniel is a successful coach in the National Football League.  He's been a part of some very successful offenses and is considered by many of his peers to be a guru. 

However, McDaniel is human like the rest of us.  As such, he – like we all have at some points in our lives – has regrets and moments we wish we could do over.  A time machine we could hop in, go back, and zig when we should have zagged.  

One of those regrets for McDaniel comes from the end of the Dolphins' abysmal 56-19 loss to the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday.  With just over three minutes left in the game and the score 49-19, OLB Bradley Chubb went down with what appears to be a significant non-contact knee injury.  The cart came out, as did McDaniel and Chubb's teammates.  

A completely avoidable situation

In a pair of injury-riddled seasons under McDaniel's tenure, Chubb's injury perhaps was the most avoidable. 

McDaniel admitted after the game that he wanted to have that one back. 

"In hindsight, I absolutely would not have wanted him out there if I would have known he was going to get hurt," McDaniel said in his postgame press conference.  "For sure.  That's a known part of the job that I understand fully.  It doesn't look very smart at all.  The thinking behind it the same as it kind of was last year against this team in this place.  I think we were down 35-14 at the beginning of the fourth quarter. When you are as close of a team as we are, you know the players inside and out. There [are] times in football games where it's not about winning or losing or 'can we come back'?  It's about finishing the football game and having a taste of what our expectations were going into it. The team was very confident in themselves going into the game with good reason, and our expectations fell very short.  Hats off to the Ravens for really taking it to us.  

"Guys were very frustrated, and I think that my role on game day is – the players wanted to go back in and play and finish the right way heading into next week.  I have the ability to tell them no on everything in this situation.  There's plenty of decisions that I will cross-examine.  It's hard not to. I do that every week. It's just with the amount of regard that I hold this position and the decisions that I do make.

"The intent is always purposeful.  I made the call that the guys that went out there, they wanted to be out there.  It's just one of those things that will forever be a part of the job that I think is, as a competitor, you understand that the results will always be what you have to be held accountable for, as they should.  It's not an exact science, but I think there's a part of it that you just have to literally take all the information that you do have and make your best decision.  I'll always do that with a high level of regard for everyone involved.  There's times like this one where it doesn't look – I would like a time machine for sure in that situation after the events occurred, but you don't know that when you go into it, and you do the best you can."

McDaniel's own words show the coach's mistake.  He admits the players want to be out there and that he has the power to tell them no. 

As a head coach, sometimes you have to simply take stock of the situation and override the desires of the players and look out for what's best for both them and the team beyond the scoreboard.  Not to mention the situation was totally different from 2022.  It was 35-14 at the start of the fourth quarter last year.  This was 49-19 with less than 4 minutes left on Sunday.  There was absolutely no chance to come back at that point. 

Not the first wave of criticism for risking injury

McDaniel is in his second season at the helm of the Dolphins, and this marks the second injury-related controversy surrounding the young head coach. 

Last season, McDaniel received significant criticism for the handling of QB Tua Tagovailoa.  The Dolphins' signal caller exhibited what appeared to be signs of a concussion against the Buffalo Bills in Week 4 after slamming his head into the ground, but he ended up going back into the game.  Although he was allegedly cleared of a concussion during the game, the NFL Players Association launched an investigation into the review. 

The following week against the Cincinnati Bengals, he hit his head on the turf again, resulting in a concussion and a scary lengthy delay that required him to be carted off the field and taken to the hospital. 

McDaniel – who received heavy criticism from fans, analysts, and former players for playing Tagovailoa against Cincinnati – defended himself after the game regarding the decision to play him. 

“I don’t think an injury from last week made him fall a certain way this week,” said McDaniel. “I have absolutely zero patience for, or ever would I, put a player in harm’s way. That’s not what I’m about at all.”

Seeing the forest through the trees

Unfortunately, while McDaniel might not want to put a player in harm's way, there's always that risk when players are on the field.  They are always in harm's way.  That's what happens when 300-pound men running 20 miles per hour are flying at each other with reckless abandon.  

Harm is also a word that should be particularly meaningful to McDaniel after Tagovailoa's injury last year and the incredible number of injuries suffered this season by his team.  

Injuries in the NFL are always just a play away.  And when you've got no chance to win a game, you have to better manage the risk of incurring them and avoid sabotaging your chances to win the next game and so on.  

As a result, should Chubb be out for a significant period of time – which seems likely – the Dolphins' chances of beating the Bills are now lesser than they were if he had simply stayed on the sideline in the final minutes against the Ravens.  

McDaniel says he wants a time machine to go back in time and not play Chubb.  Since Marty McFly and Doc Brown won't be landing a flying Delorean in the parking lot of the Baptist Health Training Complex, all McDaniel can do is make sure his players are better protected from an unreasonable risk of injury in the future.  

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