Mike McDaniel has officially failed to escape the one thing Dolphins owner Stephen Ross once warned would threaten his job as Miami’s head coach

Stephen Ross warned us all last January…

Kyle Crabbs — NFL National Writer

Dec 16, 2025 9:00 AM EST

The Miami Dolphins are waking up this morning in a familiar position. Just like in 2024, the Dolphins are 6-8 as they leave Week 15 with three games left. The big difference this time around?

The Dolphins are now officially eliminated from the postseason after their 28-15 loss at the hands of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Last year’s Week 15 loss to an AFC playoff team was a similarly punchless effort against the Houston Texans — this year’s feels worse.

Because the Dolphins were healthy. They were hot. They were confident, and they’d appeared to change their approach to playing ball. With the chips down in Pittsburgh, they reverted back to the ‘same old Dolphins’. And for head coach Mike McDaniel, that officially puts him into the danger zone — because they’re falling right in line with the one thing Dolphins owner Stephen Ross said would not be accepted at the end of last season.

Dolphins head coach Mike McDaniel is officially in the danger zone with latest loss

The status quo of 2024 is back in 2025. And that’s bad news for McDaniel. Go back to Dolphins owner Stephen Ross’ post-Week 18 statement for head coach Mike McDaniel and former general manager Chris Grier.

“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 short and make the necessary changes to deliver our ultimate goal of building and sustaining a winning team that competes for championships,” said Ross via his statement in early January of 2025.

Missing the playoffs for the second consecutive season. 6-8 entering Week 16 for the second consecutive season. Similar struggles against playoff teams and on the road. A putrid start to the season has required the team to fight like hell just to be relevant in December.

That’s a whole lot of status quo that has maintained itself from 2024 to 2025. Not all of it falls directly into the head coach’s hands. But the coach was one-half of a leadership group that was put on the spot by Ross last winter to level up the performance. It hasn’t happened. Instead, the question becomes whether the pound of flesh taken by moving on from Grier will be enough.

And if McDaniel is brought back in 2026, the team may want to give him a chance to run his offense with someone else at the helm to see what it would look like, not tailored to Tua Tagovailoa.

There’s a lot of money involved in that situation, but Tagovailoa’s regression this season has been devastating to the offensive outlook of the Dolphins, and his limitations have never been more apparent. Good luck selling to the fans the idea of running back both McDaniel and Tagovailoa in 2026.

After all, we shouldn’t accept the status quo as good enough. Ross told us all that last January. And yet it’s been more of the same ever since.

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Kyle Crabbs