The one mistake the Dolphins can’t afford to make when hiring their next general manager if Mike McDaniel remains part of the plan

There’s one thing the Dolphins simply cannot do in their general manager search.

Kyle Crabbs — NFL National Writer

Nov 15, 2025 10:30 AM EST

The path forward for the Miami Dolphins is pretty simple right now. They need to win and do so expeditiously. After this team split with long-time general manager Chris Grier at the end of October, it’s very clear that everyone’s jobs hang in the balance. Some fans will take exception to a second-half run in 2025 dictating the end result of a coaching decision, but the gauntlet appeared to be laid out in the media throughout the first half of the season — Dolphins owner Stephen Ross does not want to dismiss head coach Mike McDaniel but the team’s on-field product needed to improve and stay competitive for that to happen.

If the Dolphins win enough and ownership deems that they’ll want to keep Mike McDaniel leading the charge, there’s one BIG thing the team’s general manager hire must be centered around in order to mitigate the risk of a half-reset. They need to be convicted that the new executive’s merit and value transcends fit with the coach — because these two parties will be working on different timelines.

The one grave mistake the Dolphins must avoid if hiring a general manager to pair with Mike McDaniel

The most challenging element of a “half-reset” in the NFL is that your leadership group has different timelines for results. By changing out the head coach or the general manager but not doing both at the same time, the stage is set for friction if the team doesn’t win early and often. By hiring a general manager but leaving head coach in place, which is what Miami could do this offseason, what happens if you’re a year and a half in with the pairing and the winning hasn’t started?

The coach, who has been in place longer without a breakthrough, will feel his seat continue to burn hot. Not long after that, there’s pressure to change. And that general manager you’ve hired? He’ll likely chime in his players aren’t performing because the coach he didn’t choose to come in with isn’t working them right. That spurs a coaching change. Now, the organization will go through a hiring process, which then could spur about change in the schemes and traits valued on either side of the football. The result of that? Holdover picks the general manager picked for the old head coach may become collateral damage as their traits no longer match the desired coaching product on the field, which then, in turn, damages his perception as the new coach presses forward and sets about reshaping the team in his vision.

If the winning amid a partial reset at coach doesn’t happen fast enough? You guessed it, the pressure flips to the general manager for not having the roster the coach needs and the cycle flips again. This is what the Dolphins are risking if they roll things back with McDaniel into the future in 2026.

The team can resolve this in one of two ways — by having an exceptionally long or an exceptionally short leash for the new general manager. With a short leash, the team operates without a long-term attachment to whoever is running the show. What kind of business approach is that, though? What kind of candidates are you going to attract if there’s any inkling that you’re already thinking about having one foot out the door and on to the next one in year or two?

(Spoiler alert: it will be the bad ones!)

And so instead, Miami’s executive hire this winter needs to be given long-term security to breathe life into the roster and football operation that ensures short-term struggles won’t soon be flipped into this new hire’s lap. This is an’t about retro-fitting a general manager to the preexisting ecosystem. That’s what the Dolphins did at head coach when the team hired McDaniel — picking him in large part for his fit with their first-round quarterback investment, Tua Tagovailoa. The irony here is, of course, that the hire worked as they intended. McDaniel maximized the abilities of Tagovailoa. But the overlooked costs and underbelly of this team soiled for three offseasons before it turned the 2024 season on its ear and thrust the Dolphins into this year’s “festivities”.

McDaniel has been doing his best this season to learn from the rookie coach missteps of the early years of his tenure and facilitate positive leadership and culture change to his football team. Will it happen quickly enough and ultimately be enough to save his job at the end of the year?

If the answer is yes, then the Dolphins ownership group must proceed with their search intent on finding the right fit for the Dolphins’ future, not their leftovers. And when they find him, they need to give him the long-term securities to survive the toxic seesaw that half-resets so often perpetuate.

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Kyle Crabbs