Miami Dolphins Chris Grier/Mike McDaniel Press Conference Takeaways

Two days after team owner Stephen Ross announced their working relationship would continue in 2025, Miami Dolphins GM Chris Grier and head coach Mike McDaniel conducted their annual season-ending media session at the Baptist Health Training Complex on Tuesday.

It was a lengthy session (37 minutes) that began with Grier making a statement saying that finishing 8-9 and failing to make the playoffs was not acceptable.

A lot of ground was covered during the media session, but these were the five items that stood out from this vantage point.

Not surprising that the first question dealt with Tyreek Hill’s eye-opening postgame comments after the Week 18 loss against the New York Jets on Sunday when he basically said he wanted out of Miami. Grier talked about the conversation he and McDaniel had with Hill on Monday and concluded by saying that Hill didn’t take back what he said, though he hasn’t requested a trade.

“I will say Mike and I both had conversations with Tyreek, productive conversations,” Grier said. “I will keep those between us. The one thing I would say is in a frustrating season, he was very emotional. In a game where we had a chance coming back from 2-6, and I would say that’s probably the thing I’m most proud of. The players and Mike and the coaching staff, we were 2-6 and we’re playing Week 18 to potentially sneak in the playoffs. And I think all of that with him playing through his injury, just kind of bubbled to a point and from our conversations, again, we’ll keep that private, but we had productive conversations.”

The issue of players being late in meetings and otherwise not being on top of small details came up Monday during locker cleanout day, and McDaniel acknowledged it was an issue, an issue he plans on correcting.

“Myself as a head coach, you’re accountable for all things and you’re adjusting as you see the team needs you to adjust,” he said. “I think it starts with me ultimately because I’m accountable for all things on the field, specifically during the season. And I think I’m not gonna waver, I think it was very clear. … I can fine people until they’re blue in the face. I can take their money. I can yell at them. But until they understand that part of the reason that we’re in the position is controllable and we have to with absolute certainty and zero tolerance for anything else we have to clean the controllables up and we can have a chance to have success together. There was a reason that was the overall theme for the final team meeting. And the whole key is that they understand the expectations and that they not only understand the expectations but embrace them, which sometimes takes hard lessons to do.”

Asked why that was a problem this season, McDaniel said: “You know, I think there’s a multitude of reasons. There’s certain specific individuals … I don’t think it was across the board. There’s a lot of guys that had certain fines before that didn’t have any. There’s some people that had multiple. I think there’s different ways to kind of counteract that, bringing it up as a team and continue to fine guys wasn’t enough. So I’m not going to continue to just place all blame on even some of the smallest of individuals that were multiple offenders. I’m going to adjust my process and make sure that it’s team-wide knowledge any time that things are done that aren’t in the best interest of winning football games. So there’s a bunch of different reasons. And one thing I did learn during the course of the season is that fining guys, which I’d been a part of for season after season in the National Football League, fining guys didn’t particularly move the needle in the way we need to. So I’ll adjust as I should as a head coach.”

Among the reasons the Dolphins failed to make the playoffs, not having adequate backup quarterback play clearly was at or near the top of the list.

Grier explained why it ended up that Skylar Thompson got the job as No. 2 QB behind Tua Tagovailoa, essentially because the Dolphins failed in their pursuit for more established options in the offseason because they didn’t want to spend too much so as to preserve their compensatory picks, which they hope will feature two third-round picks and a seventh-round selection in 2025.

“Obviously we had drafted Skylar here three years ago,” Grier said. “… We are excited about him and his growth and the players believed in him. He won the backup job through the spring. But that said, as we always do throughout that entire offseason, and Mike and Steve (Ross) is aware of it, we were in on a number of top-flight backup quarterbacks in the league. We were runner-ups for a couple of them that we wanted to get here. And for some financial restraints and compensatory pick stuff we just couldn’t go to those prices but all those guys wanted to come here and so it’s a position that we did not take lightly. We were working through that the entire offseason and the fact that some of those guys were willing to come here at what we could pay them, it shows how they believe in Mike and the staff and the offensive scheme and the players that are here. They’re all excited about our skill group. So that’s a position we will always focus on and it will be a position that we will focus on this offseason and I will tell you in every stone will be unturned at that position, including the draft.”

Before Grier said there was “no concern at all” about Tagovailoa’s hip moving forward, he provided his assessment of his first season after signing his lucrative contract extension.

“For me, it was good to see his growth as a player when he was playing,” Grier said. “I would say that the one thing that has come out of this, even this year, was the leadership part. All the players are talking about leadership and the step he’s taken and had a couple of free agents that come in said he was one of the best leaders they’ve ever been around for a quarterback and to see where he’s come from from his early time here was impressive.”

Then Grier said something that probably would serve as the biggest criticism any member of the Dolphins staff has said about Tua in recent years.

“That being said, he needs to be available,” Grier said. “He needs to know how to protect himself. Like you’re going to get hit at times, it’s always gonna happen, but he needs to control what he can control. He understands that not being available for taking chances and risk is unacceptable to us and he knows that.”

It was probably halfway through the media session when Grier was asked about the offensive line, and he chuckled and said he was surprised it took that long for someone to ask about that group in light of his famous line about the media being more concerned about it than he was.

“Really, when I said that, and I’m not trying to backtrack, I believe in that, but I will always support a group of guys that have worked with a coach that we believe in, that tirelessly works to improve,” Grier said. “And that group did nothing but work, and they still, it’s the hardest-working group in the building. Like, if you stay after practice, and you guys have seen there’s some times you guys go back out and walk in the locker, those guys are still out on the field working.

“And so with that group, it started the 2023 offseason, it was, are they good enough? Whatever, and we were the No. 1 offense, No. 1 yards per rush. And so we ran it back with a lot of those guys while adding (Aaron) Brewer, who was I think an addition that people weren’t concerned about because they were focused on another player that wasn’t here.

“But adding Patrick Paul, we feel that he’s gonna be a good player. (Andrew) Meyer, the undrafted rookie that made our roster as a developmental center. So we feel we have some good pieces. Austin (Jackson) was a huge loss and it’s through week 9 or 10 we were still up there running the ball, moving, playing well. And it was a huge loss for us. And then once he went down, it was like a slow bleed out the rest of the year with guys just playing through stuff. (Isaiah) Wynn was a setback. We thought he was going to be back much quicker than it happened and he did not come back until late in the season.

“So, yeah, when I was saying I wasn’t concerned, I’m always concerned, because you’re always concerned about injury, but I did think we had created some depth. We had some players that were very confident in Butch (Barry) and Mike and the scheme and staff. And those guys, I thought, deserved some praise because of what they had done the year before and they started out the year well and unfortunately injuries got to us. We didn’t finish well but yes going forward Terron (Armstead) and I had a conversation briefly yesterday, we’re going to talk again here and sometime in the next few days or coming weeks but also knowing that we’re gonna have to invest in the offensive line now. This is the time again like we did back a few years ago with Austin and Rob Hunt and Solomon Kindley and stuff. This is a time for us to again start investing in some offensive linemen.”