Chris Perkins: Step by Step guide to fixing Fins Culture

[Finsup1981]

It’s a paid article so linking as much as I can:

Chris Perkins: A step-by-step guide to a Dolphins culture change

The Dolphins’ entire culture – play-calling, locker room mentality, on-field attitude, personnel acquisition – must lean more toward aggression and physicality.

www.sun-sentinel.com

Front office​

The Dolphins’ front office values stats and hype over playoff advancement. That lays the groundwork for bad culture, and it must change.

When the Florida Panthers and Miami Heat, who have each played for the championship in recent years, made early-round playoff exits (Panthers in 2022, Heat in 2025) they were frustrated and and angry.

When the Dolphins made back-to-back early-round playoff exits they handed out contract extensions.

The contract extensions awarded by Grier and McDaniel in 2024 proved the Dolphins value statistical achievements such as having the league’s No. 1 offense or quarterback Tua Tagovailoa leading the league in passer rating over big-picture achievements such as winning a playoff game.

The front office was fooled by good numbers against bad teams.

Now they’re in salary cap hell, and further from a Super Bowl than they’ve been in the Grier-McDaniel era.

The Dolphins’ front office must send a message that playoff advancement is more important than numbers.

This culture change must start at the top.

Player empowerment​

The Great Experiment has failed and must end.

The Great Experiment is what I call McDaniel relying on player empowerment, a system that features players saying this team isn’t run by the coaches, rather it’s run as a co-op between coaches and players.

That’s not a winning culture.

The best teams are led by the coaches.

You listen to players.

You respect players.

But coaches run the show.

This is one reason ex-defensive coordinator Vic Fangio was a bad fit with the Dolphins. He didn’t want to share leadership with the defensive backs.

I favor Fangio’s way over McDaniel’s way, just as I favored ex-coach Brian Flores’ tough love way over McDaniel’s participation trophy way.

Fangio and Flores foster a winning culture.

Dolphins coaches need to take control of the team and run the show the way the best teams in the league are run.

Locker room is devoid of dawgs​

Grier and McDaniel are the nicest GM/coach combination I’ve ever covered. Both are truly nice guys. The problem is they exclusively acquire nice guys.

That’s not necessarily a bad culture, but it certainly hasn’t been a winning culture. It must change.

The Dolphins, because of Grier and McDaniel, have very few dawgs. They have no one that will get angry and rip your head off, so to speak.

This team needs more aggression, more of an edge.

McDaniel, to his credit, uses an “up with people” attitude in an attempt to build better men, not just better football players.

As a result, this is the most stress-free, chill, laidback locker room I’ve ever encountered.

It’s not the NFL-like, or like any pro sport.

Granted, this is one of the best locker rooms I’ve ever covered.

But it has no edge. No one on this team scares you for any reason. And I’m certain they don’t scare opponents.

Every Dolphins team I covered prior to the McDaniel era had one or two high-quality players, especially on the offensive and defensive lines, that made you a bit hesitant to approach them with a tough question, especially after a loss, because he might snap. Tim Bowens. Daryl Gardner. Randy Starks. Paul Soliai. Mike Pouncey. Richie Incognito. Reshad Jones. Jarvis Landry.

Most of the dawgs of the McDaniel era — linebackers Elandon Roberts and David Long Jr., safety DeShon Elliott, cornerbacks Jalen Ramsey and Xavien Howard, guard Robert Hunt, defensive tackle Christian Wilkins, to name a few — are gone for one reason or another.

Few of them have been replaced by dawgs.

This team needs a new mentality. This team needs more dawgs.

Playcalling and physicality​

McDaniel, as the offensive playcaller, gets the blame here. McDaniel emphasizes speed and agility, not muscle and physicality.

That’s not necessarily bad culture, but it’s a culture that must change.

The Dolphins’ offense is built for 7-on-7 football or flag football. Tackle football requires aggression and toughness.

The Dolphins’ entire culture — play-calling, locker room mentality, on-field attitude, personnel acquisition — must lean more toward being tougher.

One of the best ways for an offense to establish physicality is by running the ball over and through the defense and crushing their spirit.

The Dolphins have never done that under McDaniel.

The Dolphins have never been equipped to do that under McDaniel.

This team must adopt an aggressive mentality on offense through both personnel and play-calling.

If the Dolphins make these culture changes, they’re on their way to a better future.

If not, they might be on their way to a search for new leadership.

 

[Finsup1981]

What I wouldn’t do for a guy like Tim Bowens to set the example for these young guys. Think we are gonna miss Calais in that regard even though he had a different type of leadership it was almost as effective imo

 

[Finsup1981]

Btw when he’s referring to the Great Experiment in another article this is the stat he uses to back it up, written before this past season:

Fact: Flores was 10-5 in December/January games, the most important games on the schedule, in three seasons as coach of the Dolphins; McDaniel is 4-10, including going 0-2 in the playoffs, in two seasons.

I sincerely hope this is the right approach.

I want to believe that McDaniel, the 41-year-old, Ivy League-educated, swaggy, quick-witted, genuinely good guy can/will change the way the NFL thinks about the game, its approach to the game, and how it treats players.

It’d be reassuring to know that in the physical, aggressive, brutal NFL, nice guys can finish first.

But I haven’t yet seen it happen for McDaniel and his morale-boosting ways.

In fact, part of me still thinks that dinosaur-type guys such as Vic Fangio, the crusty former Dolphins defensive coordinator, and Flores, the hardcore ex-Dolphins coach, get better performances out of their players than McDaniel.

The truth is there’s no one way to get players motivated.

“There’s a lot of different wants to get it done,” said Dolphins special teams coordinator Danny Crossman, who has 22 years in the NFL under numerous coaching administrations and philosophies.

“It’s whatever your team is, and whatever your team responds to.”

McDaniel, with his progressive ways of player empowerment and load management, is basically trying to change the pro football world.

His nice-guy way isn’t the traditional NFL way.

McDaniel’s always-uplift-people way doesn’t produce fearsome NFL players. His trend of giving players frequent days off in training camp and the regular season gives this place a reputation as being easy.

We know that because we hear players from other teams talk about the Dolphins.

Two players, in this case, were speaking matter-of-factly, and not at all in a mean-spirited way.

First, it was safety Jordan Poyer, who came from Buffalo, saying the Dolphins were a team that seemed as though they might fold if you punched them in the mouth.

Monday, it was defensive lineman Calais Campbell, who came from Atlanta, saying when he was deciding which team to sign with during free agency that he’d “heard a lot of stories and different things and one of the things people said was like, ‘It’s a little easier there.’ ”

Campbell said quickly he found out that’s not the case.

But that’s part of the narrative as McDaniel seeks to pioneer training camp with prolonged rests for starters and veterans, and seeks to pioneer players’ durability with frequent veteran rest days during the season.

As my colleague, Dave Hyde, called Dolphins training camp, Club Mike.

The TV show “Hard Knocks,” which followed the Dolphins through the latter part of the 2023 season, portrayed the team as a generally stress-free, fun environment, complete with touchdown celebration rehearsals.

At the very end, after that brutal 26-7 wild-card round loss in the playoffs at Kansas City, it showed wide receiver Jaylen Waddle sitting on the bench saying something to the effect of the Dolphins have too much talent to lose in the first round of the playoffs.

Waddle is right.

I sure hope McDaniel is right.

It’d be nice to know that a coach whose philosophy is that you get more out of happy players than stressed-out, mentally beaten down players is correct.

 

[dolphinheel]

It’s a paid article so linking as much as I can:

Chris Perkins: A step-by-step guide to a Dolphins culture change

The Dolphins’ entire culture – play-calling, locker room mentality, on-field attitude, personnel acquisition – must lean more toward aggression and physicality.

www.sun-sentinel.com

Front office​

The Dolphins’ front office values stats and hype over playoff advancement. That lays the groundwork for bad culture, and it must change.

When the Florida Panthers and Miami Heat, who have each played for the championship in recent years, made early-round playoff exits (Panthers in 2022, Heat in 2025) they were frustrated and and angry.

When the Dolphins made back-to-back early-round playoff exits they handed out contract extensions.

The contract extensions awarded by Grier and McDaniel in 2024 proved the Dolphins value statistical achievements such as having the league’s No. 1 offense or quarterback Tua Tagovailoa leading the league in passer rating over big-picture achievements such as winning a playoff game.

The front office was fooled by good numbers against bad teams.

Now they’re in salary cap hell, and further from a Super Bowl than they’ve been in the Grier-McDaniel era.

The Dolphins’ front office must send a message that playoff advancement is more important than numbers.

This culture change must start at the top.

Player empowerment​

The Great Experiment has failed and must end.

The Great Experiment is what I call McDaniel relying on player empowerment, a system that features players saying this team isn’t run by the coaches, rather it’s run as a co-op between coaches and players.

That’s not a winning culture.

The best teams are led by the coaches.

You listen to players.

You respect players.

But coaches run the show.

This is one reason ex-defensive coordinator Vic Fangio was a bad fit with the Dolphins. He didn’t want to share leadership with the defensive backs.

I favor Fangio’s way over McDaniel’s way, just as I favored ex-coach Brian Flores’ tough love way over McDaniel’s participation trophy way.

Fangio and Flores foster a winning culture.

Dolphins coaches need to take control of the team and run the show the way the best teams in the league are run.

Locker room is devoid of dawgs​

Grier and McDaniel are the nicest GM/coach combination I’ve ever covered. Both are truly nice guys. The problem is they exclusively acquire nice guys.

That’s not necessarily a bad culture, but it certainly hasn’t been a winning culture. It must change.

The Dolphins, because of Grier and McDaniel, have very few dawgs. They have no one that will get angry and rip your head off, so to speak.

This team needs more aggression, more of an edge.

McDaniel, to his credit, uses an “up with people” attitude in an attempt to build better men, not just better football players.

As a result, this is the most stress-free, chill, laidback locker room I’ve ever encountered.

It’s not the NFL-like, or like any pro sport.

Granted, this is one of the best locker rooms I’ve ever covered.

But it has no edge. No one on this team scares you for any reason. And I’m certain they don’t scare opponents.

Every Dolphins team I covered prior to the McDaniel era had one or two high-quality players, especially on the offensive and defensive lines, that made you a bit hesitant to approach them with a tough question, especially after a loss, because he might snap. Tim Bowens. Daryl Gardner. Randy Starks. Paul Soliai. Mike Pouncey. Richie Incognito. Reshad Jones. Jarvis Landry.

Most of the dawgs of the McDaniel era — linebackers Elandon Roberts and David Long Jr., safety DeShon Elliott, cornerbacks Jalen Ramsey and Xavien Howard, guard Robert Hunt, defensive tackle Christian Wilkins, to name a few — are gone for one reason or another.

Few of them have been replaced by dawgs.

This team needs a new mentality. This team needs more dawgs.

Playcalling and physicality​

McDaniel, as the offensive playcaller, gets the blame here. McDaniel emphasizes speed and agility, not muscle and physicality.

That’s not necessarily bad culture, but it’s a culture that must change.

The Dolphins’ offense is built for 7-on-7 football or flag football. Tackle football requires aggression and toughness.

The Dolphins’ entire culture — play-calling, locker room mentality, on-field attitude, personnel acquisition — must lean more toward being tougher.

One of the best ways for an offense to establish physicality is by running the ball over and through the defense and crushing their spirit.

The Dolphins have never done that under McDaniel.

The Dolphins have never been equipped to do that under McDaniel.

This team must adopt an aggressive mentality on offense through both personnel and play-calling.

If the Dolphins make these culture changes, they’re on their way to a better future.

If not, they might be on their way to a search for new leadership.

Nailed it. Soft coach, soft culture = team that struggles vs big physical teams.

 

[lynx]

Not a lot to disagree with there although he's giving Flores way too much praise IMO. I think the Dolphins as a whole recognize the need to start a culture change and drafted accordingly with some tougher character guys.

Very likely too little too late, but it might be a good start for the next regime if this one fails to even make the playoffs this year

 

[Finsup1981]

Not a lot to disagree with there although he's giving Flores way too much praise IMO. I think the Dolphins as a whole recognize the need to start a culture change and drafted accordingly with some tougher character guys.

Very likely too little too late, but it might be a good start for the next regime if this one fails to even make the playoffs this year

I think our first 3 picks this year most certainly fit the tougher character mold, they’ve been saying the right things and setting the tone in minicamp. Small steps, but in the right direction for a change.

Really interested to see how McDaniel runs this training camp, gonna tell us a lot about if he’s learned and adapted

 

[Mello Yello]

What disappoints me about this article is how much it reads like someone at the national level whose last glimpse of Miami was the KC Playoff game at the end of the '23 season.

Nothing is wrong with the take per se, but the paradigm is 1.5 years out of date and I think most of us understand that change(s) started happening as early as the '24 offseason when the window of '22 - '23 was officially over.

Here at the end of the '25 offseason there's been an entire shift which should continue through '26 and '27.

- You stopped trading away draft picks and stood firm in '24 and '25 drafting developmental BPA picks.
- You added more coaches to the offensive ranks.
- You hired a new DC and have successfully kept him in place for a 2nd year.
- You successfully replaced the Center you lost to career-ending injury.
- You drafted, groomed and are set to insert your new LT who even has some starting experience from '24.
- You've acquired and are set to insert your new LG/RG.
- You've drafted WR & RB talent through the last 2 Drafts to help replace 1st generation starters.
- You signed a QB for '24-'26 because he seemed like the best option over that 3-yr window and you're working thru that.
- You drafted multiple (R1) players along your D-front.
- You brought in new LBs who've been okay.
- You've begun what will eventually turn into a complete rebuild of the secondary.



Talking about the need to do things is fine, but 1.5 years into the evolutionary process, I think the focus should be on the new information we have about where Ross, Grier, McDaniel and Weaver are taking things. We've seen a lot over the last 1.5 years and this is a very new team as a result!

There's plenty to discuss. I don't think legacy media (or Chris Perkins) really want to get into it. Instead, these type of people / outlets lean on the same old tired cliche talking points we heard at the end of '23...McDaniel is too soft, Tua is a stat queen, there's too much DC/scheme turnover, etc.

That national / legacy media guys just get stuck arguing about where things used to be. They don't cover the small things, thus they don't really cover the team at all. They won't have anything to say until long after all these moves have solidified and it's already plain to see what worked and didn't.

They. Are. Reactionary.

 

[Finsup1981]

What disappoints me about this article is how much it reads like someone at the national level whose last glimpse of Miami was the KC Playoff game at the end of the '23 season.

Nothing is wrong with the take per se, but the paradigm is 1.5 years out of date and I think most of us understand that change(s) started happening as early as the '24 offseason when the window of '22 - '23 was officially over.

Here at the end of the '25 offseason there's been an entire shift which should continue through '26 and '27.

- You stopped trading away draft picks and stood firm in '24 and '25 drafting developmental BPA picks.
- You added more coaches to the offensive ranks.
- You hired a new DC and have successfully kept him in place for a 2nd year.
- You successfully replaced the Center you lost to career-ending injury.
- You drafted, groomed and are set to insert your new LT who even has some starting experience from '24.
- You've acquired and are set to insert your new LG/RG.
- You've drafted WR & RB talent through the last 2 Drafts to help replace 1st generation starters.
- You signed a QB for '24-'26 because he seemed like the best option over that 3-yr window and you're working thru that.
- You drafted multiple (R1) players along your D-front.
- You brought in new LBs who've been okay.
- You've begun what will eventually turn into a complete rebuild of the secondary.



Talking about the need to do things is fine, but 1.5 years into the evolutionary process, I think the focus should be on the new information we have about where Ross, Grier, McDaniel and Weaver are taking things. We've seen a lot over the last 1.5 years and this is a very new team as a result!

There's plenty to discuss. I don't think legacy media (or Chris Perkins) really want to get into it. Instead, these type of people / outlets lean on the same old tired cliche talking points we heard at the end of '23...McDaniel is too soft, Tua is a stat queen, there's too much turnover DC/scheme turnover, etc.

That national / legacy media guys just get stuck arguing about where things used to be. They don't cover the small things, thus they don't really cover the team at all. They won't have anything to say until long after all these moves have solidified and it's already plain to see what worked and didn't.

They. Are. Reactionary.

Agree with you that most of these things are in the process of being addressed but we have yet to see the payoff. The main concern I have is McDaniels practice habits, I haven’t seen the necessary changes I thought we’d see and that he would realize we need.

 

[zullo1]

I think our first 3 picks this year most certainly fit the tougher character mold, they’ve been saying the right things and setting the tone in minicamp. Small steps, but in the right the direction for a change.

Really interested to see how McDaniel runs this training camp, gonna tell us a lot about if he’s learned and adapted

I think you hit the nail on the head. McD MUST adapt. The country club, whiny baby, everyone gets a trophy approach isnt working. Somehow this dweeb of a man must get tougher and instill some fear in these lackadaisical creampuffs we call the Miami Dolphins.

 

[laxcoach]

Flores’ D stunk against good teams. Comparing dec-Jan records doesn’t tell the whole story. What were the records of the teams they beat vs the teams they lost to?

 

[Finsup1981]

I think you hit the nail on the head. McD MUST adapt. The country club, whiny baby, everyone gets a trophy approach isnt working. Somehow this dweeb of a man must get tougher and instill some fear in these lackadaisical creampuffs we call the Miami Dolphins.

We don’t really have anyone with that mindset in the coaching department, Weaver is a positive guy that coaches like McDaniel so we dont have the authoritarian type like Flores or Fangio in the defensive room.

Darren Rizzi would’ve been huge for McDaniel…wonder if there’s an unknown in our coaching ranks like Dan Campbell

 

[Finsup1981]

Flores’ D stunk against good teams. Comparing dec-Jan records doesn’t tell the whole story. What were the records of the teams they beat vs the teams they lost to?

Flores had much worse teams than McDaniel as well so that needs to be factored in.

Flores was a grade A dickbag that alienated the coaching staff and some of the players, but did he get more out of the team? Certainly not out of Tua, but I think he would’ve been the perfect defensive coordinator to pair with McDaniel if he didn’t have the history he does with us. I dont think Flores is a good enough communicator to be a head coach, but as a coordinator he’s outstanding and the best in the league.

 

[Virginia99]

Btw when he’s referring to the Great Experiment in another article this is the stat he uses to back it up, written before this past season:

Fact: Flores was 10-5 in December/January games, the most important games on the schedule, in three seasons as coach of the Dolphins; McDaniel is 4-10, including going 0-2 in the playoffs, in two seasons.

I sincerely hope this is the right approach.

I want to believe that McDaniel, the 41-year-old, Ivy League-educated, swaggy, quick-witted, genuinely good guy can/will change the way the NFL thinks about the game, its approach to the game, and how it treats players.

It’d be reassuring to know that in the physical, aggressive, brutal NFL, nice guys can finish first.

But I haven’t yet seen it happen for McDaniel and his morale-boosting ways.

In fact, part of me still thinks that dinosaur-type guys such as Vic Fangio, the crusty former Dolphins defensive coordinator, and Flores, the hardcore ex-Dolphins coach, get better performances out of their players than McDaniel.

The truth is there’s no one way to get players motivated.

“There’s a lot of different wants to get it done,” said Dolphins special teams coordinator Danny Crossman, who has 22 years in the NFL under numerous coaching administrations and philosophies.

“It’s whatever your team is, and whatever your team responds to.”

McDaniel, with his progressive ways of player empowerment and load management, is basically trying to change the pro football world.

His nice-guy way isn’t the traditional NFL way.

McDaniel’s always-uplift-people way doesn’t produce fearsome NFL players. His trend of giving players frequent days off in training camp and the regular season gives this place a reputation as being easy.

We know that because we hear players from other teams talk about the Dolphins.

Two players, in this case, were speaking matter-of-factly, and not at all in a mean-spirited way.

First, it was safety Jordan Poyer, who came from Buffalo, saying the Dolphins were a team that seemed as though they might fold if you punched them in the mouth.

Monday, it was defensive lineman Calais Campbell, who came from Atlanta, saying when he was deciding which team to sign with during free agency that he’d “heard a lot of stories and different things and one of the things people said was like, ‘It’s a little easier there.’ ”

Campbell said quickly he found out that’s not the case.

But that’s part of the narrative as McDaniel seeks to pioneer training camp with prolonged rests for starters and veterans, and seeks to pioneer players’ durability with frequent veteran rest days during the season.

As my colleague, Dave Hyde, called Dolphins training camp, Club Mike.

The TV show “Hard Knocks,” which followed the Dolphins through the latter part of the 2023 season, portrayed the team as a generally stress-free, fun environment, complete with touchdown celebration rehearsals.

At the very end, after that brutal 26-7 wild-card round loss in the playoffs at Kansas City, it showed wide receiver Jaylen Waddle sitting on the bench saying something to the effect of the Dolphins have too much talent to lose in the first round of the playoffs.

Waddle is right.

I sure hope McDaniel is right.

It’d be nice to know that a coach whose philosophy is that you get more out of happy players than stressed-out, mentally beaten down players is correct.

Lots of revisionist history for Flores here. First year here they won a few games late when they were "tanking". Another time they started off 1-8 and won some games late.

 

[SF Dolphin Fan]

What I wouldn’t do for a guy like Tim Bowens to set the example for these young guys. Think we are gonna miss Calais in that regard even though he had a different type of leadership it was almost as effective imo

Maybe Grant can be that type of player?

 

[Finsup1981]

Maybe Grant can be that type of player?

He’s off to a good start with what he’s been saying to the media.

Maybe Phillips can be his Daryl Gardener that elevates him and leads by example ? Phillips is first one in last one type and already motivating Grant in the weight room from what it seems. We need more of these guys to replace the ones we didn’t resign..one of the biggest reasons they drafted Wilkins over the higher ceiling guys that draft like Simmons and Lawrence was his his character and culture setting, so let’s hope Grant can do more of the same but have a Lawrence type impact. He doesn’t have quite the athletic profile Lawrence did so I’ll take 90 percent.