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Why the Season was a Failure

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As they say "a team takes on the personality of its coach." Mike McDaniel's non-serious personality permits a "fun and games" team culture exemplified by a circus-like atmosphere and rehearsed end zone celebrations. Add to that the in-season Hard Knocks production and you have a team revolving far too much around "entertaining" and not enough around driven seriousness. When such a team encounters teams serious and determined to make the playoffs late in the season, it'll simply find it too difficult to switch gears on the fly all the way from "fun and games" to "all business," and it'll be beaten by such teams.

This is why the team's late-season second-half performance was so staggeringly poor in comparison to its late-season first-half performance, and more generally the reason for the downfall of the season overall.
 
The reason why this team played worse in the last weeks of the season was they faced tougher opponents. This team wasn’t good to begin with, as evidenced by the loss to Buffalo in week 4. We just had the easiest schedule of them all and once they played the good teams, they didn’t stand a chance. What it means is: we were not a good football team in 2023.
 
Because ultimately, it ended the same way as last year, not winning the AFC East title and losing in an embarrasing fashion on the road in the first round of the playoffs. This time, we had our starting QB and most of our offense too.
 
He has a point. There are many reasons why we didn't get it done. They all can contribute. That said, I think our players and coaches learned some things facing the injury challenges that should give them confidence next year. However, I wouldn't say anyone should break their arm patting themselves on the back. We have shown we have great potential, but our performance didn't reflect that when it mattered. We have to take it to the next step, learn to adapt, play more physically, and overcome.
 
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Spiff said:
The reason why this team played worse in the last weeks of the season was they faced tougher opponents. This team wasn’t good to begin with, as evidenced by the loss to Buffalo in week 4. We just had the easiest schedule of them all and once they played the good teams, they didn’t stand a chance. What it means is: we were not a good football team in 2023.
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Again however, they didn't play worse in those weeks of the season in the first halves of those games. Only the second halves. So, whereas the opposing team went into the locker room at the halves of those games and found an extra gear of effort consistent with their late-season playoff push, the Dolphins could find no such extra gear of effort and they were blown away in the second halves of those games.

Again, it's too difficult to switch gears all the way from "fun and games" to "all business" on the fly, in the middle of a game. You either have that kind of character as a team going in, or you don't. You're not going to suddenly find it in the locker room at the half.
 
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Spiff said:
The reason why this team played worse in the last weeks of the season was they faced tougher opponents. This team wasn’t good to begin with, as evidenced by the loss to Buffalo in week 4. We just had the easiest schedule of them all and once they played the good teams, they didn’t stand a chance. What it means is: we were not a good football team in 2023.
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Right….not a good post!
 
Were there distractions? sure but let's not forget Hard Knocks was forced on them. McDaniel in many ways is a product of modern day society where it's a nicey nice approach (not saying this is a bad thing persay) as we're told not to hurt peoples feelings so he is more of a positive build you up guy even when it's clear sometimes you need an a$$ kicking to get a reaction.

Ultimately the reason we failed is because our offense was one dimensional and got exposed against the good teams. Good teams got physical at the line of scrimmage, took away the middle of the field and sat their safeties deep refusing to be beat consistently.

MM had neither the nuance to change it or the personal and so ultimately we weren't good enough. We can blame Grier, MM, Tua, the play calling, injuries maybe some maybe all contributed but in the end we just weren't good enough. Now we have some big time decisions to make in the off-season.

We may well end up with a team on paper that doesn't look as strong as the one that started this season due to cap casualties so the draft will be vital. That is unless Grier uses another 1st round pick to trade for an impact player. Sooner or later that will catch up to the team though as you need young talent on rookie deals to sustain a good team long term.
 
Meh,........

While there's some merit to what he said, particularly the circus Hard Knocks created, I think there were bigger issues. Let's take a more comprehensive look at tangible factors, rather than just pontificate about a nebulous, general philosophic difference.

The Oline was a mess. It's nearly impossible to "gel" into a cohesive unit when guys, due to injury, are continually in and out and shuffled around to different spots.

Our pass rush situation wasn't much different. Phillips out early, came back playing well, then out for the season. Chubb got off to a slow start, came in strong mid season, then "bam", gone for the season. Gink went down. We finished the year with guys that could do Geritol commercials.

Our best secondary player, JR, went down in preseason and missed over half the year. Our second best, JH, was out at the most crucial time of the season. We had guys forced to play out of position, such as Jones plying FS, instead of SS. We had ST level players getting starter number snaps FFS, Eli Friggin Apple was one of our better options at times. Again, no consistency in the unit.
 
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In my opinion you don't need a hard ass coach. The coach just needs to be genuine in his actions/how he handles the team. If he's a naturally goofy guy, being the Mr. Hardass will fall flat. Same if it was reversed. The coach just needs the team to buy in, and I don't think he has an issue there.

To me, the team faltered down the stretch due to injuries, playing harder opponents and just being poor in the cold weather. The same effect of being hard to play here in September for colder based teams.
The offensive line literally died. To the credit of the OL coach, the backups did a decent job but were still a downgrade.
I do think McDaniel needs to improve how to attack the stronger defenses in the league when they can contain Hill. Seemed like once Hill was neutralized or he was struggling there was no counterpunch.

Defensively, they weren't great but by the end of they year all the heavy lifters were out outside of the interior DL guys and Ramsey. They had street FA on the edge and missing safeties, LBs etc...
 
John813 said:
In my opinion you don't need a hard ass coach. The coach just needs to be genuine in his actions/how he handles the team. If he's a naturally goofy guy, being the Mr. Hardass will fall flat. Same if it was reversed. The coach just needs the team to buy in, and I don't think he has an issue there.
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The question is whether a goofball coach is consistent with winning in the tough and aggressive game of football. There's a lot of room between goofball and hard-ass. Dan Campbell for example isn't a hard-ass, but he's nowhere near a goofball. Same for Mike Tomlin.

And it's entirely possible the team can buy in in a way that's also inconsistent with winning. If the team buys in for an entertainment circus exemplified by rehearsed end zone celebrations and the inability to bear down with seriousness and determination when the need arises, all the buy in in the world won't result in winning big. It'll simply be a group of players AND their coach who are all on the wrong page together, generating an ineffective team culture that doesn't win in the NFL. They've all bought in, but they've bought in to something that doesn't win.
 
I think both players and coaches bought into the hype and McD took the pedal off the gas and figured they would roll over teams. Once we got trounced by quality it was too late to come up with a scheme. Now his schtick is old, his **** was pushed up into his throat and we'll see if the bad taste makes them work harder. And, lose the tv show.

Now we have to design a team to beat the Bills because until that's done we'll be a just bad enough #2
 
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