Some pointed thoughts from Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel after arguably his low point as the team’s coach, a 31-12 debacle of a loss to previously winless Tennessee, leaving Miami at 1-3:
▪ Are significant changes needed on offense?
“Everything is on the table,” McDaniel said. “...There will be things that will change; hard to say what those things are. There definitely is a need for it.
“That [performance is] not even close to good enough. You have to open yourself to all things.... There’s a major disconnect between preparation and execution.”
He spoke of needing to make “tough decisions.”
▪ McDaniel said quarterback Tyler Huntley’s package of plays “was abbreviated to an extent. We were able to rep everything we did in practice.”
He said “I didn’t think his teammates around him, at times, were doing what we needed them to do.”
▪ Overall, he said: “There’s nothing good about this situation about where this team needs to be... We need to fix it fast....
“That’s not up to my standard at all. I know for a fact I play a part in the whole thing, but it’s a collective issue for sure. We need to figure out how to score points.”
▪ On the multiple illegal shift penalties: “Guys aren’t getting set fast enough. I have to look at the amount. You use motions to try to give players some advantageous situations. You have to pull back from that if you can’t execute them. There’s no play that works that doesn’t even have a chance to get started.
“The motion part of our offense is something our players have been good at in the past. You can’t keep doing the same thing. You have to adjust if guys can’t do it in the moment of truth.”
▪ He said: “I don’t see this locker room quitting. But you... have to hold literally everybody in the building accountable for what we see their job is, what they’re doing for the team, what they’re not doing for the team. They’re hard conversations that are very necessary.
“There will be a list of things. I’m sure I already know several of them to tell the coaches and the players that if we don’t do “this,” [then] “this” won’t change and get those things to change. It’s already been too many weeks in a row.”
▪ He didn’t say why Tyreek Hill was yelling on the sideline: “I would expect him to be visibly upset at somebody. He’s a leader. He wanted to do everything he could to make sure the result wasn’t that.”
BAD DECISIONS
Every week, there are examples of how bad decisions in March are killing the Dolphins.
When Christian Wilkins and Raekwon Davis left in March, the Dolphins signed Benito Jones (knowing he was one of the worst-graded defensive tackles in the league last year), Neville Gallimore, Jonathan Harris and Teaiar Tart.
Tart, Gallimore and Harris were all cut (Harris is on the practice squad), and Jones continues to rank among the league’s worst run defenders at nose tackle, according to Pro Football Focus.
On Tony Pollard’s 41-yard run before Tennessee’s game-sealing touchdown, Jones simply fell down on his backside, and De’Shawn Hand (whose role has increased since Wilkins left) couldn’t make a play on the ball.
Several defenders were at fault on Tyjae Spears’ 7-yard TD run — including Jones, who was blown off the ball on the play.
The inability to find a competent backup quarterback, good enough guards, a healthy and effective No. 3 receiver, or a power back who can churn out yards in third and fourth and short also continue to haunt Miami.
A dozen times a game, there are snapshots revealing how the Dolphins mismanaged the offseason. It’s not difficult to find them.
CBS 4’s Kim Bokamper said he saw players on the sidelines “with no hope in their hearts... It was offensive to watch that offense. It was putrid. You have got to look at coaching in this game.”
TAGOVAILOA UPDATE
ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported Monday night that Tua Tagovailoa has not had any symptoms in the wake of his concussion and “there’s a real possibility” he will be back Oct. 27 against Arizona.
Schefter also said that he does not believe that a single neurologist has encouraged him to retire.
Because he doesn’t have symptoms, some fans have wondered why the Dolphins placed Tagovailoa on injured reserve, a decision that requires him to sit out four games.
But sitting Tagovailoa for an extended period was not only a prudent decision but a necessary one, according to concussion experts and a study on how the brain responds after concussions.
Chris Nowinski, co-founder and CEO of the Concussion Legacy Foundation, said: “It’s a myth the brain recovers in a week. Symptoms go away, and it functions OK, but on a cellular level all brains need weeks to physiologically recover.”
Two days after Tagovailoa sustained the concussion (at least the fourth of his life and likely his fifth), Nowinski told me that Tagovailoa needed to sit out at least a month. A scientific study supports that conclusion.
A study by Roberto Vagnozzi and colleagues that used advanced imaging — “proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy” — suggests that brain metabolite ratios do not return to normal by Day 15 after a concussion, but do return to normal by Day 30.
Even after three weeks, those ratios are not completely back to where they were before brain trauma, suggesting it was sensible to sit Tagovailoa for at least a month, especially considering his history of concussions.
Also, studies also have suggested that the risk of a severe brain injury increases for a short time after a first concussion, and the results of a second concussion within that short period could be dire.
Here were some of the findings from the study, according to Vagnozzi’s team:
“Concussive head injury opens a temporary window of brain vulnerability due to the impairment of cellular energetic metabolism. As experimentally demonstrated, a second mild injury occurring during this period can lead to severe brain damage, a condition clinically described as the second impact syndrome....
“Athletes with concussion exhibited the most significant alteration of metabolite ratios at Day 3 post-injury… On average, metabolic disturbance gradually recovered, initially in a slow fashion and, following Day 15, more rapidly. At 30 days post-injury, all athletes showed complete recovery, having metabolite ratios returned to values detected in controls.”
Concussion experts have said that Tagovailoa likely will need to sit out an extended time after future concussions.
Nowinski said that “concussions tend toward getting more severe with longer recoveries [as they add up]. That’s not the case for everybody.”
Because of that, it’s difficult to envision Tagovailoa ever being quickly cleared if he sustains another concussion and opts to continue playing, two local concussion experts said.
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