Head Coach Mike McDaniel met with the media prior to the team's fifth OTA. Check out the top quotes from his media availability.
(On the addition of LB Melvin Ingram)
"He's a veteran player that has been very productive in this league. In conjunction with the scouting department – Chris (Grier), myself and the rest of the scouting department and the coaching staff felt very excited to have the opportunity to add him to the team. He's a veteran presence, a guy who has been in big games, a guy that for a young team can be very impressionable and a playmaker to boot."
(On QB Tua Tagovailoa winning practice player of the day last week and what he's seen from him so far)
"He earned it. I think his teammates acknowledged that. What have I seen from him? I've seen a guy that's attacking the moment, a guy that really likes to play football. In the process of college evaluations, you're in the National Football League in a different conference and you hear people describe a quarterback's instinctiveness. It's kind of probably how it hits your ear that it hit mine, where that's intriguing, but I didn't quite know what that meant. Now I have a better idea of what that meant but I still don't have a better way to describe it besides instinctiveness. But you can tell the player has played the position for a long time and that he thinks about the game of football through the lens of the quarterback position. I've been very excited about his development as far as the offensive plan and being the starting quarterback for the Miami Dolphins."
(On what he's looking to achieve during OTAs)
"You're first trying to identify a standard with which you play and a standard with which you practice. Within that, that's where your camaraderie and that's where your relationships are built. They're blood, sweat and tears that are earned over hard work and you're trying to get a team to decide what their standard of play is going to be and then you want to uphold that standard because that's the way that you operate and function as a football team. So that identity, it's a tackle sport but the way we look at it is you can start that identity by the way you practice without tackling."
(On the significance of the fullback position to his offense and the impact it's made on his coaching philosophy)
"It's been extremely impactful. I've been fortunate enough since the year 2005 to be in the same structure of offense and this will be my seventh team. From the starting point of Day 1 installation, I've had a fullback involved. One of the advantages of a fullback is that you have a backfield player that can give you different numbers on each side of the center depending on the direction he goes. If you're in just a normal dot formation, you have two eligibles on each side and then the halfback at home. When you're in the I-formation, is it 3×1 or is it 2×2? That's a starting point. It doesn't hurt that a lot of offenses have gone away from that only because with the historical experience that our staff has had, myself included, defenses aren't as adept at fitting those types of plays, whether they're runs or passes, and defending against it, which is a competitive advantage when you're able to find a fullback that – it's just not any ordinary human being or you must play with a fullback. You have to have an athletic player that is smart, can understand a lot of schemes and can read on the fly. When that position player plays fast, it can be pretty disruptive to teams that are not used to going against it."
(On how much versatility helps at the receiver position)
"Primarily, first and foremost, we're looking for good football players. I know our coaching staff has learned over the course of their careers and I have extensive experience in the fact that the more you know, the more versatility that you have and the more that you can isolate and take advantage of matchups in a given week. I think Chris (Grier) shares the same view as I have, where there's a degree or allure or attractiveness to football players that can do a multitude of things. That makes them – remember, they're a cog in a wheel of efficiency, that you're trying to create on both sides of the ball. It's the ultimate team sport in that you have the most players working in unison at the same time, as well as it's a game of inches, as we know, where the most minute shortcoming of technique or the best execution of technique can be the difference between winning and losing games."
