Read the full transcript from Mike McDaniel 's press conference on December 3, 2025.
Q: No team of course is perfect on short yardage. You all were great early in the year. I guess the irony is the running game is humming now but you've had a couple of higher profile short yardage stops. How much do you, Offensive Coordinator Frank Smith and Associate Head Coach/Running Backs Coach Eric Studesville think about, talk about the question of do you just impose our will and do what we've had success with with RB Ollie Gordon II on short yardage or do we try to trick teams? It's sort of like a fundamental question. How do you navigate that? Do you think much about it?
"I think in general as you're planning to play an opponent, your starting point is can you execute an earned first down. The elements, it's the risk-reward, how predictable are the things that you'd be attacking on a trick play, for instance. You go through everything, and the objective is to get a yard and every time I call a play, before the play occurs with no information just kind of blind to the pending result and the call they're going to make and whatever, you're making a call that you think we can execute. Why do we think we can execute it? A multitude of reasons, but the great thing about football is I love moments where I know my job a lot of the times is not to be Nostradamus, it's to do the right thing based on the information that I have. Particularly when you're in short yardage, if you're a head coach and a play caller, you're faced with situations that the decision has to be on the information void of the pending failure or success. You can't live it and hope. You can't just, 'Oh yeah, I hope we're going to get it,' and do something with that regard. You have to make a decision on what the play is based upon a calculated prepared reasoning. I like doing the right thing knowing that if it doesn't work that – I see that as my job – that there's also 11 human beings that are sentient individuals that somebody might want to try to make a play and that might be good or bad. All those things, I think it's just important that you assess and you're not stubborn about it, you're humble about it. I could have given the ball to the same player but done a different scheme and it's unknown, but it's better than not working. So you try to assess and if you have a group of people like our team and you believe in each other, everybody knows you want to get a first down. Is there something I can tell Ollie (Gordon II) in the future or do I need to fake it to him a couple times or all things – I'm responsible for the direction and then we go and attack the situation the same, and you can't be delusional either way. You can't just assume that it's going to work because you've have success before or be scared and it's not going to work because it didn't work previously. Ultimately, we're working to execute. We've had two games in a row where we've had failed fourth down attempts and those are critical situations. You don't go for it on fourth down unless you believe that you can get it, so then what do you do? You come up with a plan of action, you communicate it to the players, they practice it. Their practice conviction, that sets your compass for how aggressive you can be, and if they believe in the scheme enough to earn it through practice, then you go into the situation and if you can win the game in one yard, you go for it if it makes sense and it's not irresponsible. All things are on the table. The failures are real in the National Football League. You don't hide from those. We have had success earlier in the season, but you don't gain interest and have success. You've got to earn it. I think I have a coaching staff and a group of players that are accountable that will attack those situations because we've got to be better."
Q: On third-and-4 near the end of the game, QB Tua Tagovailoa runs for three and slides. Obviously you want him to slide, you want him to avoid contact. In your opinion, is that a green light, have to have it situation where he does not need to follow the guidelines that are usually in place?
"You don't coach off of abstract, 'here's a notecard for how you approach scrambling.' You're coaching retroactively for the future. In that particular one, that's a great one to bring up because you have to communicate with the player. I try to forecast what he's seeing and what he was thinking, and then I directly ask him and then I get feedback. What I thought I saw, it happened – he confirmed it – in that situation, he wasn't trying to slide. He was trying to dive forward so then I coached in situations like that when you're trying to do that, and we discussed how you have to keep the ball above your waist. I showed him kind of just like why it appeared to the side judge that it could be – you don't leave it in the officials' hands, but they interpreted it as a half slide, so then you address that particular situation. For scrambling in general, there's a relative risk-reward, like throwing a contested ball. The situation as the quarterback of the team that has the ball in his hands and you're trying to win the game, how important is that yard and that is an imperfect thing that's very difficult to do, but you're trying to assess that. You take your chances when the chances are necessary to take – the starting point in football with the Denver Broncos and John Elway did the helicopter and everyone was wowed because they'd never seen that because it was in the Super Bowl. If there's a critical third down, you have to adjust relative to the risk. He was trying to dive forward, and we've got to articulate and assess and work on how to execute that in those tight pockets where you're in that fringe territory and it's a big deal if you get the yard or not."
Q: Sticking with QB Tua Tagovailoa for a second, it seems like some of his best days were when he would take a snap and then drop back, fire within 2.2 seconds roughly. In general, is he holding the ball too long these , would you say?
"Anything in regard to the play of Tua (Tagovailoa) at the quarterback position, and we've seen he's displayed how it looks for him when he has supreme ownership of everything going on, we know what it looks like when he's in a groove, and we know what it looks like when he's not having his best day. The answer is never just all right, super easy, one thing. There's layers to a lot of things and you're trying to find patterns where his play, which it's never completely absolute. There were two plays in particular against the Saints that looked as elite of his progression pocket pass plays he's had. I'll tell you it was plays 40 and 46. You're trying to look at those plays, you're trying to see if there was a play reason, a visual reason, a controllable from scheme, formation, how things are going, and then reverse engineering it like that; how can we get that play more consistent on every play. There's all sorts of different variables, the math is always changing for quarterbacks. One play is never the same as the other, but the end all is the play, he knows that it feels like and we know what it feels like when we see it when it's fitting within the offense and he's distributing the ball and being the ultimate point guard, we're tough to stop when he's doing that. It's the collective's objective to not just him, all right you go over there and you get better. We're all going to going to just wait – it's a collective of everyone improving, and you don't know if it's like this, what if it's an indicator step on a certain break that gives him that much more conviction that it looks the way we know defenses can't stop. Collectively we're all working trying to iron a game out, but generally we're trying to find patterns and get him the most comfortable so he can play the most comfortable. I don't think it's easy as one little thing, but I do think it's not absolutes either of he's playing this way and then he's playing that way. I see both within games, that's means there's problems to solve that he has to obviously solve his controllable portion of it and we have to communicate, work together and get our players the ball more frequently in space like we're accustomed to."
Q: LB Jordyn Brooks has about 20 more tackles I think than the next leading guy in the NFL. Having worked with him the last two years, what stands out or what makes him different at that linebacker position?
"This is the best way I can frame it – it's rare that a quiet, businesslike, serious, focused person becomes almost the voice of your team. That process is really cool because the quiet guy doesn't talk until people are asking what he has to say. He's doing his job. He's relentless. He's tough, but it's rare you're given the gift of being on a team with a person that's so focused, so tough-minded, so relentless that you can count on his 100 percent every day. After doing that for a lot of days, he became one of the main pillars, became a captain and hard pressed anybody's voice is heard louder because it's continued – plays he makes, he's not walking around any different than he was a month, two months, three months ago. He's walking around trying to fix the couple times in zone defense that he thought he could have got depth and not get high-lowed. It's inspiring. I think when teams are led by players like that, there's a turn the page and you have a play style that keeps you in football games, that makes you very, very difficult to beat because you're relentless and each player that's on the field, whether he's on the field with him or he's watching them while they're on the field and it's the opposite phase, they don't want to let him down. How powerful is that? I can't say enough about the guy. Whatever credit he gets, it would be completely feasible if you gave him more."
Q: Is that one of those things where – he comes from the Seattle Seahawks and you don't have a chance to be around him every day, do you know that going into signing him or do you learn that about him when he arrives here?
"You know that he has a will and you know that on game day you don't see a loaf. A lot of times you're relying on when the player comes out in the draft process and piecing together stuff like that, but up until that point, I don't think Jordyn (Brooks) had had the platform – you'd have to ask him, I don't want to speak for him – but again, you're a talented guy that's very serious about your job. But I'm not sure if he's jumping up trying to make a speech and all that, but the math changes when people are asking you and people care about your opinion and then as a competitor, when something isn't right, he didn't hesitate through the offseason to voice it. I think he's had the opportunity to become a greater version of himself and I think it's incredibly important to every young player and every player on the team to watch someone who takes advantage of an opportunity like he has where he goes about his daily work and people follow him. He ends up putting in even more work because he understands the responsibility that's there. It's always really cool when you feel like someone has earned something and other people are starting to notice. This is a guy that the players voted captain and he was the second-highest vote getter on the team. Maybe a lot of people didn't know who he was in the league and you hold down the league's lead in tackles for however many weeks and then people learn who you are. He represents a lot of things that I truly believe in and he's not just falling into this production by happenstance. He's earned it and he's earned the regard and strain of his teammates that there's a lot of guys keeping him clean to track and make tackles in the interior defense and lot of people being on their responsibilities so he can play his gap with conviction. The group rallies around that and knows he'll make a play if everyone is doing their job."
Q: Against the Jets, TE Darren Waller had a big game. Second time around against a divisional foe, how do you balance going back to a matchup that really worked for you but also considering that opponent might be making some adjustments to try to stop specifically that?
"I think the trickier rep for me is not being irresponsible to him and the organization, to everyone, about the first week back and knowing that he was able to play and then finding in game – it's just tricky, you have a plan and then you don't and you have to just make sure you don't overcook him. Realistically for him, too, I think he was fired up to get that game, to feel good about that game, to win the game, and then to get through it because then you can approach the next week with more knowns. What I've learned from him this season is I can put anything on his plate and if it makes sense in terms of alignment, assignment, he will own it by game day. It's very important to him. He is a professional through and through and I think the guys get excited when he's back and it's a little easier now to more fully incorporate him with reason just because you have that first step out. It's important that I knew he could play football at a high level and you don't want to because of your excitement and his capabilities put him in a situation that the advantage isn't his and mess with any sort of confidence that that guy has. He's a big part of our team both as a person and a player and he'll be involved. It'll be a little easier to get him involved this week based on that last game experience."
Q: I wanted to ask about RB De'Von Achane and kind of how he compares to just playmakers that you've worked with in your career? Especially among guys where you've asked to do a whole bunch of different things?
"I think that was an exciting thing about the prospect of I kind of knew on the onset that I hadn't really had a player like him exactly. Every player is unique but with him, a lot of people profile him off the rip as he's smaller so you assume all sorts of things based upon the size and speed of other players that aren't De'Von (Achane). What I noticed from his college days was that he was never taking hits on directly which when players do that, it means the game is really slow for them. It means that he can see a lot so there's some natural football talent. That's a skill. Not just being fast or having good hands, but that's a skill of avoiding direct tackles that is very impactful when your job is to move the ball forward. You're not seeing a player just with skill; what you learn about him overtime is that he's trying to be great. I think the work ethic tied to the skill set, it's exciting because he's very confident but some of the stuff he's capable of doing he hasn't got to see himself do it yet I think in an NFL game. There's a lot more meat on the bone and if he continues to take advantage of opportunities like that, you just get more opportunities and his ability to play convicted, in tight quarters and getting yards after contact really changes how we're able to play football. It also enables him to stay healthy while doing it because he's able to avoid a lot of the big shots because guys get pretty mad when a fast guy is making them miss. People intend to hit him pretty hard so he's able in his game to take advantage of it. I think no one is surprised by where he's at and the best is in front of him for sure, but I think that what's been a gamechanger is he's not an independent contractor; he's so tight with the offensive line, he's a dynamic person that is just scratching the surface in that regard, too. He has players playing for him, trying to get that extra strain. You can see every rep that Julian Hill has, he's flying around somewhere trying got get that last influential block but all the guys really take pride. They know he has an ability that if we just leave one guy for him, he can make him miss. If their guy is blocked and not pursuing, that's where we get the big plays that he's always capable of that we were able to do. I think the first drive was an example of that. I keep saying really good things about him because he keeps giving me really good things to say."
Q: CB Rasul Douglas and S Minkah Fitzpatrick mentioned a fine system within the DB room. Just how much do you know about that, have you heard of anything like that before and is that significant?
"If you're ever toeing the line of CBA stuff – what? No, that's a very routine thing. In terms of position groups, it's a way to hold each other accountable and generally they do little pots that are off the books. They utilize whatever the pot is at the end of the season for something that they predetermine. It's more of a competitive thing than anything. Generally, it's whatever you amount to a dollar fine that you would notice but you wouldn't freak out about. The intent is that guys want to hold each other accountable, guys want to have certain things from their position group in particular. You see the way Minkah (Fitzpatrick) plays and 'Sul' (Rasul Douglas) is the same way. To get the group playing in a connected fashion, there's certain things that you have to say, 'OK, if we have a reroute responsibility, you're getting hands on or it's that.' 'If you're not running to the ball, it's that,' so that the group can have a play style that is complicit to what they're trying to get done. I have a saying – 'unspoken expectation equals premeditated resentment.' They are proactive in how we go about business and that's another example I think. That's why it's invaluable to have guys like Minkah."
Q: Sunday's game, is that 1-of-17 or is it extra spice because it's Dolphins and Jets?
"There it is. It's the only thing, is the Jets. You don't know until you're in it. Obviously there's a long history in fanbases and in general, when you play a division opponent that prides itself on effort and strain and they play hard, those games are really exciting that you know that the preparation has to be real. I think the biggest thing in this building that I can't say enough is the only thing is that we're playing a game at MetLife where we're trying to end the game with more points than the opponent. We're trying to win and everything else doesn't exist, it's all fictitious. If you want to participate in anyone's fictitious lands, all of it has to do with whether or not you are able to beat this team. Division games in general and it's fun to play in December against a division opponent; and when you have been building your confidence and you have a style of football that you're excited to play, it gets more exciting. I think their team, the Jets are experiencing some momentum as well and that just makes for a more competitive, exciting game that's going to be full of effort and there's going to be some hard hits and there's going to be some good plays, bad plays for both sides, takeaways. The winner will probably be in the plus, but overall that's the only thing that exists for us. I think this team has learned how to think that way and everything else is a setup, good, bad, whatever. I think it's hilarious that there's charts about the playoff hunt and stuff with six and five weeks out. I'm not sure if anybody has paid attention but things go crazy in December and January. You just have to play your opponent then after the you play the opponent you can assess if your play will help you or you need to improve it to play the next opponent."
