Read the full transcript from Mike McDaniel 's press conference on October 13, 2025.
Q: Obviously, in the aftermath of his comments you were asked about yesterday, many former great players have said QB Tua Tagovailoa was wrong in making this comment. To the benefit of reflection, do you wish Tua had not made those comments and do you plan to talk to him about it?
"Now that I've heard of them – you guys caught me before I heard them – I mean, it doesn't surprise me, whatever reaction. I think regardless of intent and what was on Tua's mind after a loss as the franchise quarterback, that's not the forum to displace that. I think he knows that now. I do honestly believe there was no ill intention, but you're talking about I think kind of a misguided representation of player-orchestrated film sessions. And the bottom line is no one's going to be happy and always is looking for reasons for failure to succeed, so you're trying to look for reasons that you know you can attribute to losses and heavy is the crown of being a franchise quarterback. What I do know is that he's directly communicated with a lot of guys starting with last night, and that's what teammates do and you live and you learn, and ultimately, I look at it like everything else. There's no if ands or buts about it; accountability and our team's performance always lies squarely on my shoulders, so we know that as well. But the focus to beat the Cleveland Browns and fix what we need to get fixed in our game to go attack the next opponent, nowhere in that lies that anything but focus on what we can do individually and how we can attack this work week. Everything else is not leading us into the direction of solution."
Q: Do you worry though that stuff like this shows a deeper problem or is this an isolated thing that you think just QB Tua Tagovailoa misspoke or just said in the wrong forum, as you said? Or is there more to this, potentially, of any kind of misunderstanding within teammates I guess?
"No, I'm not worried. When I say it's a misrepresentation of – I don't want to speak for Tua, he'll obviously get asked about it and be very candid – but ultimately, no, I wasn't worried about the result of the game being determined by the extra outside of all things scheduled film sessions with players. I think that's at the crux of the issue is inherently, it's kind of assumed that you're attaching reasons for failure to that. I've got a lot of things to worry about and one of them is not those comments and where our team is lying after that. We just had meetings about the about the game itself, the factual successes and failures that led to the ultimate result and that's where people's focus needs to be, and I'm confident will be, as we are all very motivated to fix our problems and find a way to win."
Q: These meetings that the problem with that QB Tua Tagovailoa mentioned is separate from the problem that was brought up at the end of last season of players being late to team meetings, right?
"Completely separate, but I can understand the (question). Completely, whatever he's talking about, if I would have been aware of anything and it would be under my veil of responsibility if there was anything that had been discussed in the previous past that it was similar to. This was a different topic altogether."
Q: At the expense of making it a weekly question, what conversations have you had with Chairman of the Board/Managing General Partner Stephen Ross and could you just relay communication you've had with him?
"After the game the main thing is that he's experiencing the loss like all of us, and I think it's the fourth loss this season that we've had that in the final five minutes of the fourth quarter, we had a different outcome available to us, let's just say. And then the focus on what we need to do as a team to try to correct this, and each time that you have situations like that where you're disappointed, the best way to do something about it is focus on Cleveland. So that's what we talked about. That was the extent of it."
Q: You mentioned some of the issues in the second half as execution and technique and fundamentals and things like that. How do you I guess coach a change when it's something as far as like, we're executing it right in practice, but we're not getting it right in the game and I guess how long can you afford to wait for the execution part to come?
"You're talking about – I think again, this past game, there's 159 plays. We're getting more execution and getting people to execute certain things but not enough to tip the scales in the given game. So then the biggest challenge is people always look to, you know, one play here, one play there at the end of the game, to attach responsibility why you lose or win. I don't see it that way. I see a game of accumulation of events and cause and effect. The bottom line is you want guys to avoid collectively, that desire to have the easy 'Press, OK, solution, that's all it was now. Now I don't have to feel responsibility for my contribution.' It's far from that. It's unilateral accountability. It's not placing blame on one play, or one player, or one particular unit for the results. It's understanding that we all are – there's a three-yard gain on first-and-10 in the first quarter that if Jaelan Phillips doesn't strain and honor his pass responsibility on the fake run action, we don't make the defensive call on second-and-seven that doesn't have 'JB' (Jordyn Brooks), that zone where 'JB' and 'Sul' (Rasul Douglas) took a takeaway and the next play was a touchdown. Cause and effect being executing for four quarters. The last two games we've done our better job of executing in three out of the four quarters and if you can't do it for four quarters or at least when one phase fails to execute, the other one steps up; when you have snowballing failures of execution, you can find yourself in a hole. What I did believe to be true, that I did also witness, is a team that was down by 13 at 12 minutes left that, case in point, what happens when three phases execute – I think we had a 10-play touchdown drive, a series start at the 20 based upon a special teams play, and then a four-play drive, force a punt, then a 13-play touchdown drive. OK, that means when the team is executing, you have a chance to play with anybody and I was proud of the guys for finding execution, but at some point we all collectively get over being proud of us overcoming adversity and we need to minimize some of the adversity that we control in our own hands. You always wish it was 'easy as'; it's far from that. It's getting your hands dirty across the board and no one feeling what they've done is good enough to win."
Q: Getting back to what QB Tua Tagovailoa said when he said players are late and or missing meetings and I think he later clarified just to say late to meetings. Why do you think that's happening? Is that a sign of disrespect for their teammates and is that something where you might get involved and say these meetings are important, you need to be there on time?
"Well, I think first and foremost, is to define if we're going to speak at it in a press conference form. I think you have to define how often and who and how many people or if that's a misrepresentation on most units or most groups. These player film sessions that, again, are after meeting times and practice times either Thursday morning, Thursday afternoon or Friday morning; that created activity from the players locker room. I'm sure it didn't have unilateral issues at every step so that's why you have to be very clear and understand the consequences of any statement you make. What are we talking about, a whole lot of stuff that has to do with not the reason or the reason for or against any sort of execution. This is something that our guys are trying to play 11-as-one and if they have issues with each other on their team bonding and film sessions, they can handle it in-house. That's kind of the learning lesson that the team gets to witness. In situations where you're losing football games, it's about winning football games and everything will come up when you're losing, particularly the way that we have the last couple of games."
Q: Are you going to open the window this week for any of the IR players? K Jason Sanders, OL Andrew Meyer, OL James Daniels, OL Austin Jackson, etc.?
"Not this week."
Q: It has been theorized by I think many analysts that because QB Tua Tagovailoa didn't name names and he kind of painted everybody with the same brush that it could have lingering effects. That some players could be thinking, 'Hey, is he talking about me?' That kind of thing. Do you think there's much to that? How do you think the reaction is going to be?
"I think you leave all things open and without direct communication, I think it was important that he communicated with his teammates starting last night and continued today. I think that is a concern without void of communication, but there's a real easy way to clarify with teammates and it's literally telling them. I think it was definitely on his plate last night and this morning and moving on to focus on what we can do to win football games, not lose them."
Q: How's LB Tyrel Dodson progressing and in the same breath if you could assess LB K.J. Britt's performance?
"I think 'T. Dot' (Tyrel Dodson) is doing well through the protocol. Hopefully in the next couple days he'll get cleared. Then, K.J Britt, I thought played a phenomenal game. We went into the game with various scenarios of how the game was going to play out by personnel and with his combination with 'JB' (Jordyn Brooks) and he was able to make some plays on some run fits early and let his energy and enthusiasm breathe which is an important part of that position and how connected you are to pass rushing coverage. He was able to take advantage of the opportunity so I was happy for K.J. and I thought there were a lot of good things on tape that we need to build and accumulate so that we can play winning football and not losing football."
Q: A question about S Dante Trader Jr., a couple of weeks ago I was talking to him and I told him, 'I like the way you stick your head in there' and he goes, 'Yeah, I ain't scared of nobody.' Last night after the game, he spoke up and took responsibility for missing the tackle. What do you see from Dante along those lines? He seems very accountable, very mature for a rookie, very aggressive. Tell me what you see about him.
"I think he's a player that's capable of having high expectations for himself. I think he's mentally strong enough to handle how bad he feels about that particular play that you're speaking of. I think it's important that players understand that you can't just file away your good plays as assumptions and fixate on your bad plays or vice versa. There's a healthy balance. I think we're all confident in his fearlessness and how mature he is and plays that your capable of making that you don't make are always difficult. It wasn't the reason why we won or loss but he knows he's capable of contributing to wins with play like that. I think there's a big part of football that I stress – I understand plays happen, I don't like when mistakes are made in vain and with (Dante) Trader Jr. I have a high confidence that he'll learn from that and be able to be a little more consistent with his sideline approach tackles and in that particular case, making that right shoulder tackle and utilizing the sideline as the other compression defender. When you're capable of it, it makes you sick for them. I know he's sick about it. I think the one thing that we're all confident in is that he will learn from that mistake and perform better because of it which is why he has those opportunities in the first place."
Q: I'm going to take kind of a risk here and just ask you about film specifically, on that last play it looked LB Jaelan Phillips and LB Chop Robinson were relatively in the same place and I'm curious if that was by design or was Jaelan's pass rush lane supposed to be more inside?
"It was what you'd call a straight rush so you'd go through the B and C gap and it just so happened that their simultaneous get off kind of cut Chop (Robinson) off a little bit. Usually, you don't draw rush lanes where guys get free that quick, but they got a good jump and they edged their blockers. So much of this game is you're doing right longer and you get a shot on the quarterback. A playmaker that's as strong as him, you have to bring your feet when you wrap up or he'll shed you and unfortunately, he was able to make that play. That combined with the sideline tackle, it ended up being a play that got them in position to score points. My challenge to the team was, the guys on that play, everybody wants to make a play and players make plays and sometimes they don't; but the reason we lost was an accumulation of things that each person, each player and each coach, if they don't hard look at what they can do more then they're going to be part of the problem. That's not our personality. That's not how we've done anything so it's more important than ever that we constructively look at all the things that we can do. Then if you have a unilateral approach, that way it gives you a chance to come out of something that is difficult for all but well worth anything that we have to do to go ahead and have that winning feeling for the organization and the team."
