Read the full transcript from Head Coach Mike McDaniel's press conference on July 30, 2025.
Q: Can you give us a sense of whether for both CB Kader Kohou and for S Ashtyn Davis if you think absences will be a question of days, weeks or months?
"Ashtyn (Davis) – the non-contact, you're always prepared for the worst; however, we were fortunate that it wasn't the worst. That being said, it will take the next couple days to see how long that will be, but for sure it wasn't the thing that keeps you out for the whole season. Kader (Kohou) as I said Monday, we needed a couple days for swelling to go down to kind of get a better evaluation. Unfortunately he'll be going on IR so he'll be out for the season."
Q: Can you tell us what the injury is?
"Knee"
Q: Depth at the nickel spot – obviously CB Cornell Armstrong has been working there and you just added CB Mike Hilton. Do you feel comfortable where you are at that position and how many guys can actually go inside if they're nickel?
"I feel comfortable for today. We have multiple variances of players that we're working through that so you have a starting point and you see how the progression goes. Right now I'm good with where we're at. If there was a situation in a week where I didn't feel that we were good, Chris (Grier) and I would talk and we'd get something done there, but we feel good with where our plan is and the various people we're giving opportunities to in a very competitive defensive backfield."
Q: Can you speak to just what you feel for CB Kader Kohou, as a person who's earned his way into the NFL?
"Kader and I go back and I've seen him come into the league with nothing promised and earn his spot within this team. And then this year in particular I saw him ascend to a different level trying to take the reins of his career and get his game to an even higher level. So for that and the timing of it, I was crushed until I talked to Kader and honestly Kader made me feel a little bit better about where he was at simply by his mindset. You don't know the whys all the time when things happen and I get concern for guys that get stuck in that world of fixation of the opportunity lost. Kader's mindset, triggered like that, where he was like, 'This is tough, but I guarantee I'm going to come back better.' That is the only way to approach really the game of football and life and quite honestly I think one thing that talking to the team and talking to Kader; you're risking a ton of errors if you try to pretend to attach a negative or a positive to something that happens that catches you by surprise. Down the road, Kader may look at this as the best thing that ever happened so he's focused on trying to create that scenario one day at a time with his teammates' support."
Q: What is the injury to S Ashtyn Davis? Can you tell us?)
"It was below his hip, above his feet. Somewhere in there."
Q: Yesterday OL James Daniels mentioned that he was going to have another exam and find out more about where he stands on his recovery.
"I did catch wind. So here's the confusion. In James Daniels' mind, 'cleared' means no restrictions. In his mind when he was saying, 'I'm meeting with the doctor' because this is part of the predetermined process as we've ramped him up, all right, so we've had no setbacks. Everything has been good, so then you get cross-checked for full clearance. He has been fully involved and had some outstanding team reps yesterday, but this is part of checking the boxes along the way to get to full participation. But as you guys have seen, he has been productive and doing some very good things in team work already. So it's another part of the process to get him more and more reps without any setbacks."
Q: How would you evaluate the first day of padded practice?
"So the first day of padded practice is super odd for me because you're going out to practice and you're like, I'm not looking for good; I'm looking for the inevitable. It's like what if you're a sports car or NASCAR and you're driving without some of those drag resistance things that they have and then all of a sudden you put drag resistance on it; you have pads on so invariably everything is going to be incrementally more difficult simply by science and moving mass. So you go to the first day of pads and in my mind I'm never expecting to be anything close to my final vision of pads. You've worked yourself up to a standard of practice that you really like. Pads come on, guys are going to be a hair more tired, jogging a little slower back to the huddle. Pads are going to be high, invariably it's the first time since January, so the first day of pads is a necessary evil. For us, it was kind of close to my expectation. Today I'm expecting practice that moves closer to a non-padded practice and I'm expecting the guys that we pointed out where their pad level wasn't high enough or they weren't playing behind their pads to improve that today. Bottom line is first day of pads, the meeting after practice and the stuff that you show players is as detailed as what the position coaches and with the groups as they are ever because you're expecting it not to be exactly what you want it to look like and then expecting improvement as it comes the next day. It was solid. What does that mean? Kind of close to my expectations but not where our team wants it to be and that in itself is a win for this team. Our expectations and standards are higher, so this day of practice I'd suggest you have your eyes open. It'll be fun."
Q: We saw him with the orange jersey, but do you have any stories about how LB Chop Robinson has shown you his desire to be great as of late?
"I think the best example of Chop's expectations for himself are kind of his – you can tell he's not that excited for a win or he's not that excited for creating pressure. You can tell different than his rookie year, his expectation is to win. So when he wins, he is probably the fastest player back to the huddle out of anybody that makes a play on our team. Like he's just going straight to the next play. Then when he doesn't win, he's not 'MF-ing' himself. It's almost like he's learning from it from a confident perspective, so just by and large he is approaching each and every day with a mindset of someone that is trying to be great. Those are pretty crazy expectations – and his football understanding. He's paying homage to Austin (Jackson) and Pat (Paul) when he gets blocked because of their good technique. So it's like, wow, this dude, he is confident. Every day, he shows up which is why he probably did get the loudest cheer out of all players when I announced the orange jersey in the afternoon team meeting."
Q: Regarding QB Quinn Ewers – do you have a quarterback depth chart behind QB Tua Tagovailoa and is he No. 3 or is QB Zach Wilson No. 2? Is there an order there?
"Zach (Wilson) is doing a great job. Zach is the backup quarterback and it's up to players to adjust that. There's no such thing as non-competition and I think Quinn is the type of person that is every day trying to make that a real competition. Right now it's not like that in my mind, but I'm very candid about being open to anything that the players tell me with actions, not words. But he's doing a great job and the biggest thing is you have to continue to stack days as the quarterback. We put about 80, 90 percent of the types of the plays that we run during the season in through an eight-, nine-day progression of training camp, meaning you get install after install after install that you have to keep all that information and then you add. So the way that quarterbacks play through the install as you get into – we're in (Day) 7, 8, 9 – it gets closer to what you have to manage as a quarterback in terms of all the different knowledge of concepts and progression and ball handling and all that stuff. It gets closer to what we ask of a quarterback in the regular season. I really like the quarterback room where they're at and the competition can become real if the players make it, but right now I really like where they're at and growing in their game. The quarterback room might be – out of all the position groups, it's one of the top ones. I did forget that Tua's orange jersey was about as loud as Chop's and I think the team is pretty pumped about the quarterback play so we need that to continue today."
Q: Is there an update on the status of TE Darren Waller and any correlation whatsoever with the team hosting Noah Fant on a free agent visit?
"So no, Darren (Waller) has been great. I'll keep the anticipation for the audience like every day might be the day. You never know. Maybe next week, who knows. Noah Fant was somebody that I think we had a little mutual interest that we brought him in on a visit and allowed him to measure up what he's got going on and seeing if it's a fit for our team, but we also had Jalin (Conyers), has been out for a couple days so just considering reps for the group. But no, it wasn't directly related to Darren. It was a chance for a football player that we feel is pretty good to see if it's a fit for us so we'll see in the next couple days if we go that direction or not, but not a reflection of Darren."
Q: (Do you anticipate a corner being added?
"I don't anticipate it not happening, but in the immediate future like when I say I am looking at the group right now critically and focusing on them. And so it's not on the docket, but YOLO."
Q: What do you need your starting corners or corners who take a lot of in-game snaps to do?
"I need them within our scheme to own the techniques and fundamentals so that in every defensive call, there is a strength and weakness. So within that call, you need to – whether you have the hard job or the easy job – you have to execute with dependability and consistency so that the rest of the unit can play off of that. So when you have outside leverage man, you have to own your outside leverage, not get beat outside. Why do you have outside leverage? Because you have inside help. If we are playing a cloud, we need real re-route so you keep the speed from going down the field. Specifically with our defense which has probably equal to the amount of our offense in terms of the illusion of complexity and the variance and versatility, you need guys that are super consistent with what we're asking players to do so that you know how to rely upon them, what calls they feel strong with, and the safeties can play in concert with them, the backers can play in concert with them. It's a consistency and dependability thing within our defense because our strength is how our strain, our strength is how we rush the passer, our strength is how we play together, our strength is how we get to the ball. I'm looking for corners to match safeties to match edge players in that way – different skills, different tools, different responsibilities but very similar in needing to own one of the 11 spots so the other 10 can depend on it."
Q: LB Willie Gay Jr. just seems to be a ball of energy out there. What have been your initial thoughts with him so far and based solely off of last year, was this the player that you were confident that you were going to get?
"I've played against him multiple times, but ever since he came to the building, first got a chance to talk to him and then being on the team every day; I want to say – I don't know the exact number but off the rip there's some guys that are new guys that are establishing themselves within the team as core team people and one thing – you picked up on it – that dude is not faking that energy. And energy is a huge piece of how football teams play the game. One of my favorite personality veteran additions that I can remember here and I just love people that double down when they walk in the building. Willie Gay (Jr.), that's awesome. He brings himself but he also brings energy from out of other people. Those are the types of people in the locker room that can be compass setters and I've been incredibly happy with having him here and he makes himself present and his teammates are aware of him every practice even when he's not making plays, but his speed to the ball is real and it's infectious in helping us capture the vision that we have of how we play football."
Q: I wanted to ask you about QB Tua Tagovailoa. These past six days, no interceptions. Obviously that's pretty good. Is it mastery of the offense or is it just – like what do you correlate that with?
"I would say that, all right, you have an evolution of how can you be elite at timing with the primary and then you're going through the, okay, well you're developing the offense by, 'All right, well, what if the primary is not there? How do we get completions and progressions?' And that was kind of a focus last year, were progressions and having non-premier play calls and still being able to get a ball to an eligible and advance in a productive fashion. I think what you're seeing now is a culmination of that where it's his team, he knows it and each and every day, he's trying to dictate the terms by how he does his job. He's kind of found his specific cadence – not actual cadence – but his cadence for how he stays focused, locked in while also being himself. His intensity each and every day has been very consistent which players are responding to. Because of that, I think the ownership and conviction of how he's playing the position is probably responsible for not having any interceptions. He's not being passive; he's being aggressive, but I think the culmination of deliberate practice over the hours and hours and hours of work, his ownership of the game and his position within the offense I think is evident every time we step out on the field."
Q: We heard from DT Kenneth Grant and T Jonah Savaiinaea, talking about how they race into the building every single day and T Patrick Paul about how Jonah and he spent every day this offseason in the building, and it got me thinking about your comments back in March about setting your culture through the draft. I was hoping to get just a progress report, update for you on how that's going?
"The most important thing is you identify what you believe to be the people placed in the building that should be able to take advantage of the building while also being what the veterans here – just knowing the audience – that it wasn't going to be a time where they were going to really tolerate rookies that couldn't contribute to what they're trying to do now. So what I've seen is the rookies understand that they're rookies. And they're not trivializing that and they understand that – I think the veterans are doing a good job of letting them know, as plain as day, 'hey, we need you guys now.' So we kind of knew going into the draft that we were going to have to target certain types of people that would be predisposed to be football-first, to do the hard, long steps that have to be done in a rookie season to be able to be playing amongst the veterans and I think collectively, I'm very, very happy with the class because they are delivering on who we thought they were as people. And a lot of that will be tested in the next coming days because they have no understanding of how much scheme they're responsible for based upon their previous lives. So install is today, install in the next coming days, we'll hopefully see them respond in the same way they've responded up until this point."
Q: How do you balance your instincts as a competitor to push players hard with your responsibilities to preserve long-term health and chemistry headed into the preseason slate?
"That's a bear. I think the energy and how we attack each rep, that's where I channel the competitiveness. And I think my obligation to knowing sports science and the planning and sitting there and recognizing the needs of the players; that is – as long as I start out practice making sure the players know where they need to be at as we push through the practice, my responsibilities are easy when I frame them in an appropriate way. There's a lot of people depending on me not to do something ignorant in the face of competitiveness. So fortunately for me every day that I'm on the job, I'm in the mode of not reacting to emotion and making decisions that everyone is depending on me to make. It's not like a black and white answer every day, but it's a very important one that I don't take lightly and try to do my best with it each and every day."
