Read the full transcript from Head Coach Mike McDaniel's Postgame press conference on November 16, 2025.
Q: How does it feel to win for your first game in NFL Madrid?
"It's a privilege to be here in the first place. What an incredible city. I was able to get out into the city a little bit on Friday and just overwhelmed with the culture. I've never been in a city this big and this clean before. You want to talk about some good bread. Anywhere I go, there's awesome bread.
But to play here, to be the inaugural game was a privilege, and we really wanted to bring it home with a win. So it was a very good team win that we felt honored to be here and glad we came up with a W."
Q: What was your thought process going for it instead of taking the points?
"Well, I definitely thought you don't make that decision unless -- I thought the play was going to work, and it didn't. Looking at it from, it was about 1:47 or something with no timeouts, a field goal gives them the ball back. Their special teams is very adept at getting the ball between the 30 and 40, which would leave about 25 yards for a tying field goal, as opposed to going 60 yards when they're backed up.
Those are the type of situations that you try to do the best thing with the recourse of failure, and that was an example of defense stepping up. They held when it was most critical, and to get it three phases, a complementary football game where we got takeaways in two phases and didn't turn the ball over, it was an important win for our team.
I definitely wouldn't have made that call if I thought it was going to fail, but you also make that decision based upon the recourse if it doesn't work."
Q: Can you talk about the team win? We talked to running back Ollie Gordon II about these last two wins, the fact of what people were saying in the media, how do you feel about it?
"Yeah, I think we've had a collective of a locker room and a coaching staff that have been focused on getting our game right. We know there's a lot of people that weren't forecasting our success. You'd be lying if you didn't use that as motivation for sure.
But I think the biggest thing is in the National Football League over my entire career, I know one thing: If you're able to improve without results and you stay together as a team, that the strength that you gain from the hardships can be tough for other teams to deal with at the end of the season.
So, we knew that if we stayed together, we felt like our football would get right. We lost four games by one score, I think, or one of them was a late field goal. Basically, four of them, we were in contention in the last couple minutes. And you take those Ls, you don't quit, there's positive stuff on the end of the horizon for you generally.
We got two wins and a bye week. We need to rest our bodies. Then, we have to get to work on the next opponent if we want to have a similar result because it was a well fought win that was well prepared by our coaching staff and our players."
Q: A dramatic victory in overtime here in the first NFL game in Madrid. What was your message to the offense as they were going back out on the field after the takeaway?
"My message, you know, in situations with a sudden change like that, you don't really always have time to talk to the guys, but they know through experience with me that I speak to them through play calls and play selection. So, I felt really good the whole game about how our line of scrimmage was going, felt really good about [running backs] De'Von [Achane] and Ollie [Gordon] and Jaylen [Wright] running the ball. So, I think they took matters into their own hands.
We had however many yards it was, might have been 20, 25, on the ground to seal the game, and they take pride in that. We know as a group, if you're, it is a privilege to have the ability to run the ball to win the game. That takes a collective team effort that you're in a situation where you can do that.
Typically, in offensive football, that is your favorite way to win is being able to hand the ball off, to block people, inflict your will, and then get points to close the game. So, it was an important thing that we hadn't been able to do thus far this season as a team. So, it was good to get that done and in an exciting format for sure.
It was way, way, way more exciting than I'd prefer it, but it was good to get a W in a close overtime game."
Q: Talk about stacking up two wins going into a bye. Can you find something positive going into the bye week?
"I think that's a very common, from a coach's perspective, you have, you string together any positive football before the bye week, it would be awesome to continue to play. However, when you have a bye week at whatever, how many games in are we, 11, it's usually very much needed.
I think we have some guys on schedule to potentially return, and I think you build momentum into the bye week and then you have some guys return, and I think that momentum is felt throughout the team. So that's, there is a positive spin in terms of we do need the rest. We have guys like our captain [linebacker] Jordyn Brooks who just peeled off 20 tackles that needs to get an ice bath for sure. I think we'll use that time accordingly.
But the way that guys have prepared the last two weeks, I'm not really nervous. They've really to the letter of the law taken everything that they can control, which is why we've kind of had a couple games in a row now that we feel a lot better about."
Q: Can you take us through what you saw on the interception and what it must mean that cornerback Jack Jones was out here earlier and he kind of reflected back to the fact that he didn't even know if he was going to be on the team this year, and now he comes all the way across to the other side of the world and makes a big play?
"There's all sorts of stories like that littered among an NFL team. That one's pretty special because he's had some adversity and had an opportunity here. We talked about it right when he came in. He came, hugged me and thanked me, and I thanked him because can't change the past, but you can recognize an opportunity, one that it was his to take on, but the recourse of failure was probably the end of his career, and he knew that.
I think guys galvanize around him. He plays the style of ball we really are fond of. He's very convicted, I saw on that last interception. We talk about it as a team a ton, but we're not searching for perfection. We're not searching to be perfect. We're searching for conviction, and he saw the ball out, took an aggressive angle, was very convicted, and then utilized one of the strengths of his game, which is plays on the ball.
He had a forced fumble last week that was monumental in our win and got his hands on the football again, this time with an interception. So, he's really doing a great job taking advantage of the opportunity. There's a, walking into the locker room, I think he really appreciated the team chanting or doing a Jack Jones song considering it was fresh on his mind how far he'd come. We all can appreciate that."
Q: How much team building is there to gain from coming all the way out here and having it culminate in an overtime thriller?
"Yeah, it's a big deal. I think our team has done a great job of working through adversity, but there comes a point where you have to push that into success. You can't really control or forecast the way guys are going to keep taking their lumps.
I think it's incredibly empowering to a locker room of guys that have had to stand on their own and believe in themselves while a lot of people didn't. You take that to a team flight that should have some energy in it, and then you go back to work. I think guys are going to be very excited to do so.
They fought for belief, and now they've been awarded real belief based on performance and results. So, I think we'll be excited to play our next game. We need the time off. We definitely wish we could play, our locker room would probably want to play tomorrow even though they're a little beat up, but we'll take the rest and get back to preparing our style of football so that we can continue to have products like this on Sunday."
Q: What are you going to pinpoint for the offense to win a game like this?"
"I think we didn't turn the ball over today. I think we're plus two. That's gigantic. We were plus one last week. Although we turned the ball over twice, we got three takeaways. So that's been a big deal.
I think some of the success that we've had the last couple of weeks defending the run gave us perseverance this game where they were kind of leaning on us a little bit. I saw guys not blink or waver. I think that's a very important part of NFL football that I'm not sure if we were equipped early in the year to be able to do that.
I think we're running the ball pretty well. I think having, you know, we started with our right guard who wasn't on our team at the start of the season. We signed [offensive lineman] Larry [Borom] out of free agency, and the work they've done and how they've created consistency and a new line of scrimmage versus multiple opponents, I think we're gaining momentum in that regard.
So overall, you run the ball well and you don't turn it over, that's a formula that's very successful in the National Football League. So, we'll continue to try to do that and earn wins that way, which our team is very fond of."
Q: Do you feel success here in Madrid with the Miami Dolphins, would you like to play in Barcelona next international game?
"Yes."
Q:Why is that?
"Because the country is awesome, and I think it's our privilege to play here. It feels as though people are very interested in it. Like I've always said, it's an honor, and you want, my whole life, I've been a football coach. I've been fortunate enough to work in the National Football League for 20 years, and I like to see that business succeed, considering I'm not sure if I'm good at or know how to do anything else.
So, I think expanding the game is something that I feel very fortunate and our guys feel very fortunate to be a part of and is very good for the health of the National Football League."
Q: What's the main lesson that you learned from Frankfurt that you took with you into this game?
"I would say there's a couple things. You have to be game day ready just in general. When you're playing on soccer fields, for your footing, there's a lot of different ways to adjust, and you have to get comfortable with that, which I thought our guys did a great job, and we minimized any controllables of slipping and whatnot based on their footwear and their focus.
Then I think it's a regular season game that feels, from a media standpoint, it feels similar to the coverage of the Super Bowl. There's a lot of cameras. There's a lot of, there's a full auditorium of people at your press conference. I think we did a better job articulating that and getting guys prepared for the bells and whistles of the football game so that we could focus on football.
I felt like guys were much more comfortable in the environment, and I think we started and stayed consistent throughout the game from an emotional standpoint, which I was very proud of."
