It’s not simply any street journey for the Miami Dolphins as they put together to take off towards the Bay Area forward of Sunday’s showdown towards the San Francisco 49ers.
With the workforce’s subsequent sport on the Los Angeles Chargers, the Dolphins are spending the upcoming week on the West Coast.
While the Dolphins, underneath coach Mike McDaniel, already seem to have one of many NFL’s most close-knit locker rooms, per week and a half in California will seemingly present ample alternatives for additional workforce bonding as Miami (8-3) dips into this gauntlet of a remaining six-game stretch of their schedule.
“Without a shadow of a doubt. A huge, huge deal to me,” McDaniel stated. “I’ve been fortunate enough to be a part of some teams, that how tight they were going into it pales in comparison to where they’re at after it.”
Spending the previous 5 seasons with the 49ers, McDaniel had a number of possibilities to spend per week on the East Coast for back-to-back street video games.
“You’ll always do more for your teammates than ultimately you’ll be able to muster up for just yourself. That kind of burns out,” McDaniel stated. “But when you’ve gotten that additional incentive, perhaps you study somebody’s previous, study a sibling they’ve, discover an curiosity. All of these issues are what’s particular a few workforce.
“The pillars of a team are always centered around relationships, and relationships grow when you invest in them. So, it’s a mandatory investment that you don’t really have anywhere to go. I’m very, very confident and certain and excited that this team with this character that cares as much about each other, it will be a wonderful opportunity.”
This two-game California swing marks the primary time the Dolphins have consecutive video games on the West Coast since 2016. That yr, Miami beat the San Diego Chargers and Los Angeles Rams en path to its most up-to-date playoff berth. The Dolphins additionally spent per week out west at first of the 2017 season, when Hurricane Irma postponed their dwelling opener towards the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and induced them to open with their Week 2 sport on the L.A. Chargers.
Quarterback Tua Tagovailoa desires to rally teammates collectively to hang around once they have free time in California.
“This is a great opportunity for our team to bond,” he stated. “It’ll simply be us, and I’d say, as captains and with our management council group, we don’t suppose that it’s vital that once we do get downtime away from soccer, guys keep of their room, or ‘Hey, I’m drained.’
“Like, ‘No, dude, you can sleep when it’s time for you to sleep.’ Let’s get guys to go out and let’s do things with our guys, whether that’s finding a basketball game to go to, trying to find a box, trying to go rent out a movie theater, trying to go watch a baseball game, whatever that may be, Top Golf. I don’t know. We’ll try to find some things that we can do that’ll help us get closer with our guys on this team.”
Said linebacker Jerome Baker: “It’s going to be a cool experience to bond with the guys. It’s really going to help because it’s going to be just us. You’re not going to have your family with you.”
Baker had hopes of trying out a Los Angeles Lakers sport to observe NBA nice and fellow Ohioan LeBron James play, nevertheless it seems the Lakers are on a street journey in the course of the Dolphins’ keep. The identical goes for the opposite NBA workforce within the metropolis, the L.A. Clippers, and the NHL’s L.A. Kings. If Dolphins gamers insist on visiting Crypto.com Arena, they will watch Disney on Ice between Dec. 8-11.
But on the finish of the day, it’s nonetheless a enterprise journey for the Dolphins, who must proceed to win forward of their rematch with the Bills in two weeks to maintain tempo with Buffalo for the AFC East lead, after the Bills topped the New England Patriots on Thursday evening.
“We’re just looking at it as two more games on the schedule against two really good opponents,” receiver Jaylen Waddle stated. “It’s going to be kind of different, us staying out there for a week, but I think we have a team that’s good at adjusting. So it’s going to be a good challenge for us.”
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Source: www.bostonherald.com