Miami Dolphins normal supervisor Chris Grier didn’t know Mike McDaniel that effectively going into the method that finally landed McDaniel the top teaching position with the staff, nevertheless, it didn’t take lengthy for Grier and the remainder of the group to turn into enamoured with the thought of him main the franchise.
McDaniel was an assistant coach that the Dolphins would all the time hear about round league circles, and there was reported curiosity in assembly with him in regards to the 2021 offseason’s offensive coordinator emptiness earlier than he was promoted to the identical position with the San Francisco 49ers.
When the Dolphins fired former coach Brian Flores on Jan. 10, instantly opening up for interviews that week, Miami needed to discover out extra about this “most swagged-out man” that Grier stored listening to about, as he stated in Wednesday feedback from the NFL scouting mix.
“You all the time type of appreciated the 49ers, like, ‘Wow, how do these guys maintain working the ball?’” stated Grier in his first session taking questions from the media since Nov. 3, the day after the commerce deadline. “How do they maintain doing what they’re doing? And also you watch them, and the sum of their elements ended up being higher than some particular person gamers — they usually have some nice particular person gamers.”
The 49ers’ run sport spearheaded the offence when San Francisco made a run to the Tremendous Bowl in 2019, after which once more when the 49ers reached the NFC Championship Recreation and misplaced to the eventual Tremendous Bowl-champion Los Angeles Rams this postseason. Earlier than the promotion to coordinator in 2021, McDaniel was the run sports coordinator from 2018 to 2020 and had the “run sports specialist” title in 2017, coming over from the Atlanta Falcons’ workers with Kyle Shanahan going from Falcons offensive coordinator to San Francisco coach.
“Everybody was all the time saying he was the type of the brains behind all the things occurring,” stated Grier, ensuring to not discredit Shanahan with that sentiment.
The Dolphins included him amongst seven identified candidates they met within a primary spherical of interviews, however even then there have been reservations across the league Grier would he of about whether or not his type could lead on a franchise, given his unconventional look for a head coach.
Any issues there might have been shortly erased as soon as that preliminary interview occurred, finally resulting in McDaniel being one in all two finalists as soon as a 3rd, Brian Daboll, took the job with the New York Giants.
“How he seems to be, you don’t assume that he can join with folks like that. However then, he’s simply bought this fashion and persona of coping with folks,” Grier stated. “Once I bought to know him and being round him, it was actually fascinating. He instructed us from Day 1 within the interview this was his dream alternative and had been ready for somebody, I suppose, to acknowledge him for all of the arduous work he’s achieved.”
Of all of the younger wiz-kid assistants on the tree of Mike and Kyle Shanahan, McDaniel had watched his friends turn into head coaches: the Rams’ Sean McVay, Inexperienced Bay Packers’ Matt LaFleur and Kyle Shanahan himself.
“He made no bones about he needed the job,” Grier recalled. “He thought it was an incredible match for him and all the things. And so, as I bought to know him extra, I turned extra excited as we spent extra time with him.”
Grier and the Dolphins pulled a 180 within the demeanor of their new coach after Flores was a strict, hard-nosed, intense persona. McDaniel is jovial. He enjoys expressing himself. He freely jokes and children, whereas sustaining a critical method to the soccer aspect of issues.
However Grier, even after proprietor Steve Ross famous Flores’ lack of communication and collaboration as causes for firing him, stated he didn’t essentially enter the teaching search on the lookout for sure traits, even when they did occur to counter Flores’ traits.
McDaniel additionally ended up profitable the job over extra than simply fellow finalist Kellen Moore, who stays Dallas Cowboys offensive coordinator, or the opposite identified candidates: Daboll, Dan Quinn, Leslie Frazier, Vance Joseph and Thomas Brown.
“I talked to some guys that you just guys didn’t even know we talked about that have been, very, within the job,” Grier stated of the method.
Grier indicated that McDaniel was a preferred selection across the league with different normal managers that have already got head coaches and would’ve thought of McDaniel subsequent time they’d a gap. They’d inform him, “You bought my man.”
Now, the hope is McDaniel can replicate the success others on his identical tree, like Shanahan, McVay and LaFleur have had, however, he brings his personal distinctive approach to it.
“He’s his personal man,” Grier stated. “I feel in case you discuss to him, he has his personal ideas and beliefs. And I feel they’re all from that very same tree and have a number of the identical type of philosophies on stuff, however, even a number of the stuff he’s talked about doing now’s so outdoors the field.”
Source: www.bostonherald.com