When Mike McDaniel became the Miami Dolphins head coach for the 2022 season, it was supposed to be the start of the movie. A wiry, eccentric whizkid whose offensive genius as a coordinator would take over a flailing franchise that hadn’t won a playoff game in over a decade.

He wasn’t the prototypical hire — young, brash, a sarcastic tone to his interviews — but he represented the future of not only Miami football but the NFL as a whole. The Los Angeles Rams did it with a 30-year-old Sean McVay, and the Dolphins were next up, tying the future of their franchise to three men: McDaniel, 2020 No. 5 overall pick Tua Tagovailoa as quarterback, and speedster superstar Tyreek Hill at wideout.

This trio would change the narrative about the Miami Dolphins football team. No longer would the undefeated 1972 Dolphins and Dan Marino’s never winning a Super Bowl be the only two talking points the leaguewide media brought up when talking about the franchise. It was the coming of a new age, and with a wry smile and a South Park-style quip, McDaniel would be puppeteering a revolution for our very eyes.

When McDaniel’s Dolphins beat the Denver Broncos 70–20 in week three of the 2023 season, it was the zenith. The speed, complexity, and trickery all rolled into one, steamrolling an opposition into dust. The Dolphins were too fast and too many steps ahead for the Broncos, making them a circus act while De’Von Achane rushed around, behind, and through them for 203 yards.

Two years later, Mike McDaniel stood on the sideline as rain poured over in a hoodie, his eyes masked by sunglasses. What would have been a visual back in 2023 was now nothing more than melancholy and depressing. The Dolphins were getting blown out by one of the worst offensive teams in football, the Cleveland Browns, as that innovative offense had become a shadow of itself.

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Hill was out indefinitely with another injury and was posting on social media about other games while the Dolphins limped around in the mud. The must-watch attraction of the team had transformed into the must-look-away elephant in the room, waiting for his time out until he’s cut at the end of the year.

Tagovailoa went out there on Sunday and was a husk of the version hyped up in 2023. He was still the same player in look and uniform, but after years of physical damage to his body, a fractured offense, and a blueprint that the rest of the league had already figured out, there was nothing but a man trying to hang on to his dream. Over the course of the game, he’d throw three interceptions, a shocking statistic for most quarterbacks and another Sunday for Tagovailoa.

McDaniel’s one-liners had gone stale with the team ripping apart at the seams. Players sitting out, players pushing others under the bus, and him, at the center of it all, gone from charming prodigy to depressing jester. The ideas and plays that were putting up 70 points in 2023 were now scouted and prepared for. He’s become a tired magician, reaching for the rabbit out of his hat, only for the audience to roll their eyes at a trick they’ve seen a thousand times before.

As rookie Quinn Ewers replaced Tagovailoa on Sunday and instantly almost threw a pick of his own, it was the end of this short era in Dolphins history. Hill is already all but out the door, Tagovailoa either needs a chance of scenery or to preserve his health altogether, and McDaniel looks like a masterful coordinator who couldn’t transition to being a head coach.

At 1-6, an organization fractured and a team broken physically and emotionally, this is the eulogy of the 2025 Miami Dolphins season. They took an admirable, mighty swing at the status quo, and it failed.

Next, as they look towards the rest of the year and the draft, thoughts move from saving a season to salvaging anything they can. A new era of the Miami Dolphins awaits, and a playoff victory drought of a quarter-century weighs on every decision.