You know these are stressful times for Mike McDaniel when he gives a one-answer during the press conference.

If nothing else, the Miami Dolphins head coach has shown time and again during his three-plus seasons on the job that he’s very meticulous in explaining his thoughts to make sure — as much as possible — his words aren’t misconstrued.

It’s why it was impossible not to notice during his day-after-the-game media session Friday morning — after the Dolphins’ 28-6 loss against the Baltimore Ravens — his response to a question regarding his talks with team owner Stephen Ross.

The question of Zoom from beat reporter David Furones of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel was this: “I know we always choose the day after losses to ask about your conversations with Steve Ross. I wanted to ask, have they deviated at all from the normal this game and the next talk with this one, and has his tone over time changed with the amounting losses?”

McDaniel’s answer: “No.”

That’s it. Nothing else.

This was very un-McDaniel-like and a clear indication he wanted no part of having a back-and-forth about his job status, which has been the subject of much speculation amid this brutal Dolphins season.

We can only imagine his more complete answer would mirror what he said after the 31-6 loss against the Cleveland Browns in Week 7, the second of three losses this season by 22 points or more with the last one coming Thursday night.

“There is a piece of me from an integrity standpoint that I just refuse to go into that world of speculation when I’m currently holding the job,” McDaniel said on that October 19 day. “I think that’s kind of irresponsible. I do recognize and the hard part is the residual consequences, I think, of other staff members, players, just the uncertainty of that, but at this point, I don’t think anybody really is focused on any of that now. You’ve got to focus on winning a game. As far as talking to Mr. Ross, I talked to him right after the game and we talked about the game. There was a lot to talk about within that particular game, that outing. Definitely didn’t see it playing out that way, so we talked about that … I can’t speak on all of the speculative things that aren’t real as far as we’re operating, we have a lot of things to focus on and none of which is speculating on speculation.”

That McDaniel did conduct the Zoom session Friday morning obviously means he’s still head coach of the Dolphins, and the question remains whether he’ll make it through the season or possibly earn another shot for 2026, though that possibility seems more and more implausible with each passing loss.

There have multiple reports from national media insiders, whether it be ESPN or NFL Network, pertaining to Ross’ high regard toward McDaniel, to whom he gave a contract extension in 2024 despite the fact he had two years remaining on his contract.

That’s all we have go on because Ross simply doesn’t do interviews anymore beyond the occasional appearance on the team’s preseason broadcasts, produced by the team and therefore team-controlled or the statement he issued at the end of last season about the status quo not being acceptable.

One issue that always comes up with an embattled head coach is whether he has lost the locker room or the players are still hearing the message.

When asked whether his message still was getting through to the players, McDaniel had plenty to say.

“I would say so because they just used my messaging,” McDaniel said, referring to the players’ postgame comments after the Baltimore game. “That’s exactly what – the understanding and executing, they’re understanding that the details are the nitty gritty. Whether or not – I think it’s one issue to not know what those details are. It’s another issue to – the game of football, there’s 11 players, there’s high energy, it is physical and there’s a lot of demands and a lot of desire. It is so easy to – think about it like this. Let’s say we’re talking about the details of the distribution of a passing concept. You know how easy it is to forget the subtle coaching points of where your eyes should be if your focus is, ‘Man I really want to complete this to (Jaylen) Waddle.’ If you’re thinking that, there’s a detail lost. Extrapolate that to, OK, well the details are that we’re going to go on a hard count and how important it is for you to come off the ball and hit your aiming point as offensive linemen and your aiming point and your desire to come off the ball sometimes can trump the detail of the snap count.

“It’s not exclusive to, I get very frustrated when I think the veterans capable of compartmentalizing all the information fail at it. It’s another story when young guys are learning that lesson, but across the board, it’s not good enough when you’re in mid-season and you’re talking about that. You continue to talk about it and get it fixed, I think that’s the only way that you grow as players and as a team. I think the message is getting through. For various reasons that aren’t always the same, sometimes those details are getting lost in the heat of battle. How do you correct that? Well you correct it by a work week. I think we did that the week before and we didn’t do it this week, so flat out you get one win and you get one loss and that’s what it is. You’re never going to stray from that.”

What’s more troublesome than any issue about messaging would be the team’s continued operational issues.

So much was made of those going away after offensive coordinator Frank Smith moved down to the sideline for the Week 8 game against the Atlanta Falcons and the Dolphins played a clean game on their way to a 34-10 victory, but it was back to the same old issues against Baltimore.

There were the burned timeouts again to avoid delay-of-game penalties, just an awful look for a team that’s not overloaded with talent to start.

As we chronicled before, Ross has fired four head coach during his time as owner, but after firing the first two during the season (Tony Sparano in 2011, Joe Philbin in 2015), he replaced the last two after the 2016 season (Adam Gase) and after the 2021 season (Brian Flores).

While still mathematically alive, the Dolphins basically are out of playoff contention for this season, and if there is to be an in-season coaching change the logical times to do it would be now during this mini-bye (10 days between games) or during the true bye, which comes after the team’s Week 11 game against the Washington Commanders in Spain.

It’s not a good position to be in for McDaniel, to be frank, but then again nothing about this 2025 Dolphins season has been good.

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