The Miami Dolphins faithful wore their frustrations just like head coach Mike McDaniel did in Thursday night’s 28-6 loss to the Baltimore Ravens: On their sleeves.
At multiple points during the loss, Dolphins fans booed the home team, including taunts directed at the coach. Prime Video showed shot after shot after shot after shot of Miami fans with paper bags or even popcorn bowls over their heads — a universal sign of “we’re ashamed of the team we love.” When the Ravens went up 28-6 in the third quarter, many didn’t even bother to boo. They just left the field.
After the loss, McDaniel was asked how he handles fans booing his 2-7 club.
“Yes, personally you want to dictate the terms. You want to fix things and yes, it’s miserable. “All of these things do. But I think it’s a pretty consistent formula where the fans enjoy winning and so our expectation is that we have to get the job done and do the right things for the fans to enjoy the experience and unfortunately we didn’t do that tonight, so we had to go back to work to give them something to be happy about.”
Like the fans, McDaniel couldn’t always keep his emotions in check, and he vented his frustrations several times on the sideline, from a subdued question to the sky to an explosion after a false start by right tackle Larry Borom on what was supposed to be a fourth down.
“It was self-inflicted,” the coach said of his side’s reaction to the false start. “We’ve put a lot of focus on everything about our offense and in that crucial fourth-and-1, where we were pretty fired up with the defensive look — that’s what we were calling the game for. And it’s just a management thing that our team knows that’s going to stop you from winning. So I was mad at nothing but our self-injury.”
With said job, McDaniel feels the heat of South Beach. Last week’s win in Atlanta provided some respite, but the Dolphins couldn’t build on it, turning the ball over three times, committing key penalties and falling apart after halftime.
Despite outscoring Baltimore early, Miami trailed by eight at the break. Then the dam broke and McDaniels’ team didn’t have the guts to recover.
“You had red zone turnovers, red zone turnovers on downs,” McDaniel said, listing his team’s miscues. “You have a turnover and miss a field goal. In general, it’s a bad omen to be very capable of leading and being down — to go up six points in the first half with, I think, two-thirds possession if I remember correctly. It’s setting yourself up for failure.
“And we were minus-three (in turnovers) and they were three-on-three in the red zone and we didn’t get a touchdown. There were elements of the football confidence that was created last week, but the bottom line is you’ve got to cross your T’s and dot your I’s in Premier League football or you get paid. 10 days I know the locker room wants to go play another Thursday night in four days to get that bad taste out of their mouths.
The question in Miami this Halloween is whether McDaniel will still be in charge when the Dolphins return to action in 10 days.