Omar Kelly: Dolphins need to show they haven't quit on Mike McDaniel

MIAMI — We are not officially past the point of no return, but we’re speed walking toward it.

The Miami Dolphins are a poorly built football team that is injury depleted, error-prone, lacking leadership, and most importantly, toughness.

These problems, which many of us suspected were issues coming into this season, can’t be argued based on the team’s 1-6 start, and how this 2025 rendition of South Florida’s NFL franchise has performed in those seven games.

Miami got blown out 33-8 by the Indianapolis Colts, which happens to be one of the best teams in the NFL this season, and the Cleveland Browns on Sunday, which can easily be described as one of the worst.

The Dolphins have lost four fourth-quarter games where the score was tied, or Miami possessed a lead in the final period.

The New England Patriots got Miami on a costly kickoff that was returned for a touchdown. The Buffalo Bills sealed their 31-21 win when they intercepted Tua Tagovailoa late in the fourth quarter.

Miami’s defense collapsed in a 27-24 fourth-quarter loss to Carolina when the defense gave up a lead in the game’s final four minutes, and Miami’s offense sputtered on the final possession.

And the defense collapsed in a 29-27 loss to the Los Angeles Chargers despite Tagovailoa handing that unit a 27-26 lead with 46 seconds left.

Miami’s lone victory came against the New York Jets at home, and in that contest Miami’s fellow AFC East bottom-dweller coughed up the ball three times, one of which occurred on the 1-yard line.

Unless this team magically becomes hot — winning at least eight of the team’s final 10 games to produce a winning record — this season, and more importantly this rebuild, which started in 2019, has been a total disaster.

The only remaining question is whether Mike McDaniel’s players have stopped believing in their coaches and quit on him?

The Cleveland performance hints they might have, but if we examine the errors made with a magnifying glass we discover is that the game was simply a poop storm of self-inflicted wounds, undisciplined play and bad-weather sloppiness mixed in with injuries.

“Based upon the play of the team it’s very fair to worry about [that], which is why it was important for me to really take measure of the players in and out of the building to get a better beat on that,” McDaniel said when asked if he’s certain the players haven’t checked out on the season. “I spent a little bit more time (with them), changed my routine to know for myself by being around them more, and knowing exactly where they are at with direct communication.”

McDaniel said he has had two separate hour-long meetings with Tagovailoa, who is coming off his worst NFL game Sunday.

Now I’m curious how the Dolphins — not just Tagovailoa — respond?

Especially when the offensive line is a disaster from a pass protection standpoint, and reinforcements aren’t coming anytime soon. McDaniel threatened to make changes after the Browns loss, but history proves he’s all talk and no action, sparingly made depth chart changes.

Miami’s offense was already playing without Tyreek Hill, who sustained a season-ending knee injury three weeks ago, and must now play a stretch of games without tight end Darren Waller, who sustained a pectoral injury against the Browns and was placed on injured reserve.

Those injuries will send Tagovailoa into a gun fight — a road contest against the NFL’s second-best defense (256.1 yards allowed per game — with two bullets (De’Von Achane and Jaylen Waddle) and a couple dull knives.

Players who haven’t contributed anything of substance this season — tight ends Julian Hill, Tanner Conner and Greg Dulcich, receivers Dee Eskridge, Cedric Wilson Jr. and Nick Westbrook-Ikhine, and tailbacks Ollie Gordon and Jaylen Wright — must step up and make plays.

But as Tim Gund, who is from the fashion designer show “Project Runway,” would say when he saw a designer’s hot mess in the middle of its construction: “Make it work!”

We’ll see if this team can, but history proves that when it comes to fight or flight, these Dolphins are travel pros..

But it’s dangerous to assume we’re 100% certain how McDaniel’s team will respond.

Back in 2021 a Brian Flores led Dolphins team won eight of that season’s final nine games after beginning that season 1-7. Six players from that team are still on Miami’s roster.

Last season, McDaniel’s team rallied from a 2-6 start to win six of the season’s final nine games, proving a turnaround can be done if they unify, lock in and fight together.

Easier said than done of course, but Sunday’s game against the Falcons will tell us all if this bleak season is salvageable, or if McDaniel’s team has quit on him and is going through the motions.

“They have been very focused on the Atlanta Falcons, which is the only thing that I care about,” McDaniel said. “If you don’t have 100% focus on the opponent, the opponent will make you regret that.”

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