Chris Grier Is Stuck In A Goldilocks Dilemma
Credit: Marc Lebryk-Imagn Images
Chris Grier is the sixth-longest tenured general manager in the NFL (if you exclude owners like Jerry Jones, who have total authority over their teams). Ever since Grier rose to prominence as the Miami Dolphins general manager in 2016 he’s had not one, not two, but three different opportunities to help find the right head coach to lead his team to their first division title since 2008.
For the sake of context, we have to bring Grier’s first coaching hire, Adam Gase’s, name up. Goose needs little introduction, but this was a guy who was once hailed as a “QB guru,” only for him to end up becoming a league-wide laughingstock as head coach. Mike Tannenbaum was the one calling the shots as executive vice president until 2019, so you could argue that the blood isn’t actually on Grier’s hands here, but he was complicit at the very least.
What’s indisputable is the fact that Grier was the man behind the Brian Flores head coaching hire, and subsequently Mike McDaniel. Flores and McDaniel represent two different extremes, and Grier has found himself in a Goldilocks dilemma where he’s struggling to find a head coach who is just right for this team.
Grier, who started his sports management career as a scout for the New England Patriots, worked alongside Flores in New England’s scouting department, where the duo developed a rapport. This culminated in the Dolphins hiring Flores as their head coach ahead of the 2019 season. At the time, Flores was lauded for his impressive leadership skills. To his credit, Flores knew how to command respect from his players, and the Phins’ defense played with discipline. However, his blunt personality rubbed enough people the wrong way, leading to his firing in 2022 after three seasons in Miami.
McDaniel was hired by Grier as the Miami Dolphins’ fourteenth head coach ahead of the 2022 season. McDaniel is the antithesis of Flores — while Flores is best described as the brutally honest, disciplinarian defensive guru; Mike McDaniel is the cool, laid-back, player’s coach who is perceived as one of the brighter offensive minds in football. Although, McDaniel’s reputation as a supposed offensive mastermind has taken a hit these past few weeks.
That’s because the Dolphins are playing objectively bad football right now. Yes, you can point to Tua Tagovailoa’s injury and argue that the team isn’t the same without him, but competently coached teams with backup quarterbacks have put on better performances than what Miami has over the past four weeks. Not having Tua can’t be an excuse for all the unforced penalties, turnovers, and sloppy execution on plays that should have been successful, and the general lack of situational awareness that surrounds the team.
Flores didn’t get fired because of his play-calling, it was because ownership questioned the manner in which he led the team. McDaniel’s situation sits on the opposite extreme. McDaniel has put a lot of stock into this player empowerment philosophy, where the veterans in the Dolphins locker room are supposed to be the real emotional leaders of this team. Meanwhile, McDaniel solely focuses on playcalling, game-planning, and making the occasional funny quip at his press conferences to cover for his team’s shortcomings.
If McDaniel gets let go at the end of the season, it’s going to be because the player-led locker room descends into chaos, without a respected authority figure there to restore order. There’s nothing inherently bad with this player empowerment approach, but it’s only effective when all of the emotional leaders of the locker room are consummate professionals who don’t let their emotions get in the way. These last few weeks have gone so badly that it’s hard to trust team captains Tyreek Hill and Jalen Ramsey to keep their composure amidst adversity, and it only takes a couple of players to go rogue for a coach to lose their job.
Whether it’s his partial involvement in the disastrous Gase hire, to being the primary spearhead behind the Flores saga, all the way to the present day with McDaniel, one thing is clear. Grier has been given more than one opportunity to find a coach who is just right for this Dolphins team. Unfortunately, it seems that Grier is stuck in this Goldilocks dilemma, where he keeps going from one extreme to another, desperately hoping for an answer that may never come under his watch.
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