ORLANDO — The Miami Dolphins will be a significantly different team in 2024 than 2023.
But will they be significantly worse? Some believe that’s the case after saying goodbye to half their starting defense and their best offensive lineman (Robert Hunt).
You probably won’t be shocked to learn that the head coach of the Miami Dolphins sees it differently.
Mike McDaniel on Miami Dolphins 2024 Expectations
Mike McDaniel for the first time Monday weighed in on the lowered expectations shared by many outside of team HQ amid an offseason of change.
Here was his response in full at the NFL’s Annual League Meeting:
“You’re talking to a guy that is very well-versed in expectations or lack thereof — just in life. I don’t really attach any emotion to it. I can tell you one thing: Every single player that was on the team last year and the year before and every single player that we’ve added this offseason and every single coach that we’ve added this offseason, their expectations are to help fulfill goals unaccomplished.
“There’s been zero time spent thinking anything less bold or less aggressive than the way we approach every season. To trivialize a season or to say — For me, I have a hard time expressing what our team is going to be like as the head coach without ever being around the team. I think everybody’s individual expectations are extremely high. The more people lower their expectations, it’s kind of erroneous or irrelevant.”
McDaniel, who is 20-14 in the regular season but 0-2 in the playoffs as the Dolphins coach, continued: “But I know that starting April 15th, guys are very, very hungry to deliver on what they know, which is an opportunity to be on a team that has the ability to grow from what we’ve learned last year and what we went through and have zero thought as to down [year], rebuilding, whatever those words are, that makes zero sense to me.
“Fans are going to pay to try to watch us play football and people don’t go to games to watch people lose. And people’s careers, this will be the most important year of every single player’s career because it’s the only one that exists, and we’ve talked about that.”
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Certainly, a lot needs to go right for the Dolphins to improve on last year’s 11-6 season.
The offensive and defensive lines still have big-time questions.
Past-their-prime veteran additions like Shaq Barrett and Jordan Poyer need to find old magic.
And Tua Tagovailoa, who wants a new contract that will make it even harder to acquire the best players, must take yet another big step forward in his development.
Even with all of these concerns, bettors still largely expect the Dolphins to be in the hunt this fall.
They have the league’s ninth-shortest odds to win the title (+1900), the fifth-shortest odds to emerge from the AFC to play in the Super Bowl, and are -175 to make the playoffs, per DraftKings.
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