What they said: Dolphins players, coaches react to loss vs Cardinals, 2-5 season

The Miami Dolphins fell to 2-5 on the season with a Week 8 loss to the Arizona Cardinals. In a game that started with the return of quarterback Tua Tagovailoa and a spark to the offense, the team collapsed down the stretch and lost on a last-second field goal. The kick dashed Miami’s hopes of turning around a rough start to the season, and 2024 now feels like a bad year, instead of a bad start to a year.

How did the coaches and players react after the game and on Monday as they reflected on yet another loss? We take a look at what they said and where the team needs to go from here.

Quarterback Tua Tagovailoa’s return from the injured reserve list

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Tagovailoa on how it felt to be back in a game: It feels good. It feels good to be able to come back and play with my teammates, to hopefully help in whatever way I can to get a spark going for us offensively or get the mojo going for the entire team. It feels good but a tough loss today against a really good team, so that diminishes not just what I’ve done, but a lot of what other guys have done individually as well.

Tagovailoa on if he was able to get back into rhythm after missing four games: I would say I felt like myself. Like I said, I’ve been preparing for five weeks as if I were to play while I was on IR so that’s what it was. So it felt normal coming out there.

Tagovailoa on making adjustment to his game to remain available for the team: Yeah, so I would definitely agree with you. I’m just trying to avoid the big hits if I can. Sometimes they’re unavoidable. If there’s a free rusher and you got to get the ball out, you take a hit, but just for me putting myself in those situations, I would say just obviously for the past five weeks, I have been able to just really think and ponder about my decisions.

Head coach Mike McDaniel on his assessment of Tagovailoa’s return (Sunday): I thought it’s kind of what I expected. He did a real good job on third down but collectively I think the bigger thing was that we had a little bit more of our brand of football that we felt that is probably a silver lining if we weren’t sitting at 2-5. Guys didn’t really care about – when I tell you they’ve been all in on winning and falling short is hard for everyone, but we would have taken 3-2 as the win, but you can’t. There are no silver linings, really, in this loss. It’s testing us for sure. I feel good about the human beings we have. I feel like we’ve begun going all in with each other each and every week and it still hasn’t been enough, but the answer is not to take the foot off the gas. It’s to take a hard look, which will probably be pretty rough tomorrow, but that is what it is. We have to fix it. We have to get the win, and there’s going to be, moving forward, no team’s going to frankly give a shit about our problems.

McDaniel on how Tagovailoa protected himself during the game (Sunday): I think Tua had his mind — I think the time (out), this season on this team, it really left an impression on the residuals of his decisions, so we had talks leading up to it. I think the biggest thing was that he knew his teammates were going to give him a chance to play a pretty clean game. He had a good amount of clean pockets and then when he didn’t, he was decisive and kept himself out of harm’s way and I think that’s big for our team as we try to get through this rut.

McDaniel on if he changed anything in the gameplan to better protect Tagovailoa (Sunday): I think it’s always been part of my job and seeing how there were injuries to the quarterback four games into my tenure here, I think that’s kind of old hat. We just kind of play our ball and as a coach, you make sure that you either have the protection or you have opportunistic situations for the eligibles to get people open in the time of the play, so he can do what he does. But I don’t think you can do right by a football team if the guys playing the game, you have to – you can’t really think about anything but how do we move the ball and score points. So I thought it was good for his teammates. I think the team felt this was, at times, more of a picture of what we had envisioned the entire time for how we played football, but it wasn’t clean enough to win and that’s the big takeaway for me.

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McDaniel on reacting to Tagovailoa’s run and slide for a first down (Sunday): Yeah, my reaction was I think he’s going to get the first down. I’m pretty sure what he’s going to do, but you never know until it happens and it was what I forecasted he would do. But when he’s mindful and not trying to run defenders over, he generally is able to stay pretty healthy, so I was excited that he didn’t hesitate and that he was very convicted in how he approached space, found space, and got himself down.

Tackle Terron Armstead on playing with Tagovailoa again: It felt better, it felt more rhythmic. We were able to get some first downs, some good drives going, good momentum. We had a couple drives that we would love to have back and finish with some touchdowns instead of field goals. You know what I mean, in hindsight, they always tend to bite you. So we can work toward that, you know? Execute better in the red zone and walk away with touchdowns instead of field goals.

Armstead on Tagovailoa’s run and slide: It was great. Great energy from the fans, that embrace. This team, we’ve been through some adversity for sure. So, it was a good moment. For Tua to be fearless, go run, get that first down, slide, the reaction from the fans; it was a great moment.

Wide receiver Jaylen Waddle on Tagovailoa’s return: It was great. He came back ready to play, guns blazing. So, it was good. We needed him.

Waddle on if the team feels different with Tagovailoa playing: Definitely. He’s our guy. That’s our leader, that’s our captain. He does a great job of commanding the team and the offense.

Defensive lineman Calais Campbell on watching Tagovailoa on Sunday: He played a heck of a ball game. Tua played a heck of a ball game. He gave us a chance to win and it was fun to watch, you know? He was scrambling for that first down on 39 in the red zone, you’re like ‘slide, slide, slide, don’t try to get no courage there.’ But he’s smart. He knows don’t take unnecessary risks, but he’s a phenomenal quarterback. It’s different when he’s out there and it’s good to see him out there. He played a great ball game. It hurts that we didn’t win this ball game, especially for him, but for all of us just because of where we’re at as a team, but as long as there’s life left, we’re going to fight. I still believe this team has everything it takes to win and hopefully we’re building character. Obviously it doesn’t really matter until you do something with it, say all the right stuff but none of it really matters. It just comes down to believing and fighting and hopefully executing and getting back in this thing, you know?

Running back De’Von Achane on how it feels to see Tagovailoa back: It feels good to be out there with him. To see him back comfortable and him back in the offense, but like you said we always want to win games. Of course, our end goal is to always come out with a win. So, of course you got somebody that’s going to be down but you just have to get back to work.

Fullback Alec Ingold on Tagovailoa’s return and how the offense responds: It felt good, man. It felt good to have ‘One’ (Tua Tagovailoa) back. It felt good to be able to roll the way we did, but again, I think we had the ball with eight minutes left. We can’t end that drive in a punt and I think there’s a lot of guys, a lot of spots in that place where we all could have stepped up a little bit better. So it felt good to get in the end zone, it felt good to have those explosive plays, but good wasn’t good enough.

A 2-5 start and what’s next for the team

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Tagovailoa on what the team does now: We got to keep chopping wood. That’s it. Keep chopping wood. Don’t look for any external motivation from anyone. Just look within. What can we do to get better? What can we do to continue to encourage each other? Because that’s what it takes. It takes everyone inside that locker room if we want to get to where we want to go.

Tagovailoa on if there is enough time for the team to turn around the season: I think there’s always time, brother. There’s always time. Seventeen games. That’s a long time. A lot of games. So whether we’re counted out or we’re not, it doesn’t matter. We’re going to continue to play football. A lot of people in here know that I don’t know how many years ago we started out 1-7. We didn’t have half the guys that we have, and no disrespect to my other teammates, but I’m talking about the talent that we have here, we didn’t have half that talent however many years ago. So to give that group respect, we won the next (seven) games and I’m not saying we’re going to do that or whatnot, but it is possible. Anything’s possible. So we’re going to continue to trust each other, lean on each other, believe in each other, and we’re going to go do it next week.

McDaniel on what he is telling the team at 2-5 (Sunday): I know one thing, that — pardon my French, but no opponent that we play the rest of the year will give a shit. Yeah, we’re 2-5. Disappointed and it’s frustrating. I thought there were positives and negatives to the game and it’s magnified because of the situation we’ve put ourselves in. Situations like that, as tough as it is, it has to be – you have to immediately take your energy towards the next game while learning lessons from this game. I thought we had absolutely every chance to win it. I think collectively there is some – we always play really hard. I thought there was more execution but there were critical mistakes that I think it was tough to overcome one of the stronger games I’ve seen by a quarterback in Kyler Murray. He made a lot of plays for them and we can’t put ourselves in that situation as a team.

McDaniel on where the team is headed (Sunday): Yeah, it’s a significant challenge. It kind of reminds me of — at this point, I can’t remember what the streak was, maybe it was two games or three in 2022 and we had that night game. I think the biggest thing is that you have to understand that all the heartbreak has to go into your next opponent. It’s the next opponent and it’s a divisional game and I know we have all the reason in the world to have 110 percent invested in it, so that’s what my expectation will be. I think it’s rough – 2-5 is rough. But in the NFL season, you can’t really take what your record is at this stage and extrapolate. That’s where you get causes for concern. You have to go take your best game and try to win one football game and I think that’s a really cool football place to play, and guys – I think we have the right guys and if they weren’t motivated for this one, they would be the wrong guys, and I’m not nervous about that. Just want to make sure that all of our energy is put towards what we’re able to do, not what has been done.

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Campbell on what he tells the team at 2-5: I mean, to fight, you know? To stay the course, stay together. At the end of the day, nobody’s going to come and get us out of this hole. It’s just us. Ain’t nobody coming to save the day. It’s us going out there and fighting, playing for 60 minutes, preparing the best we can and leaving it all out there on the football field. I think the belief and knowing that if we put the work in is going to pay off. If we sacrifice, it’s going to pay off. That’s the ball game. That’s the season. That’s what everything is about. We have so many players that are capable of making plays to help us win ball games, but we’ve got to believe, we got to stay focused and keep putting the work in and eventually the tide has to turn.

Safety Jordan Poyer on his reaction to how the season has started: It’s football, right? It’s frustrating, for sure. I think everybody here is frustrated, but at the same time, we do have opportunities ahead of us. It’s in times like these where you really got to just put your nose down and work, man. Nobody is coming to save us; nobody is going to feel sorry for us. So just trying to do one percent extra throughout the week and try to motivate the guys around you to do one percent extra and continue to stay the course and have that belief that things will turn, because what a cool opportunity this week to go to Buffalo, extremely well-coached football team and we’re excited, like I said, about the opportunity so why not?

Poyer on having optimism about the next 10 weeks: Opportunity – that’s life, right? You get hit in the mouth, that’s life. What are you going to do next? It’s one of two options – you’re going to fold or you’re going to just keep going and keep moving. Things may not fall the way that you see them, but you keep moving and you keep grinding. That’s a lesson in football and in life. I know I lot of y’all have probably gotten hit in the mouth before in life, what do you do? Do you just fold and just kind of tuck away, or do you keep moving? People say X, Y, Z about X, Y, Z, what are you going to do about it? So that’s my mindset and I know that’s the team’s mindset, let’s just continue to work, continue to grind. Yeah, we’re not in the place where we want to be, but we’ve got opportunities in front of us, and so why not?

Tackle Austin Jackson on if the locker room is still optimistic: Yeah, definitely still optimistic. There are 10 games left in the season, but I think that 24-hour rule where we’re not happy with the outcome of the game, for sure, but that’s definitely fuel for us going forward. We still have 10 games left to put everything in our hands in terms of how we play football, control what we can control.

Jackson on the level of frustration in the locker room: The level is high right now. We’re already kind of in a time where we want to win more games than we have so we’re definitely frustrated and turning that frustration into something more productive, turning that frustration to more production. So just understanding that our margin of error is really slim for winning. That will feed into how we practice, how we play, how we look at the game going forward. And like I said earlier, we still have 10 games left, so – I mean that’s exciting to have 10 games left still and get an opportunity to get back some mistakes in previous games that we made.

Jackson on why the margin for winning is slim: I feel like around the league in general, if the game’s not a blowout – like there’s usually just a couple more plays or situations that you would want to get back. Blowout win, there’s probably a lot to clean up but being in the NFL, most games are closer and whatever team has the least amount of mistakes usually comes out with the win.

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Jackson on why he remains optimistic: Because I believe in this team, I believe in the work ethic and the talent that we have here. Talent means nothing without hard work and through this situation where we haven’t won the games that we wanted to, I’ve seen guys pick up their work ethic, I’ve seen guys not complain, not point the finger, stuff like that. It just kind of tells me we got a bunch of people ready to win and do the right things to win.

Ingold on the mood in the locker room: I think it’s been obviously a tough start to the year. Like you said, 2-5, nobody had that scheduled for this team, this crew. So being able to stop hesitating and ask ourselves what’s going on and just continuing to try and fix problems I think is the biggest thing on these Mondays, is refocusing, recalibrating from what just happened, what does it mean and how do we use it to move forward. I think that’s really the state of the union on this Monday and I think that really helps put lot of things in perspective on a Tuesday and then showing up Wednesday with everything focused on how to win the very next week.

Ingold on why he remains optimistic: You can feel it on the field. It’s the weirdest feeling and you sound kind of insane when you feel that way because of the results, but when we’re moving, we’re operating; there’s times in games where we had 10 points, when we had 27 and you can just feel the – something is in the air. And I can’t put my finger on it, but it’s improvement. It’s development. You watch our tape from Week 2 to last week – there are guys that have made mistakes, have fixed it, have corrected it and have improved on it and you can feel that. You get a sense of this organization, this team coming together through a 2-5 start that nobody thought was going to happen and you sound crazy talking about it when you’re 2-5, but the only way is through. The only way is to continue on this process. The only way through is to continue to trust and build on what we believe have been lessons, not scars and that’s a Mike McDaniel-ism, but it’s something that is really true and it hits the nail on the head for a lot of reasons.

Ingold on the little mistakes the team is making: I think it’s death by a thousand paper cuts right now and it’s like, man, we were able to overcome so many of those situations in past years and that’s not been the case this season. So to have that consistent voice, to continue to not get tired or feel sorry for yourself or waste any emotion on things that don’t value or add value to winning a football game; there’s no room for that. There’s no room for close. There’s no room for ‘Oh, that might have been good enough.’ They’re non-negotiables at this point and that sense of urgency, that sense of attention to detail, I think that’s all the way throughout this organization. Everybody has to – it doesn’t matter who wins or loses the game, it’s that continual improvement and that’s what we need to find and we need to win along the way while we’re doing it.

Linebacker Emmanuel Ogbah on the 2-5 start and how they can turn around the season: It’s not too late. We’ve still got a lot of games left to be played. We got a divisional opponent coming up, we’ve got to go out there and handle business.

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McDaniel on why he is optimistic the team can still turn around the season: Well, from my standpoint, the things that have come up this season are very much things that this collection of players and coaches needed to really conquer to get our ultimate goals, which we’ve never hid from. I think when you’re pretty clear about what you want from the season and from the team and you’re not eliminated from those circumstances, I think we’re optimistic because it’s not that we’ve made our climb more difficult or haven’t made the climb more difficult – absolutely we have – but conquering the things that have kept us from winning some of these games are some of the things that we went into the season focused on that we knew we had to work through. It’s a lot less about who we play and where we play and how we play. I think one game at a time and being able to continue that evolution, we aren’t as far off based upon tape and empirical facts. We’re not that far off from being able to challenge any team we play each and every week. So to me, and it’s also based upon empirical experience – I’ve been on teams that have been sub-.500 before. I’ve been on teams that have finished the season that way and I’ve been on teams that have utilized that to start to win one game and then snowball and I think that as long as you have the buy-in and the effort and you continue to learn lessons, now you just are more accountable for those lessons and can’t trip yourself up in a multitude of ways. A ‘for instance’ would be, I think we’ve learned lessons for playing more penalty-free football. So that was hard earned that we had to learn the hard way. Do you take that and apply that moving forward as your standard? Then it’s not a lesson in vain. And with this team and the type of individuals we have, nobody’s ever been afraid of a challenge. The National Football League is not very forgiving and you learn some hard lessons and you have some situations where you and the crew that you’re working with every day are about the only people that believe and that’s not a bad thing necessarily. But I believe in people that give me reason to believe. Individually, I have a lot of belief in really everybody that comprises our team and now collectively, we just have to continue to do the hard thing which is work and not get results and continue to work. So I think that a lot of guys have a lot of pride and expectations and this is one of – no year in the National Football League is anything but a gigantic opportunity relative to every player’s total career timeline, and it’s very important to these guys. So we’ll continue to work incessantly and I think the biggest thing is that however the season is, and we’re sitting at 2-5 and that is real and you have less room for error as the season progresses – that is real – how big of lessons were those things? All the pain and sorrow that goes through learning these lessons, how real are these lessons learned and I believe that we have the right guys to get that fixed and so we’ll press forward with no other thought, but that’s to be proud of the game we put out there and understand what it takes for this team to win against any opponent. And the biggest opponent that we have to overcome is ourselves, really, each and every week. And if we can do the little things that it takes to win football games, all you have to do is be the best football team on that day in that stadium and then things will take care of themselves. Long season, it’s front-loaded with results that nobody’s accepting and have a lot of guys that are trying to be the reasons for the solution and not the reasons of the problem.

Giving up a safety against the Cardinals

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Tagovailoa on what happened on the snap that led to a safety: I got to catch the ball. That’s it. So, yeah.

McDaniel on what happened on the snap that led to a safety (Sunday): I think if you ask both of them, Brew (center Aaron Brewer) would say he should have taken a little steam off of it, and Tua said he should have caught it. The bottom line is backed up, we can’t have those type of issues. You can’t just give free points to people, so collectively, I think the way I like to handle it is, all right, we can’t go in shotgun or pistol backed up until you guys tell me you can. As competitors, they’ll take that challenge. They know, and Tua’s hand-eye coordination’s outstanding, so he’ll be up for the challenge, but you just can’t expect to win a close game (with plays like that). That ended up being the difference in terms of points but it wasn’t just that play. There’s a multitude of things that ended up in points, like not connecting and settling for a field goal on the 7-yard line earlier. Those are things that add up, so hard lessons and they have to be lessons learned if you want it to change and so we’ll have an opportunity to do that. It’ll be a long week, but we get what we deserve.

The offense’s play against the Cardinals

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Tagovailoa on the offense playing like a unit: Well, I think there’s a lot of things we can continue to get better at. As a unit, we look to end the drive with points every time we’re out there. I believe we’re too talented to not end drives with points, so we got to go take a look at what we can continue to do to get better for our team, to put points on the board so that a situation like that doesn’t happen.

Tagovailoa on if getting the ball to wide receiver Tyreek Hill was an emphasis of the gameplan: It was an emphasis to get everyone involved in the game. For sure Tyreek, but as you can see with how they played their defense, they were really keying ‘Reek and trying to keep a shield over him and when they did give us opportunities we tried to take advantage of those, with those one-on-ones with ‘Reek. Outside of that, we were just playing the plays as they were, reading it out.

Tagovailoa on the team’s 11-for-15 third-down success: I would say good Thursday practices with that. I would say everyone’s been locked in with – what I would say is what I expect of them with where to be on the field, knowing what to do in certain looks and whatnot. I would say that’s a testament to the guys in studying within their playbook.

Waddle on the offense not able to put the game away on the last drive: It’s always the little details in close games like that. We definitely want to end the game with the ball. We’re going to be better. Got to be better.

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Achane on the offense not able to put the game away on the last drive: I think it was just little mistakes as far as like just little details that we don’t think about, but we really do. That’s really it, like you said. I feel like we didn’t have a lot of penalties that we’ve been having. I feel like we cleaned up in that area, but as far as little details we just have to make sure that we hone in on those things.

McDaniel on getting the ball to Hill and how the Cardinals defended the wide receiver (Monday): Well first of all, I think it was one of my favorite games Tyreek has had since I’ve been here. And there are a lot of games that he’s had a ton of numbers, but what is required from one of your best players, making plays with and without the ball, he was such an impact player. There were a couple times that I think the stat line could be more normal to what people would be expecting in terms of three-digit yardage and stuff. There was a leverage on a third down that was kind of messed up and then pocket movement took Tua (Tagovailoa) off of him in the second half on another, so there was more opps. I thought he was convicted as he has ever been on the line of scrimmage. There were a couple times that he was No. 1, that he knows he was but the defense, not the guy guarding him but some of the underneath stuff kind of took the ball out of his hands. But you want to talk about a guy that has tried to that is actually not just speaking that he hates to lose, but he is putting into action some of the best – he threw some of the best blocks and then got depth in the timing of the play, was a factor on third down, was a factor on first and second and it was as complete of a game as he’s played. There were a couple of times that we were trying to get him the ball in the second half and the defense decided to over-invest in guarding him and good offense allows for other opportunities for other players. For instance, Jonnu Smith’s last third down conversion – the third-and-12 I believe. That’s something that Tua had his eyes on ‘Reek,’ (Tyreek Hill) but that over-focus on ‘Reek’ gives you some opportunities for other guys. So I was very, very happy. As a matter of fact, showed the team an example of two things can always be true – you can fail, which our team failed, but we can get closer to the everything that we’ve been trying to grow into from the second that last year ended. We can have growth in certain areas as well, so we’re trying to have across the board growth and the best way to do that is to have one of the best players in the league and the top player on your team to exemplify that, which is what he did.

McDaniel on the limited role for wide receiver Odell Beckham, Jr., and how he can improve his playing time: No, timeline for how everything has played out has been I’m sure challenging in talking to Odell – the snaps that he had, not targeted, which a couple of them he was primary and the shell of the defense dictated the – but I thought he looked as comfortable as he’s looked and. I think Tua sees that on tape and we kind of adjust to what players show us and I thought he was running the best routes, so my expectation would be more involvement based upon him being consensual in that and owning that much more of the offense so we can get him on the field more. So I think it was a step in the right direction, albeit, the box score doesn’t really assess that. From our standpoint from the way we look at offense and the way we look at doing our jobs, I thought he did a good job with the opportunities he had, and we’ll continue to push that envelope because we’re trying to max out what type of football team we are and we know he can help us.

The defense’s play against the Cardinals

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McDaniel on if the team was too blitz heavy (Sunday): No, I think that was kind of the game plan going in and you know the stress that you put on coverage and you know you try to be effective in rush lanes. I think hindsight is 20/20. I did agree with our game plan going into it and in those situations, the guys know that it does put a high priority on guys that are free and have a shot at the quarterback, that you have to really rely on your technique and fundamentals, especially with a guy like that. I’m sure when I look at the tape there will be a handful of plays that we’ll talk through, Weave (Anthony Weaver) and I. But for the most part I thought guys were in position to make plays and there were just some critical ones we didn’t make and they did and that’s how you score more points than the opponent.

Campbell on the defense in the second half: Missed opportunities, you know, Kyler Murray played a great game and it’s heart-breaking because I feel like we played great defense the last few weeks. First half, we were rolling and, it’s the NFL, though. It’s a momentum game and Kyler made some big-time plays in big moments and the ball kind of just bounced their way in moments, too. Like rarely do you get a sack fumble and the quarterback picks it up and throws it away and then goes and scores a touchdown that drive. It’s just like, wow. Like what happens in that moment is just — it’s tough. But you got to take your hat off. Kyler Murray played a heck of a game.

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Campbell on trying to tackle Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray: It’s tough. He’s up there in the best in the business making guys miss and we had a lot of opportunities on him. A lot of guys, unblocked, getting to him and he just makes a guy miss and throws the ball away. Those are hidden yardage, those are big plays, especially when it comes to momentum and the way the ball game goes. Those plays – you make them, it’s a whole different ball game. Too many times and I think just we got in a situation where they kind of run past and they run the ball well late in that last drive and it’s heartbreaking and then just that last play Kyler did to get that third and four or whatever, you know he’s going to keep the ball, just, like man, inches, game of inches. He just make a heck of a play. You’ve got to take your hat off to him, great ball game.

Campbell on the defense missing several key members due to injuries: I mean, you remove players that’s tough, you know? You lose players, it’s tough. I don’t know exactly what happened to the guys – just kind of like you’re in the full speed thick of things and things just kind of happen and you realize guys are not out there anymore. It’s not like there’s a big announcement or anything like that. I noticed that ‘8’ (Jevón Holland) wasn’t out there and he’s a tone-setter. He’s a big-time player for us and that was a big loss. I don’t even know how many – you just gave me more information just now. I didn’t even realize. It’s kind of like do your job and farm your own land and make sure I’m on point but any time you lose guys, that makes it tough, just changes things, communication and flow and rhythm and rapport. All that stuff matters so Zach (Sieler) not being out there is huge and guys stepped up and played well in his absence, but it’s just a difference when you have the rapport and that connection. I think especially in the pass rush game and stuff like that, he’s such a force but (Da’Shawn) Hand played great. I feel like we had opportunities to win the ball game we just didn’t.

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Campbell on the defense’s struggles with Cardinals wide receiver Marvin Harrison, Jr.: He made some big-time catches. Two really big ones on the sideline, one for the touchdown that they reviewed. Those were huge plays. Tough balls, Kyler gave him an opportunity and he made the catches. Great players in this league all around and he’s another one. Good, young player that’s probably going to be really good in this league for a long time to come as long as he stays healthy. As a football fan, I admire talent and greatness and I like to see guys develop, but it sure hurts when they do it to you. It sure when they make big plays against us, so it is what it is.

Campbell on the defense’s struggles to cover Cardinals tight end Trey McBride: I mean, I think he just – we had good coverage on him, he just made plays. They do a good job of finding ways to get him the ball in space and stuff. A lot of times it’s deep to short and take the check down to him and he makes guys miss because he’s a great athlete but another great player. Talented as can be. It’s just football. You go back and forth, but they made enough plays to win and we didn’t. I feel like we’ve got great players and we could win this ball game the majority of the time, especially the way the game went. It was our game probably nine out of ten times, but rolling, got momentum and then I think, you know, safety, touchdown, ball game changes, you know?

Poyer on the defense’s struggles to cover McBride: Good player, we made some mistakes, but he’s a good player. It’s a good offense, and when it comes down to it, we’ve got to make some more plays – one more play than they did. But yeah, he’s a good player and we definitely left some plays out there, for sure.

Poyer on the run defense versus the Cardinals and looking ahead to the Bills: It starts with stopping the run, but obviously yesterday we did that but he was still able to throw for 300 yards. Stopping the run is the first priority, any time you come into a game to force a team to have to throw the ball in predictable situation. I believe that’s a huge emphasis going in there each week, stopping the run, and then being able to get takeaways which we haven’t been doing. But like I said, being able to stop the run, force teams to throw the ball and try to make them play left-handed.

Poyer on if the Dolphins defense collapsed or the Cardinals offense made plays: I think you can say a little bit of both. There’s definitely some plays that we all want back from yesterdays game, especially late in the game. They did make some plays, I mean they ran a ‘Oh, crap’ play first play of the second half, which is basically a tight end wheel route coming around. I mean a great schemed up play; they made some plays, but we needed to make one more and that’s what it comes down to.

Ogbah on dealing with mobile quarterbacks: Yeah, it has been tough trying to bring mobile quarterbacks down, but we’ve just got to keep corralling to the ball, running to the ball and shooting our shot.

Ogbah on the defense’s second-half performance: I don’t know, I would say some busts, a lot of busts – it’s self-inflicted wounds that we just got to fix and correct. We can’t have those mistakes come this week.

Ogbah on if the self-inflicted wounds are mental mistakes: I wouldn’t say it’s mental, I feel like guys are trying to do too much, just trying to help their brothers out. I would say just trying to do too much, just do your job.

Ogbah on stopping the run: Don’t give up the explosives. We’ve got to do a better job at stopping the explosive runs. That’s kind of our Achilles heel, getting beat on the explosive plays. So just running to the ball and just doing your assignment and trust that the man next to you will do his.

Injury Updates

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McDaniel on the challenge of playing without defensive lineman Zach Sieler (Sunday): It’s very challenging. He’s a big part of our team. I think there’s a lot of guys led by D-Hand (defensive lineman Da’Shawn Hand) but a lot of guys that were up for the challenge and just feeling his energy. Talking about Zach and in the locker room just as we left, he will be out no longer than his body — like as soon as his body allows, he will be out there. I wouldn’t envision it being too long just based upon his vigor and he didn’t like not being able to affect the outcome of the game and we are a better team when he’s on it.

Poyer on the ripple effect of losing Sieler: Zach Sieler, he’s a great player. He’s been somebody who I’ve seen from across the field for a few years. You don’t ever want to have anybody go down and you always have the idea that it is next man up, but losing a guy like Zach does hurt. We’re hoping to get him back when he’s able to come back.

Ogbah on the impact of losing Sieler: He was definitely missed. Just kind of like containing Kyler (Murray), too, he’ll do a good job of actually pushing the pocket to make our jobs easier on the edge. It was definitely tough not having him out there.

Ogbah on what a return from linebacker Bradley Chubb could provide: It’s a definitely spark for us. Having a guy like that come back, definitely needed, but he’s doing good with the rehab, he’s coming on strong and can’t wait to have him back, too.

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McDaniel on potential Chubb return (Monday): I think Bradley Chubb wishes that would be the case; however, he’s not on my radar right now because guys get on my radar when they start getting close and I just check in to make sure things are going appropriately and we don’t have major things happen. I don’t see that timeline. I think having a ACL plus in terms of what type of injury he had around New Year’s Day, I wasn’t expecting him as of yet, and I think he’s going to continue to work to try to get back sooner than later, but it’s not on my immediate horizon.

McDaniel on safety Jevón Holland’s knee injury sustained against the Cardinals (Monday): The info is that it wasn’t serious by measure of surgery or extended time. I think it’s still a little too early to tell what it means for this week. So it’s kind of in that area that you just don’t want to get ahead of yourself too soon. Right now it feels like it might be week-to-week. There might be a possibility for the game. I’ve just really got to let the week play out a little bit with him in particular because what we do know is that it wasn’t serious in nature of extended time, but how strong it feels and how he’s able to do his job, that will be kind of dependent upon these next couple of days,

McDaniel on if the knee injury is different than the knee injury Holland had in 2023 (Monday): Yeah.

Rookie running back Jaylen Wright

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Ingold on Wright’s impact on the team despite limited opportunities: I think you hit the nail on the head. Like to be a running back and not be in completely like the flow of the game and still have explosive runs when his number is called as a young guy, that’s really cool. He doesn’t have to get his motor running, four or five carries, get tackled a few times to then be able to hit it. He shows up, he’s explosive and definitely for a young guy it’s cool to see him step into that role and whenever he touches the ball, he does something with it. So very happy with him.

Future adjustments

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McDaniel on if changes to playing time based on recent success need to be made (Monday): It’s a fair point for any and all things to be questioned when the results don’t match the desire. One of the things that I think I’m very comfortable with as a head coach is the expectation of absolute second guessing of any and all things. So that’s fair. I think there’s reasons behind it. I think the guys that are having success on the field that maybe all people would want to see more of. There’s things that go on based upon not just – for instance as a pash rusher there is a complexion of the entire team that’s involved including special teams and a complexion of other phases, not just pass rush, the run game. And so you’re able to when you do have some production from guys to challenge them to maybe be two steps ahead and be that much more on the finer details because their opportunities are going to come and you don’t want to have those opportunities and then lose them. I think each and every decision is particular to its own, but the idea is to have the best players on the field. There is no doubt that Jaylen Wright has exhibited a lot of things that are connected to why we drafted him. I think he continues to improve as well just like ‘Mo.’ (Mohamed Kamara) And I think they are important pieces of our young nucleus that will get more opportunities. I think in hindsight our plan in the game in particular with Jaylen was to have him get more opportunities. It was trending that way and then the offense had eight possessions. You’re trying to get backs into a groove. There are things I can do from a game planning standpoint that can ensure that – we’ve done a multitude of things here with two backs on the field and various things. I think that it’s not lost. I think there’s a lot of things at play and the most important thing is that is that they continue to grow in their game because they are not in charge of the opportunities; they are in charge of making the most out of them. And the more you see guys like Jaylen Wright continue to make plays the more pressure there is for us to find a way to get them involved. They’re all fair. Literally you can just line them up. You could name five people that you need to get the ball more to. You can name some young players that need to see the field more. It’s all very, very fair when you lose. like what else would I expect. I think we’ll continue to address that and I would expect those two players in particular to be able to contribute and help us because we need them to.

McDaniel on balancing trust and past success with current success by an unproven player (Monday): It takes 11 people to execute a play and then you’re trying to access the different tools that each player has and their ability to execute each and every play, not just when they have the ball, but without. And then you’re also firmly assessing – I’m not going off of Raheem Mostert’s productivity last year. When he’s playing – he was a gigantic tone setter for us against Indy. And there was a play in particular, I think it was second-and-11 where he kind of checked down and ran over four defenders to get the first down and made some really, really decisive reads on the goal line which when you are featuring somebody close to the goal line their yards per carry is not going to be high because of the short distance. I think those are all factors into it. But you have to take the information that the players give you and constantly adjust. I think Eric Studesville has done a great job in bringing backs along here. Starting with De’Von (Achane) last year and Jaylen this year. I would expect a hard guy to tackle that continues to get his assignments right to get more action. There are residuals to the flow of the game. I would’ve been surprised if you guys would have told me he had two carries. I would’ve been like, ‘What? What happened?’ So that wasn’t the plan going in; however there are things that unfold in different areas that we like to feature people and also it becomes a little more convoluted. I think that when you’re having plays made by each player, although that’s something that is a – having good players is a good problem, not a bad problem. I’ve been on the other side of that. But there is absolutely without a shadow of a doubt ‘25’ (Jaylen Wright) can help us and will, and we’ll make the necessary adjustments to make sure that he can contribute his skillset.

Owner Stephen Ross’s reactions to the season

McDaniel on what Ross has spoken to him about: He’s always – it usually goes like … right, wrong or indifferent, the way that I approach the job is when you feel accountable to all things, he’s like every fan and coach; my knee-jerk is to apologize for the result, regardless of how the game and my position within it go. And he knows how the people that he’s hired that he really believes in and so he’s very supportive and that was very similar to what last night was. I think he’s also supremely competitive so he doesn’t like to lose, but he’s kind of – we’re definitely aligned in that it’s the process and evaluating that and sometimes results are fleeting, and they fall in different arenas. He tries to do everything in his power to facilitate success, so he’s disappointed obviously when we don’t have it. And then we just communicate about the factualities that I know without looking at the tape and he was making sure – he’s very consistent in making sure that he knows that tough times don’t last; tough people do. So it was good to see him after the game, but I struggle with all parties involved after losses just trying to lead by example and yeah, no loss feels like it doesn’t start with me.