From the opening scene of the first episode of this year’s in-season Hard Knocks, it’s obvious that the Dolphins don’t want to do it.
Coach Mike McDaniel, addressing his team during the first meeting after their bye, does his best to get his players (and maybe himself) to not let an obvious potential distraction become an actual distraction for the Dolphins.
“So, Hard Knocks starts today,” McDaniel says. “And I’m actually convinced I’m fired up about it. It’s a heavy burden on a lot of people. Big paychecks, OK, in this room, it’s a burden on you. The players that are recognized around the league, it’s a burden on a day-to-day basis.
“But I refuse to do this job and not give you guys my authentic self. I’m not going to change. I will not. We’ve worked too hard. And this is part of our journey. We’re going to have people document this whole season. Awesome.
“I’m not fucking changing, OK? Nor do you guys have to. So shit’s gonna get weird, OK? Who cares. It is a distraction if we let it. I refuse to have our journey tainted by that shit.”
Clearly, McDaniel would prefer not to mess with “that shit,” as evidenced by the fact that he called it “that shit.” It’s still not clear why or how he was required to do it.
Regardless, McDaniel doesn’t want to do it.
McDaniel has players who have no interest in opening up their lives to NFL Films cameras and microphones. Quarterback Tua Tagovailoa has said so. During the first team meeting being recorded by Hard Knocks, Tua’s right leg is jackhammering with potential anxiety.
Asked by reporters on Tuesday whether he’ll watch the first episode, Tua said, “No. I’m not watching any of that.”
Will it matter? If Mike McDaniel were being completely candid, he’d say he’d rather not find out. He’d say he’s got enough shit to worry about without having to worry about whether the process or the product will create an issue for his team.
He already had to deal with it on Wednesday, when repeated references to the universal language of ass whooping in the first episode came up in McDaniel’s press conference.
“Universal language,” he said. “I’m fluent in that. I learned that in middle school on the bad end — just kidding. . . . That’s kind of what I alluded to in a team meeting before about the unintended consequences. There’s some natural resistance to your safe place. We do things in a way that would — from a foundational standpoint, you try to do things not because it’s been done or the way that you’ve done it before, but what makes the most sense. When you’re doing stuff like that and you let your guard down, your guard is down because you’ve learned to let your guard down in the safe place. For that to be violated, it was kind of nerve wracking.”
Indeed it is. The safe place is no longer safe, because anything you say can be used against you. Unless the editing process catches it and scrubs it out before the next episode drops.
Again, it’s just more shit for McDaniel to worry about at a time when he should be worried only about the performance of his team. So, yes, it’s a distraction for McDaniel, in large part because he’s distracted by the challenge of making sure it doesn’t distract his team.
