Half measure by Stephen Ross will hamper his Dolphins

Dysfunctional teams do dysfunctional things. It should be no surprise, then, that the dysfunctional Dolphins did something dysfunctional on Friday.

Owner Stephen Ross fired (sorry, “mutually parted ways with”) long-time G.M. Chris Grier. Ross made no other changes.

The Dolphins simultaneously got the word out that coach Mike McDaniel will finish the season. (Which could be viewed as an even worse punishment than being mutually parted ways. With.)

McDaniel is now an obvious lame duck, barring the kind of miracle that persuades Ross to keep him for 2026. Even then, Ross will have a mismatched G.M. and head coach, with the new G.M. waiting for the opportunity to hire his own head coach.

Every future G.M. scouts players and coaches. Every G.M. has a list of coaches with whom the G.M. wants to work. And so, if McDaniel survives, he’ll enter 2026 on the hot seat, as the new G.M. bides his time for the right time to move on from McDaniel and to install one of the coaches the new G.M. has earmarked for eventual hire.

And if Ross lets the new G.M. make the decision on McDaniel, when will that happen? Even if it takes only two weeks after the season ends to install a new G.M., the Dolphins will be two weeks behind everyone else who is looking for a head coach in a cycle that starts spinning in little more than two months.

Ross felt compelled to do something after Thursday night’s embarrassing home loss to the Ravens. He opted for a half measure.

The reasons are his and his alone. Maybe he has no faith in any of the potential interim candidates. Maybe he wants to let nature take its course, so that the Dolphins will earn the highest possible draft position in all seven rounds.

Regardless, the properly functioning teams that currently aren’t functioning at a satisfactory level don’t fire either the coach or the G.M. They clean house and start over.