The recent kerfuffle regarding former Miami Dolphins offensive lineman Kendall Lamm and comments he never made was unfortunate, but the issue of locker room or team culture in Miami remains unchanged regardless of most any player comment, actual or not.

THE SAD STATE OF NEWS 2025

First off, nobody here is pointing a finger at the outlets that wrote on the comments that were posted as being attributed to Lamm, but were false. Honestly, it’s the current state of news that leads to such issues. The desire to be first has always been there for all media, especially when something seems so clear as an ESPN report. Also, news hits us all instantaneously these days unless we truly work to avoid it so when those two things clash, mistakes happen. Even to the good ones.

If fans/readers/critics want things to be perfect, we need to return to a printed newspaper and a 24-hour news cycle and that’s not going to happen.

DANIELS COMMENTS MORE TELLING

To an old head like myself, it was newcomer guard James Daniels’ comments that struck hardest in the recent summer interviews. Not fake comments attributed to Lamm and not the comments made by Dolphins veterans in their respective media scrums.  

“Here, the culture is a lot different than in Pittsburgh,” Daniels said on June 11 to Miami media. “I can’t say if it’s better or worse. Pittsburgh and Iowa (where he attended college) were similar. So, like the culture (in Miami) is something I haven’t seen before. It’s been pretty cool; it’s been pretty fun.”

Pressed on what’s different in Miami, he certainly wasn’t going to say anything negative, but did say something interesting.

“One thing, I mean there’s music playing in the (Dolphins team facility) everywhere,” said Daniels. “That’s never been the case anywhere I have been … there’s never a time when there’s music not being played. I’m learning new songs and stuff, which is cool.”

A BUSINESS ANALOGY OF MIAMI DOLPHINS CULTURE

So here’s my question to the rest of the fanbase: Let’s say you’re going to a business – you know, a billion dollar business – for an interview. You’re a super qualified candidate. Top of your field.

This may or may not be the place for you but you hope to find out on the interview. As soon as you get in the building, all you hear is music coming over the speakers. As you sit up front waiting to go to the conference room for your interview, you ask the receptionist why and you’re told that it’s all the employees’ favorite music and it plays all day. Everywhere.

Now I don’t know what businesses have been envisioned here, but I can say with clarity that we have wound up interviewing at a weird one at best and one with questionable focus at worst.

If I’m in a leadership role with the Miami Dolphins and I want to send a message, that message isn’t “you guys get what you want.” Because that’s different than “this is what you guys make of it,” which is what I think McDaniel shoots for.

If you need sound on all the time in the building, play the Miami Dolphins radio calls of the games or audio of the games Kevin Harlan calls on TV. At least it keeps the mind on the objective.

WE KNEW THERE WAS A PROBLEM

First off, if we’re sitting here talking about culture, there’s a problem. Teams that don’t have issues don’t get questions about it. They don’t bring it up on their own. It may be talked about them as in “that’s the New England way” or something of that ilk. But if you have good culture, there’s zero reason to talk about it. It just is.

And in Miami, it’s been talked about a lot this offseason.

This is not appropriately sourced so I will say that up front, but there was chatter in the Dolphins’ organization that people were pissed at Mike McDaniel and the lack of accountability after Week 4 in 2024. The team was 1-3, had opened with a minimalist 20-17 win over the Jaguars in Week 1 then followed that with three-straight losses where they lost by a combined score of 86-25.

They then went to play a pretty bad New England team before the bye week and got three Jason Sanders field goals and a fourth quarter 3-yard Alec Ingold touchdown to secure a 15-10 win.

Listless.

During the bye, head coach Mike McDaniel found himself stating something we just finished hearing again during minicamp and OTAs.

“There’s a lot of things you can’t control in this league, there are certain things you can,” said McDaniel on October 7 with his typical uber-verbosity.  “The way we started off today was talking about all those things that we can control with absolute certainty that’s our job to get cleaned up. Now, how do we take control over the controllables? That’s the most important thing for us moving forward, building upon the growth of the team, but we have a long way to go and some time to do it.”

They came back from the bye the exact same way. Listless. Nevermind injuries. This is football and that’s how it goes. If your team has it together, you don’t return from the bye 2-3 and then lose to Indianapolis and Arizona. Not with the comparable talent on Miami’s roster.

Something was not functioning and even when they started re-couping some wins, it never really did.

WHO DRIVES CULTURE IN THE NFL?

In most professional sports, team culture is player-driven. It has to be.

Look at baseball for example. A ridiculously lengthy schedule. Maybe nothing more important than building a clubhouse after the general manager has assembled a roster. The best managers have always seemingly been the ones most focused on doing right by the player. I think of Bobby Cox and Joe Torre. They both got it done with a variety of personalities, maybe because they weren’t in need to be much ones themselves.

In football, and especially in the city of Miami, you need a coach who leads. Don Shula had no issues, but its admittedly a different time. Is it so different, however, that none of Shula’s principles still apply? Vic Fangio probably thinks they do, and he’s probably be right (again).

How much music do you think would be playing in the halls when The Chin was walking them in Davie? Or St. Thomas. Or anywhere. Actually, suffice it to say music likely was turned off many times when Shula walked in a room.

I get that these aren’t Shula times. Mike McDaniel may be the guy and he may be doing it the right way. But once you’ve sent a message in terms of how you do things, you can’t quite go and completely change. It would be insincere and noticeable. McDaniel has been a little different in his public messaging this preseason. Still lengthy, but a little curt too in his own way, but it’s how the team receives him that matters, not the public. .

WHAT CHANGED AND WHAT LIKELY WON’T

In one offseason, the Dolphins have gone from being widely-held as the league’s top high-flying offensive attack with its No. 1 player as voted on by his peers, possessing veteran leaders like Terron Armstead and Calais Campbell >>> to a team coming off a sub-.500 season, averaging 20.3 points per game and talking about locker room culture while waiting to find a trade partner for one of the your more talented players. Armstead chose to retire and Campbell chose another locker room.

If this were a chart, it would be trending in the wrong direction.

The basketball hoop will likely remain in the team meeting room and the music has already been reported as still being on, all the time. No recent reports on the ping pong table. The messages have reportedly been sent verbally and been confirmed according to coaches, as we’ve been led to believe anyway, as witnessed by outstanding summer attendance.

But it’s when the word culture isn’t coming out of mouths and off of keyboards that we will know how things are really going in Miami Gardens. And even if Kendall Lamm DID say it, it wouldn’t change any of where the Miami Dolphins are right now.