Making the leap from an assistant coaching job in the NFL to a head coaching job comes with all sorts of adjustments. Now you are responsible for the entire puzzle, not just a piece or two. The demands on your time increase, as do the day-to-day pressures of life as an NFL head coach.
That requires some changes in your routine, perhaps ones that you might not have seen coming.
New Miami Dolphins head coach Mike McDaniel addressed one such adjustment when meeting with the media on Wednesday, after McDaniel earned his first win as a head coach when Miami topped the New England Patriots:
Mike McDaniel says, as an assistant coach, he used to be able to make it from Sunday to Wednesday without showering. He can’t do that as a head coach.
— Andrew Siciliano (@AndrewSiciliano) September 14, 2022
Now, this might have more to do with adjusting to life down in Miami, as game-time temperature Sunday crept north of 110 degrees:
Or, the fact that McDaniel needed to get himself to a shower a little quicker this week was due to the Dolphins’ win over the Patriots. The Miami offense got off to a great start in their Week 1 win over New England, showing that the tandem of Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle are going to stress defenses at multiple levels of the field. After the game, McDaniel was treated to a Gatorade bath in the locker room, and everyone reading this knows just how sticky Gatorade can be…
Still, one cannot help but wonder what McDaniel was doing during his time as an assistant coach, and whether he needs an endorsement deal from a personal hygiene company in the interim.