Bradley Chubb: Dolphins Were ‘Lying’ About Culture Change

Bradley Chubb is not doing much to instill confidence in the minds of Miami Dolphins fans.

Ahead of last season, there was a lot of talk about a "culture change" in Miami. The team had just come off a strong 11-6 campaign where they boasted the league's best offense — only to fall in the first round of the playoffs to the eventual Super Bowl-champion Kansas City Chiefs. 

But 2024 would be different! They'd bring back that high-powered offense, beef up the D and undergo that culture change we heard so much about. Surely the Dolphins would finally make it over the hump of mediocrity, right?

Wrong.

"I'm going to say last year, we were lying, honestly," Chubb said during minicamp this week. "Point blank, period. We felt it. We put our toe in the water, but we didn't dive all the way in. We didn't get all the way there with each other. We weren't making the effort to go the extra mile and I would say this year, we're doing that."

Bradley Chubb sat out the 2024 season while recovering from a torn ACL.

(Photo by Michael Owens/Getty Images)

Are you, though? Are you doing that?

Admittedly, I'm a jaded Dolphins fan myself. But it seems preposterous for a team's star linebacker to tell us the team simply didn't put in effort last year… but they promise they will this year.

To Chubb's credit, he didn't play a down in 2024 as he was recovering from a torn ACL. In fact, plenty of key players spent time sidelined by injury — including tackle Terron Armstead and quarterback Tua Tagovailoa — en route to an 8-9 record.

"I'm not sure how it's going to turn out for us, but we are putting forth that foot to change it because last year, like I said, we said we wanted to change, yeah, we're doing this, we're doing that; but it's not going exactly how we want to," Chubb said. 

"But this year, I feel like everybody has the right mindset and moving forward, so if it works out, it's going to work out. If it doesn't, we're going to get back to the drawing board and make sure it works out."

The Dolphins have been going "back to the drawing board" for 25 years now. Because that was the last time they won a playoff game. 

Mike McDaniel Responds To Comments From Bradley Chubb

Head coach Mike McDaniel isn't dwelling on the past like the rest of us Negative Nancys.

"It would have been awesome if he would have told me on the front end when they were lying," McDaniel said Thursday when asked about Chubb's comments. 

"Beyond that, 2024, unless I'm using it directly for an analogy, I'm much more concerned with 2025. I think you do a lot more for the organization if you spend your time thinking forward in terms of not this, that, or the other, or whose fault it was. No, we want it like this, let's do it like this and this is who we are. I don't even — what year did you speak of? I guess I'll read about that in history books."

If anyone should be motivated for 2025, it's McDaniel. One more disappointing season, and this once-fan-favorite coach is almost certainly on the chopping block.

Mike McDaniel is set to begin his fourth season as the Dolphins' head coach.

(Getty Images)

Still, Chubb doesn't believe McDaniel needs to alter his approach.

"It's not necessarily him changing," Chubb said. "It's more about us, man, about how we accept what he's telling us. Like he may have a joking way of getting a serious point across, but it's up to us in the room to be like, 'Okay, he might have said it funny, but at the end of the day, this is what we're doing and this is how we're moving about it and as a team, this is what we're going to do.'

"So not much of him has changed. I would say the people around him and the buy-in of the players that he wants has changed and guys are taking accountability of how we want it to look out here because he can only do so much in terms of with the game plan, the team meetings and all that, prepping and putting us in the right position; but we've got to go out there and execute."

Ah, yes. Surely, everything will be different in 2025.