Dave Hyde: The Dolphins’ odd couple looks built to succeed

Mike McDaniel: “I’m a hip hop guy, but it’s not like I’m in love with live hip hop. I would want Jay-Z to come hang out and do like a freestyle on the side. But then I’d probably have Guns N’ Roses. Metallica would be good live.”

Vic Fangio: “I like Earth, Wind & Fire, Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes … The music — I shouldn’t say music — the noise that they usually play in the (team) meetings is not music. It’s noise.”

The obvious question: Has there been a more wonderfully odd couple at the top of the Dolphins? McDaniel is next gen offense. Fangio is old-school defense. McDaniel, at 40, is the fifth-youngest NFL head coach. Fangio, at 65, would be the second-oldest head coach.

McDaniel is eternally upbeat in answers about specific players and life in general. Fangio said after one practice this summer he didn’t have answers at cornerback, safety, linebacker or defensive tackle where they needed, “three other guys to surface as the fourth, fifth and six defensive linemen.”

McDaniel’s quick and quirky sense of humor constantly sets him apart from so-serious NFL coaches. Fangio, too, offers a sense of humor that’s a surprise to players such as cornerback Kader Kohou, who, “thought he was going to be one of those guys that was football 24/7, like military and stuff.” But there’s another generational side to that humor.

Says linebacker Jerome Baker: “He has one-liners where he’ll quote a movie or show and (players) are like, ‘Vic, none of us was born then. None us know who the hell that is.’ Then someone will say something about it, and we’ll say, ‘Oh, now we get it.’ ‘’

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So, to reference an old commercial in this spirit, McDaniel and Fangio are like that guy eating chocolate who bumps into a girl eating peanut butter. Presto, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups are born. You have that young, swaggy, creative offensive-minded head coach whose career bumps into an older, more traditional but still creative defensive mind and — presto! — how can this not work?

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McDaniel on practicing only three days in succession through in training camp and preseason: “You try to model everything after what you’re going to be doing all year. It doesn’t make any sense to practice four days in a row early in the season when you’re never playing four days in a row.

Fangio: “Yeah, it’s been different for me. It’s still an ongoing process. I’m looking forward to the end of training camp only because of that, so we can get into a more normal schedule that hopefully I’m used to.”

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You don’t need to delve into their coaching influences (McDaniel from the Shanahan tree in the early 2000s; Fangio began with Jim Mora in the 1980s) or even their personal backgrounds (McDaniel raised by a single mother in Denver; Fangio the son of a tailor and homemaker in eastern Pennsylvania) to understand their contrasts.

The optics of Dolphins practices say enough. It’s not just the fashion statements, where Fangio wears the traditional coach’s practice uniform (classic shorts, T-shirt and ball cap) while McDaniel dresses in one of his 50-odd pair of stylish sneakers and sweat pants often tied tight to his calf like capris. (He carries a Bottega Veneta leather backpack to work).

It’s the manner of work, too. Each considers teaching the centerpiece of coaching, and McDaniel’s offensive assistants typically move toward the huddle after a scrimmage play with feedback on what just happened, maybe even details like exhibiting splits or footwork.

Fangio and his defensive assistants typically coach another way. They stand off to the side, quiet, after most scrimmage plays. They teach in meetings. Not here.

“I always say the practice field is the quiz, the game’s the final exam,’’ Fangio says, “and we’re not there to help them. So it’s our time to coach them in meetings and individual periods. When they’re playing out there and 11-on-11 drills, I like to leave them alone, and I like the coaches to leave them alone because we’re not going to be out there with them.”

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Fangio on McDaniel: “He’s a morning person. I’m a night person. So I stay late. I prefer to sleep in, if I could. He’s the opposite. He’s here early and leaves early.”

So you’re not here at 2 a.m or 3 a.m. when McDaniel arrives?

“No, no.”

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Does this matter? Everything matters in the stress of a season in some manner. When 39-yard-old Brian Flores was Dolphins coach in 2020, he often called coaches meetings late at night. One person who didn’t like those bedtime meetings according to a league source was offensive coordinator Chan Gailey, 69, who abruptly left after his one Dolphins season.

McDaniel and Fangio have never coached together. They talked some at league meetings and have the same agent, Richmond Flowers. So part of this offseason is learning about each other. Former coach Jimmy Johnson considered his relationship with newly hired offensive coordinator Norv Turner so important to his Dallas Cowboys time they went with their wives each Sunday to a Mexican dinner to get to know each other better.

For all their differences, McDaniel and Fangio have equally obvious similarities. It’s not just in their background of two players who loved the game but never played at a high level. Fangio also was the youngest on Mora’s New Orleans staff at age 28. That parallels McDaniel’s story years later.

McDaniel showed not just smarts but some career courage in hiring a defensive coordinator with more NFL credibility. He appointed Fangio, “head coach of the defense.” To that end, he’s asked Fangio for some thoughts on his offense, though Fangio says he has his hands full with the defense and doesn’t know if McDaniel followed them.

“I saw a lot of synergy (with) him,’’ McDaniel says of Fangio. “Ironically. I think a lot of people are like, ‘Huh?’ when I say that, but the way we approach football, the way that that our fundamental philosophies of how to teach accountability towards the player and then in the requisite, accountability necessary from players to do what we’re asking them to do, the commitment to absolutely the best fundamentals and technique that you yourself can really come up with over a lifetime of football.”

McDaniel sees contrast, too. How boring would a team be if everyone was the same? McDaniel and San Francisco coach Kyle Shanahan named a play (“Fake 16/17 Stutter Z Dope Left/Right”) after one of rapper Mike Posner’s lyrics. He knows what Fangio thinks of that musical “noise.” That’s why he slips some songs Fangio likes into the music at team meetings.

“I promise you the players know exactly who’s musical tastes those are when they’re being played, but I think that’s important to have,” he says. “It just kind of speaks to the broader scope and vision of what this organization can be which is cut from many different cloths — there’s one sole commitment and that’s to winning football games and really empowering players with the best tools that they can have.”

McDaniel can’t help but add: “Pretty much, if it isn’t already obvious, Vic Fangio and myself — we’re the same guy.”

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Fangio on turning 65 last week: ”I still feel young. Sixty-five years young still can outwork these young coaches.”

McDaniel: “A 65th birthday, I’m excited. I hope that I will have one.”