The Dolphins fell to 5-8 against the Giants on Monday night, ensuring that they will finish without a winning record for the seventh straight year.
Interim head coach Dan Campbell has been on the staff for six of those seasons and he discussed the impact of such a prolonged slump during his press conference on Tuesday.
“I’ve been here six years and nothing has gone the way that we wanted it to be,” Campbell said, via the Palm Beach Post. “Every year we come in with new hope and, there again, we’re going to have another season where we have a playoff drought. I make damn sure that it stings and it hurts because the minute you go numb to that, then you’re just a loser. I want it to hurt. It motivates me and it pisses me off. It’s not too much for me to handle. To me, that’s how you get motivated to win because you get tired of losing and it stinks.”
One of the questions that the Dolphins are going to have to answer this offseason is what coach is the right one to break the cycle that Campbell talked about on Tuesday. It could be Campbell, but Monday night’s lack of discipline didn’t do much to bolster his case for getting the job on the permanent basis.
Campbell didn’t want to discuss his future on Tuesday, choosing to focus on the next three weeks and finding out “who wants to play for the logo on the helmet.” If the results of that field test are anything like the past seven years, there should be plenty of change coming to Miami in the next few months.