Dolphins had chance to break 57-year-old record but chose ‘karma’

The Miami Dolphins had an opportunity to make history in Sunday’s 70-20 victory over the Denver Broncos, but head coach Mike McDaniel was more concerned about karma.

Miami was in field goal range in their final possession, but McDaniel opted for quarterback Mike White to take a knee instead of sending kicker Jason Sanders out to attempt a 45-yard field goal. The additional points would have broke the 57-year-old single-game record for points in a regular season contest.

In his postgame press conference, McDaniel told reporters his reasoning behind the decision, which had Dolphins fans in the stand booing, and kept the old record standing [Washington defeated the New York Giants, 72-41, on Nov. 27, 1966.]

“I will be fine getting second guessed by turning down NFL records. That’s fine. I am very okay with the decision,” McDaniel said. “The leaders of the team supported it. The captains supported it. That’s not the way you wanna get the record. That’s called karma and I wanna keep good karma with the Miami Dolphins.”

McDaniel said that going for the field “felt like chasing points and chasing a record,” which is not what the Dolphins came there to do.

“That doesn’t have a bearing on the overall season outcome,” he said. “I saw it as… 10 times out of 10 you concede and kneel down in those situations. Because there was an attainable record, that was cool, but I thought the message I thought it would send wasn’t really in line with how I view things.”

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Joey Chandler may be reached at jchandler@njadvancemedia.com