Miami Dolphins veteran center Daniel Kilgore was named the team’s offensive captain just before the start of the 2019 season. Kilgore — who came to Miami before the 2018 season in a trade with the San Francisco 49ers — is quickly showing why.
The Dolphins’ season has quickly gone off the rails, as one might expect in the aftermath of giving up nearly 60 points at home. And when the rumors swirled that a handful of Dolphins players were reaching out to their agents after the game to orchestrate a departure from South Florida, Kilgore was among the first to speak up.
“My thing is if you don’t want to be here, I don’t want you here,” said Kilgore on Monday.
“I want to come here and get ready for New England starting today, and we’ll move forward.”
It is, of course, the exact mentality you’d expect from a team captain. And quite frankly Kilgore is right. Any Dolphins players who saw the bloodbath on Sunday and immediately wanted to pull the plug on their time in Miami likely had their minds made up that this year was going to be terrible. And those players, should they really exist, would be a continued part of the problem with this Dolphins organization — the Dolphins have been a soft football team for quite some time.
Mental discipline and toughness isn’t something the Dolphins can really hang their hats on these days, it hasn’t been the case since the Tony Sparano days. And with Brian Flores’ primary objective being to create a tough football team, there may be some players who have bought too far into the old way of doing things to be a part of the future here in South Florida.
Daniel Kilgore, for one, wouldn’t be sad to see them go.
