MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — I hope Mike McDaniel is right.

I truly want Miami Dolphins coach McDaniel and his new-school, treat-your-employees-with-dignity way of thinking to be correct.

But I’ll be honest, I still need to be convinced McDaniel’s benevolent ways will be winning ways in the NFL.

Call it The Great Experiment.

Because as I think of quarterback Tua Tagovailoa’s recent criticism of former Dolphins coach Brian Flores, it occurs to me that Flores’ old-school method still works.

I’m not saying players should be constantly berated or insulted and personally attacked. I’m totally against that.

However, a threat or a condemnation here or there might be acceptable.

Fact: Flores was 10-5 in December/January games, the most important games on the schedule, in three seasons as coach of the Dolphins; McDaniel is 4-10, including going 0-2 in the playoffs, in two seasons.

Flores’ teams overachieved while McDaniel’s teams have underachieved so far.

This is a major problem in a results-oriented business.

By the way, Flores, who is Minnesota’s defensive coordinator, was asked about Tagovailoa’s comments Tuesday and basically said he didn’t like hearing such things.

“That hit me in a way that I wouldn’t say was positive for me,” he said.

Flores said he’d endeavor to use Tagovailoa’s words to become better. That’d be a good outcome for that beef between the two of them.

As for the Dolphins’ coaches, perhaps they could use a little more Flo to accentuate their skills.

This entire Dolphins coaching staff is overly complimentary of players. No player gets criticized publicly. Ever. Even first-year defensive coordinator Anthony Weaver is on board with the always-optimistic, never-pessimistic approach.

I sincerely hope this is the right approach.

I want to believe that McDaniel, the 41-year-old, Ivy League-educated, swaggy, quick-witted, genuinely good guy can/will change the way the NFL thinks about the game, its approach to the game, and how it treats players.

It’d be reassuring to know that in the physical, aggressive, brutal NFL, nice guys can finish first.

But I haven’t yet seen it happen for McDaniel and his morale-boosting ways.

In fact, part of me still thinks that dinosaur-type guys such as Vic Fangio, the crusty former Dolphins defensive coordinator, and Flores, the hardcore ex-Dolphins coach, get better performances out of their players than McDaniel.

The truth is there’s no one way to get players motivated.

“There’s a lot of different (ways) to get it done,” said Dolphins special teams coordinator Danny Crossman, who has 22 years in the NFL under numerous coaching administrations and philosophies.

“It’s whatever your team is, and whatever your team responds to.”

McDaniel, with his progressive ways of player empowerment and load management, is basically trying to change the pro football world.

His nice-guy way isn’t the traditional NFL way.

McDaniel’s always-uplift-people way doesn’t produce fearsome NFL players. His trend of giving players frequent days off in training camp and the regular season gives this place a reputation as being easy.

We know that because we hear players from other teams talk about the Dolphins.

Two players, in this case, were speaking matter-of-factly, and not at all in a mean-spirited way.

First, it was safety Jordan Poyer, who came from Buffalo, saying the Dolphins were a team that seemed as though they might fold if you punched them in the mouth.

Monday, it was defensive lineman Calais Campbell, who came from Atlanta, saying when he was deciding which team to sign with during free agency that he’d “heard a lot of stories and different things and one of the things people said was like, ‘It’s a little easier there.’ ”

Campbell said quickly he found out that’s not the case.

But that’s part of the narrative as McDaniel seeks to pioneer training camp with prolonged rests for starters and veterans, and seeks to pioneer players’ durability with frequent veteran rest days during the season.

As my colleague, Dave Hyde, called Dolphins training camp, Club Mike.

The TV show “Hard Knocks,” which followed the Dolphins through the latter part of the 2023 season, portrayed the team as a generally stress-free, fun environment, complete with touchdown celebration rehearsals.

At the very end, after that brutal 26-7 wild-card round loss in the playoffs at Kansas City, it showed wide receiver Jaylen Waddle sitting on the bench saying something to the effect of the Dolphins have too much talent to lose in the first round of the playoffs.

Waddle is right.

I sure hope McDaniel is right.

It’d be nice to know that a coach whose philosophy is that you get more out of happy players than stressed-out, mentally beaten down players is correct.

Go beyond McDaniel being fun and funny, being honest about his flaws and faults and publicly sharing what made him successful.

I root for McDaniel because, from what I know about him after covering him for more than two years, he’s not only a good coach but a decent human being.

That matters to me.

So, too, does winning.

Unfortunately for McDaniel, he hasn’t won enough.

Unfortunately for McDaniel, his methods haven’t yet proven best for producing a team that maximizes its abilities.

More often than not, doubt and so-called hate is what drives athletes.

More often than not, Flores’ way drives athletes.

McDaniel doesn’t use fear, doubt or fire and brimstone to get the best from his players.

McDaniel uses positive thinking.

McDaniel encourages players to be the best version of themselves every day by using science, analytics, positive reinforcement, plenty of rest, plenty of encouragement and an overall joyful work environment.

His approach chooses not to publicly criticize players or berate them.

It’s an interesting experiment, one that could either revolutionize the sport or get McDaniel fired.

I sure hope McDaniel is right.

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