A clearly emotional Mike McDaniel raves about how the Dolphins handled adversity in Week 1

Sport

A clearly emotional Mike McDaniel raves about how the Dolphins handled adversity in Week 1

2024-09-10 04:24 Last Updated At：04:30

MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. (AP) — The Miami Dolphins are 1-0. They erased a 14-point deficit to get there and captured the win in dramatic fashion. And now they have division rival Buffalo coming into their stadium for an early season showdown on Thursday night.

In ordinary times, this is what Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel would have been talking about on Monday.

These are not ordinary times.

The big story in the NFL on Sunday — wide receiver Tyreek Hill placed in handcuffs and seen laying face down on a street adjacent to the stadium hours before the season opener, along with defensive lineman Calais Campbell also briefly handcuffed after he attempted to intervene — remained the big story on Monday. Hill and Campbell both played and had an impact in the 20-17 win over Jacksonville, and teammates made no secret of how fellow players rallied around one another upon learning of the incident.

“I would venture to guess that one of the favorite parts of being in the NFL and being on an NFL team is that we are able to immerse ourselves into something that's a tangible goal, that you have some control over,” McDaniel said Monday, clearly emotional at times. “I think a lot of times, it's therapeutic to be in the process of NFL game week, a Thursday night division opponent. There's a lot of very constructive things to think about. Sometimes, that can be our greatest gift, that gift of supreme distraction.”

Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said Monday that an investigation into the conduct of the officers involved in the incident “will answer questions” while noting that it already has become part of a long national dialogue on the use of force by police.

The Dolphins played through the enormous distraction to beat the Jaguars. The distraction will linger into Thursday, without question. McDaniel was deeply bothered Sunday by the incident, as would be expected, and those feelings hadn't changed Monday.

“It's been hard for me not to find myself more upset, the more I think about it,” McDaniel said.

That said, he liked what he saw Sunday on the scoreboard and in the locker room.

“Super proud of teammates being teammates,” McDaniel said. “And super proud of our guys understanding the civic responsibility of a platform and intending to do right by it.”

The defense. Lost in the shuffle of everything else Sunday was this: Jacksonville had six possessions in the second half. Of those, four ended with punts, one ended on downs and the other ended with a fumble on the brink of the end zone. And in the fourth quarter, it was lights out — the Jaguars ran 11 plays and netted eight yards.

The rushing game. Miami's offense wasn't sharp in Week 1 and still reached 400 yards, which speaks to how high-octane that unit is. But 81 yards on 25 rushes — a 3.2-yard-per-play average — and five of those runs going for negative yardage isn't good enough.

Leadership. The day could have gone completely awry when Hill and Campbell arrived at the stadium shortly after being handcuffed, and the 14-0 hole that Miami dug for itself in the first half didn't help matters. QB Tua Tagovailoa went on an uncharacteristic rant at halftime, lighting a fire under the offense. And the way players spoke up to support Hill likely will only make the locker room closer.

Discipline. Miami led the NFL with 103 penalty yards on Sunday, the Dolphins' most in their last 102 games including playoffs. (The last time they had more was Dec. 31, 2017, against Buffalo, when they had 145 penalty yards.) Granted, 40 of those yards came on a pass interference call by Jalen Ramsey that set up Jacksonville's first touchdown. But nine penalties for however many yards isn't part of a sustainable winning formula.

Ramsey didn't show any ill effects from a hamstring issue that derailed him leading into Week 1. And Hard Rock Stadium went bonkers when Jaelan Phillips — back from his Achilles tendon tear — was introduced as one of the starters.

4 — The Dolphins are one of four NFL teams to start 1-0 in each of the last four seasons, joining New Orleans, Tampa Bay and Philadelphia. (The Saints have started 1-0 in six consecutive seasons.)

80, 63 and 39 — Those were the three longest plays in Sunday's game, all of them passes by Tagovailoa and each going to a different receiver. There was the 80-yard touchdown to Hill, a 63-yard pass to Jaylen Waddle and a 39-yarder to De'Von Achane.

It's a short week, with the Dolphins playing host to the Bills on Thursday night.

AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl

Massive pipeline fire burning near Houston began after a vehicle struck a valve, officials say

2024-09-17 13:39 Last Updated At：13:40

DEER PARK, Texas (AP) — A towering flame gradually subsided Tuesday morning in the aftermath of a massive pipeline explosion after a vehicle drove through a fence and struck an above-ground valve, officials said.

Deer Park officials said police and local FBI agents initiated investigations and found no preliminary reports that would suggest a coordinated or “terrorist” attack and that “this appears to be an isolated incident.”

The investigation included efforts to learn more about the driver of a vehicle that was incinerated by the pipeline explosion as flames scorched the ground across a wide radius, severed adjacent power transmission lines and ignited homes at a distance. Police did not provide any information about the person's condition.

An evacuation area included nearly 1,000 homes and initial shelter orders included schools.

Operators shut off the flow of natural gas liquids in the pipeline, but so much remained in the miles of tubing that firefighters could do nothing but watch and hose down adjacent homes.

Deer Park Mayor Jerry Mouton Jr. described intense heat from a fire that endured for more than 12 hours as ladder trucks showered houses from above.

"A lot of the house structures that are adjacent to that are still catching on fire even though we’re putting a lot of water on them,” Mouton said at an afternoon news conference. A spewing flame still lit up the sky at sunset Monday.

Firefighters initially were dispatched at 9:55 a.m., after an explosion at a valve station in Deer Park, adjacent to La Porte, rattled homes and businesses, including a Walmart. Deer Park officials said an SUV drove into the valve after going through a fence on the side of the Walmart parking lot.

At the news conference, officials said only one person, a firefighter, sustained a minor injury. Later, Deer Park spokesperson Kaitlyn Bluejacket said four people were injured. She didn’t provide details about the severity of the injuries.

Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said in a statement that 20 miles (32 kilometers) of pipeline between the two closed valves had to burn off before the fire would stop.

Anna Lewis, who was walking into the nearby Walmart when the explosion happened, said it sounded “like a bomb went off.” She said everyone inside was rushed to the back of the store and then taken across the street to a grocery store before being bussed to a community center.

“It scared me,” she said. “You really don’t know what to do when it’s happening.”

Geselle Melina Guerra said she and her boyfriend heard the explosion as they were having breakfast in their mobile home.

“All of a sudden we hear this loud bang and then I see something bright, like orange, coming from our back door that’s outside,” said Guerra, who lives within the evacuation area.

Guerra’s boyfriend, Jairo Sanchez, said they’re used to evacuations because they live close to other plants near the highway, but he hadn’t seen an explosion before in his 10 years living there.

“We just drove as far as we could because we didn’t know what was happening,” Sanchez said.

Houston, Texas’ largest city, is the nation’s petrochemical heartland and is home to a cluster of refineries and plants and thousands of miles of pipelines. Explosions and fires are a familiar sight in the area, including some that have been deadly, raising recurring questions about the adequacy of industry efforts to protect the public and the environment.

Letting the fire burn out is better, from an environmental perspective, than trying to attack the flames with some kind of suppressing foam or liquid, said Ramanan Krishnamoorti, a petroleum engineering professor at the University of Houston.

“Otherwise it’s going to release a lot of volatile organics into the environment,” he said.

Still, there will undoubtedly be negative environmental consequences, including a release of soot, carbons and organic material, he said.

The pipeline’s owner, Dallas-based Energy Transfer, said air monitoring equipment was being set up near the plume of fire and smoke, which could be seen from at least 10 miles (16 kilometers) away at one point.

A statement from Harris County Pollution Control on Monday afternoon said no volatile organic compounds had been detected. The statement said particulate matter from the smoke was moderate and not an immediate risk to healthy people, although “sensitive populations may want to take precautions.” The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality said it was also monitoring the air.

Natural gas liquids are used primarily in the manufacturing of plastics and basic and intermediate chemicals, Krishnamoorti said.

The fire burned through nearby power lines, and the website PowerOutage.us said several thousand customers were without power at one point in Harris County.

Krishnamoorti said the area’s extensive pipeline infrastructure will have to be closely inspected for damage beyond the explosion site, though the fire “won’t be a major disrupter of supply chains.”

The Railroad Commission of Texas, which regulates oil and gas in the state, said its safety inspectors were investigating.

Margaret Newman, who lives on the edge of the evacuation zone, said that when she heard the explosion she went out into her yard and could see the flame shooting above the trees. She lost electricity but has a generator to keep her home cool and planned to stay put.

This story has been updated to correct that the pipeline carries natural gas liquids, not liquified natural gas.

AP writers Christopher L. Keller in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Valerie Gonzalez in McAllen, Texas, Sean Murphy in Oklahoma City and Jamie Stengle in Dallas contributed to this report.

A clearly emotional Mike McDaniel raves about how the Dolphins handled adversity in Week 1

Sport

A clearly emotional Mike McDaniel raves about how the Dolphins handled adversity in Week 1

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