Mike McDaniel insists he did not imitate Trey Songz.
After Al Michaels recently revealed that McDaniel met his wife, Katie, by threatening one of his former player’s job security if he didn’t stop dancing with her at a nightclub, which paved the way for McDaniel to step in, the Dolphins’ coach gave his much softer side of the story Monday.
“I feel like I was painted out to be kind of a d-bag, and it wasn’t like that at all,” McDaniel said with a laugh. “It was all niceties.”
He added: “It was a cool, light-hearted story that I felt like took a turn.”
Let’s start with Michaels’ version, which he told during Miami’s 34-13 win over the Jets on Black Friday.
The legendary announcer said McDaniel told the announcing crew during their sitdown interview before the game that the 2010 Sacramento Mountain Lions enjoyed a night out after blowing out the Omaha Nighthawks in a United Football League game.
McDaniel, then the team’s running back coach, noticed one of his players, running back Steve Baylark, dancing with a woman.
“Mike says, Listen, ‘You’re not dancing with her anymore or you’re not playing with this team next year.’ So the guy says, ‘What can I do?’ So then, McDaniel starts dancing with her. That’s the beginning of the story,” Michaels said as he injected so. “The bottom line, where am I leading? Four years later, they’re married. Katie. That’s how he met her. Hey you, get off, I’m dancing with her.”
Michaels’ partner, Kirk Herbstreit, called the tale “unbelievable.”
“That is a classic,” Herbstreit. “That’s an all-time story.”
The duo then revealed that not even Dolphins owner Stephen Ross knew that story.
Said MIchaels: “I told Steven Ross before he said, ‘What? That’s the best story I’ve ever heard.’”
McDaniel says, though, he was not pulling a “Mr. Steal Yo Girl” move.
“I would say the skeleton of the story is correct, but there’s a couple of important caveats,” McDaniel said.
The biggest caveat centered on the tone of the “threat.”
“First of all, the perceived threat that I made to a player was over the top a joke, considering both he and I knew that as a running back coach I had no ability to say if he was there or not. It was more in jest,” McDaniel said. “And then second of all, my wife was telling me that people were talking about me stealing people’s girls. The dude had met her for 45 seconds.”
He added: “I think Steven Baylark, the player, was dancing with her, was well aware when I made that joke in jest, that it was more important to me than it was to him — and I’m pretty sure I was right. Right?
“I mean, I have a family now. Like, good decision.”
McDaniel joked that his dance moves “clearly’ won Katie over.
The two wed in 2014 and have a three-year-old daughter, Alya June, according to People.
“It wasn’t my physical disposition,” McDaniel joked. “I promise you that.”