| Projected Record | 9-8 |
| Weighted DVOA Offense* (2024) | 22nd |
| Weighted DVOA Defense (2024) | 19th |
| Early Down Yards (2024) | 1st Down – 5 (tied-15th), 2nd Down – 4.9 (tied-21st) |
| Explosive Play Rate* (2024) | Offense – 30th (Run 19th, Pass 31st), Defense – 11th (Run 28th, Pass 2nd) |
| Red Zone TD Rate | 56.6% (16th) |
| Turnover Differential | -5 (tied-20th) |
| Key Additions | Zach Wilson QB, Nick Westbrook-Ikhine WR, Larry Borom OT, James Daniels IOL, Willie Gay Jr. LB, K.J. Britt LB, Kendall Sheffield CB, Jack Jones CB, JuJu Brents CB, Rasul Douglas CB, Ife Melifonwu S, Ashtyn Davis S, Riley Patterson K, Joe Cardona LS |
| Key Departures | Raheem Mostert RB, River Cracraft WR, Braxton Berrios WR, Durham Smythe TE, Robert Jones IOL, Calais Campbell IDL, Da’shawn Hand IDL, Emmanuel Ogbah EDGE, Anthony Walker Jr. LB, Siran Neal CB, Jevon Holland S |
| Rookies to Watch | Ollie Gordon RB, Jonah Savaiinaea IOL, Kenneth Grant IDL, Jordan Phillips IDL, Zeek Biggers IDL, Jason Marshall Jr. CB |
Players on IR: Alexander Mattison RB, Bayron Matos OT, Yodny Cajuste OT, Germain Ifedi OT, Obinna Eze OT, Liam Eichenberg IOL, Andrew Meyer IOL, Jason Maitre CB, Kader Kohou CB, Ethan Bonner CB, Cam Smith CB, Artie Burns CB, Jason Sanders K
Quarterback
Can Tua Tagovailoa stay healthy? It’s Groundhog Day from 2022, when Tua also missed an extended stretch for a concussion and ended the year unable to make his return from a second injury. Unsurprisingly, the discourse around him has looked exactly the same, with blissfully smaller choruses for the Dolphins brass to be thrown in the Hague for risking his life. There is also, thankfully, less of a chorus of haters on Tua’s pure skill. Tua famously finished 2022 as the NFL leader in QB rating, then took the lead in passing yards in 2023, and this seems to have locked in his bonafides as a talent. The EPA metrics were good yet again: Tua increased his efficiency on passes with no pressure, passes from the pocket, throws on early downs, and passes schemed to receivers, and those are the metrics that tend to be stable from year to year. He was a top 10 passer in each of those save for passes with no pressure, where he ranked 12th. So what was Tua’s role in an inarguably shitty 2024 offense in the best of circumstances? First, the offense could do absolutely nothing in the quick game, with Tua racking up -.1 EPA (22nd) as opposed to last year’s .2 (3rd). Tyler Huntley was actually worse, with -.26, ranking 37th in the league. Miami was flat out figured out: even with Tua making incredible reads and getting surgical without the gimmicky play action and motions, the team could not scheme open receivers and could not get downfield in a hurry. Instead, Tua had to be magical in the less stable places, and crazily enough, he was! He had the 8th best EPA on both 3rd/4th down and in the 4th quarter, which tends to change from year to year. His .32 EPA in longer developing plays (more than 2.5 seconds) and his 2nd-best .32 EPA in the red zone were huge improvements over past years. Tua struggled in two places that informed the 2024 log-jam: he fell from league best in deep throw EPA to 26th and he fell back to the middle of the pack against man coverage. Miami thrives over the middle and roasting man off the line with their speed: instead, receivers were jammed, Miami fell out of rhythm, the run game imploded, and Tua was left on his own with games spiraling out of control.
What’s the fix in 2025? FTN’s annual roundup in the league offered virtually no answers: Tua, they say, checked down a bit more and threw a bit more into tight coverage, but ultimately they felt his play was relatively consistent. It just seems to be an issue of personnel and malaise. Miami’s offensive line took a decided step back, the receivers couldn’t get on the right time, and ultimately we watched a team that lacked trust. Tua lacked the trust to throw the deep ball. The receivers lacked the trust to hit their landmarks. The coach lacked the trust needed to allow Tua to sit back in the pocket. Ultimately, in the tense discussions around health later in the season, Tua and the team seemed to be at a schism point. It becomes useful, then, to look at recent history toward QBs who suffered a crisis of faith. The examples that pop into my mind mostly involve departures: Deshaun Watson’s lack of faith in the Texans, and the resulting trades demanded by Baker Mayfield and Matt Ryan. All three paths diverged in interesting ways. Watson’s career cratered under the pressure of lawsuits and general insanity, Ryan turned out to be completely cooked at his age, and Mayfield turned in a top-5 passing season last year. Matthew Stafford and Jared Goff also got a new start, and both turned their careers around. For a QB with talent, a loss of faith in the team is far from the end of their career but hews close to the end of their tenure with the team. Can the Dolphins fix it for Tua? There’s certainly more motivation for Miami and Tua to make this work than most: Tua is the best QB for Miami since Dan Marino, now officially without question. Tua, meanwhile, will likely not fare as a quality starter worth investing significant resources in for most other franchises, as he is not seen as a viable long-term starter for certain due to the concussions. Everyone has to play nice, and it will be awkward.
Building this trust will come down to the Dolphins seeing Tua finish 2025 healthy and Tua seeing the team build success in this calendar year. The clearest path to this is by fixing the offensive line and allowing Tua to build more careful chemistry and timing in the orchestration of the offense. The run game must re-emerge, as Miami went from the league’s best yards per carry to the 28th best. This is unhinged poor, as the offense section will discuss. Tua will need the chance behind his offensive line to make bold throws again, as PFF charted just 11 big time throws to go with 12 turnover worthy plays (for what it’s worth, they hated Tua as a passer, ranking him 22nd of 25 qualifying passers). An offense that ranked 2nd in rate of holding calls, 1st in quickest time to sack, and 1st in runs stuffed behind the line of scrimmage is simply not a unit to trust. Is it mental? Are OL players simply getting dominated? That Tua himself hasn’t collapsed into a shell of himself speaks to his mental toughness because playing QB at a highly efficient rate behind a team that cannot help but shoot themselves in the foot is insane. What is there to say about Tua? He’s proved the caliber of QB he is, he’s dazzled us with comeback wins, he’s worked to minimize mistakes and integrate new phases to his game every year, and it all depends whether his own noggin and cosmically bad luck will allow him to take us somewhere this year.
Coaching
Miami doesn’t feel like top 5 in much this year, but one area must be coaching motivation. The perpetually-overcaffeinated Mike McDaniel is coaching for his job, his assistants are hoping they have one last chance to launch themselves upward or sideways in the NFL hierarchy like any Shanahan Tree disciples, and Anthony Weaver needs just one more good year for a clear path to head coaching. The problem is that they have a roster that feels much less talented, if arguably less misshapen, than 2024. In 2023, Miami had a roster that felt destined for a playoff run and, had they beaten the Bills in Week 18, they might have gotten that longed-for playoff win. The team feasted behind an underrated defensive line and a secondary that played disciplined ball under Vic Fangio, and had the hottest offense in the league fueled by a Tua-Tyreek combination that felt like it was ripped out of a Madden glitch. In 2024, complacency, injuries, and good-old-fashioned people issues left the team far more confusing: Calais Campbell stepped in admirably for Christian Wilkins, Jordan Poyer less so for Brandon Jones, the offensive line shuffled and regressed, and the Dolphins never quite figured out their identity. It was a finesse team that offered neither shock nor awe, and one that was OLD. Outside of Campbell looking like a superhero, Raheem Mostert, Jeff Wilson, Terron Armstead, Tyreek Hill, and Poyer looked like they were plodding through the year. It never looked easy for this team, in the best or worst of circumstances throughout the year. Why were they struggling to close out against the worst Patriots team in 25 years? How did they fail to shut the door on the Cardinals and Bills in consecutive weeks despite beating them soundly for 55 minutes? And how in God’s name was the offensive leader Jonnu Smith? As I wrote in the Tua section, it boils down so much to trust: few on the Dolphins could be trusted as assets, trusted in clutch situations, trusted to deliver in Week 8 what they showed in Week 7.
So the team purged, and sought to find an identity. What they have is far from fully formed, as Stephen Ross seems to have made a demand that the financial health of future seasons takes precedence over more Gig Workers signed for big money like Jalen Ramsey. Miami thus had a full complement of draft picks and the coaching up of previous picks to attempt to develop some kind of identity two years too late. The priority has to be the run game to start: as mentioned, Miami had the 28th best yards per carry efficiency and the worst rate of runs stuffed behind the line. Let’s mix in their abysmal 3rd and 4th down run rate, where they achieved the 31st first down rate and were thus 31st in EPA. Mike McDaniel’s first order of business is to get the run game going with some young and enthusiastic new pieces: Patrick Paul and Jonah Savaiinaea are an entirely new left side of the line while James Daniels teams up with long-standing RT Austin Jackson on the other side of the line. With three of five new pieces on the line younger than the guys they are replacing, eliminating mental mistakes in order to free up the physicality is essential early. Mike McDaniel shocked the league in 2023 with a angular run game that added an entirely new element to the Miami attack before offering nothing new in 2024. Do we see the run game simplify into the power runs and counters that are the trends throughout the rest of the league? Is a bit of the choreography and window dressing gone? Miami’s TE group is extremely worrisome, and they’re relied upon for much of the action in the run game, so this team may take some time to get electric on the ground. Simplicity may feel yucky to McDaniel, but it may also be the best path forward. In the air, the winds are shifting to a more balanced attack. Through the years, Tua has shown a proclivity to pepper his trusted guys with targets: Jonnu Smith was the most recent favorite, but even in preseason, Tua’s one drive featured 6 targets for Malik Washington. For McDaniel to see those explosives show up again, it may take a bit more balance: De’Von Achane, Hill, Waddle, and the Washingtons are an excellent complement of speedsters, but they must hit their landmarks and improve their ability to shake coverage to build the consistent drives that cracks an opponent’s defensive shell to really take the top off. How bad was Miami in terms of explosives? Shockingly, I charted them at the 2nd lowest in passing explosives and the 3rd lowest overall. Given the sheer volume of plays they ran, it’s not good.
Defensively, it is a simple coaching prerogative: plug the holes. Miami’s front 7 has real potential this season. Both the edge group (Jaelan Phillips, Chop Robinson, and Bradley Chubb) and the interior group (Zach Sieler and a cavalcade of rookies, most notably big Kenneth Grant) are legitimate top 10 strengths on paper. The unheralded linebackers may be more underrated, but Willie Gay Jr. added to the already-stout group of Tyrell Dodson and the criminally-underdiscussed Jordyn Brooks is also a strength. Minkah Fitzpatrick’s addition to the safety group allows for more chess matches, letting Ife Melifonwu and Ashtyn Davis roam a bit. It’s not a stellar unit, but having some big play ability at safety is useful for Anthony Weaver. The middle of the field and the edges of the offensive line feel covered, but Anthony Weaver has no corners. None. Storm Duck, the undrafted rookie last year who played decidedly okay ball is a starter in pen. How does Weaver coach around such a serious flaw? It boggles the mind somewhat.
Through all of this, I’ve started to understand a little bit more about how Chris Grier views team-building. In past Dolphins reports, I’ve discussed Grier’s tendency to try and double up: from two Pro Bowl talents in Byron Jones and Xavien Howard, to Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle, to Jaelan Phillips and Bradley Chubb, to the attempted Jalen Ramsey and Howard pairing of 2023. This felt like a philosophical approach that transcended coaches: Grier wants you to pick your poison. I will revise this approach. Chris Grier, instead, is a guy that absolutely sucks at papering over flaws in the team. When he has a guy, he can find a complement, but when asked to start something from scratch, he’s the guy holding the blueprint upside down. In the OL room, this has been a problem since 2016. Now, it has become a problem in the secondary room and the TE room. The moves have been appropriately desperate every time: the Dolphins are unable to transition from Howard to Cam Smith, the Dolphins are unable to get a starting guard worth a damn that everyone else in the league can find, the Dolphins cannot draft a TE that avoids tripping over his feet. Meanwhile, with top picks and top dollar, Grier and McDaniel seem capable of getting their guys: James Daniels and Aaron Brewer are solid linemen and Paul, Jonah, Chop, and Grant seem to be solid no-brainer picks. Is a fair weather GM what Miami needs now? Are they simply a healthy Tua away from contention? It feels like the answer is no, which brings about the coaching desperation and the pitchfork/torch combination in the fan base. But this remains to be seen: Miami is now a team with a young offensive line, a stout front 7, proven WRs and RBs attempting to rally from a down year, and their same old happy-go-lucky coach and QB combination. There’s the inkling of an identity, a blend of strength and speed that will allow the team to be more downhill on both sides of the ball. The fans may be praying it works, but they can’t be more invested than a staff at the end of their rope.
Offense
Mike McDaniel’s high-flying attack was grounded in a large way last year, and look no further than the iffy PFF grades for the team: Terron Armstead, De’Von Achane, Jonnu Smith, and Aaron Brewer were the only guys who stood out from the rest of the league, and two of those guys are gone. It’s an offense of guys looking to rebound: let’s dig into who can be a difference maker. Achane was no longer a big play threat last year, needing 203 carries to go 907 yards compared to his 108 for 813 in 2023. He went from gaining half his yards in explosives to just over 30%. Standing at 5’8”, 188 pounds, this is not ideal. Miami, thus, flexed him out more: Achane doubled his targets from 43 to 85 and caught a whopping 78 of them for 592 yards. He had 6 TDs on the ground and 6 through the air. Achane as a pass-catching specialist is probably his best usage. So who totes the rock more? Alexander Mattison and Ollie Gordon were brought in to compete for the short yardage role: Mattison hasn’t ran for more than 4 yards per carry since 2020, and now is no longer on the team due to a neck injury while Gordon is a former college phenom who came down to earth in a brutal 2024 campaign that featured a DUI. The previous hope in Jaylen Wright, who improved every season in college and truly looks the part of a great NFL RB, is shaken by an injury yet again to start the year. Still, he is 5’10”, 210 pounds and runs a 4.38 40. That is good as hell. In his rookie year, he sniffed out a bit of space but ended with a weak 3.7 yards per carry, no TDs, and no big play that stands out in my mind. With Raheem Mostert gone, one of those two will need to step up. Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle return at receiver after both endured the worst seasons of their career: Hill finished under 1000 yards for the first time since his 2016 rookie year and tied a career low in TDs. He also slipped under 2 yards per route run for the first time ever and set a career low in YAC. He had just 3 games of over 100 yards and, outside of saving games against the abysmal Jaguars and Browns, made no difference at all in the middle of the season. Waddle was worse. He, too, had his first year without 1000 yards, scored just 2 TDs, and set a career low in both yards per route run and YAC. Neither felt open, they just simply didn’t, and one has to wonder why they can’t get more passes underneath just for some semblance of momentum. Rumors are swirling that Waddle may be getting the #1 looks from Tua in camp but, if so, he’s certainly not turning heads or getting big highlights on socials. Miami’s receivers down the line are unproven, but talented: Tahj Washington is healthy after being Caleb Williams’s top guy at USC and taking an injury year, and Malik Washington may shockingly have been the most dependable receiver on the team last year with his 26 catches for 223 yards and clutch returns a real help. Nick Westbrook-Ikhine was brought in from Tennessee for his size and blocking experience, as well as a weird knack for the endzone. At TE, the Dolphins have a minefield: Darren Waller is the new Odell and, like Odell, has some years of absolutely insane production (at his peak, he had 107 catches for 1196 and 9 TDs, WR stats at TE) followed by a wander in the wilderness. Julian Hill seems more likely to have one more year to give it the old college try (why Miami believes in this man enough to give him a third year after terrible run blocking and more penalties than any non-OL in the league is beyond me). Pharaoh Brown was Miami’s hail mary at the position and they’ve talked up his blocking, but in a journeyman career, he’s rarely shown much in that department outside of willingness, and was promptly cut from the team. It’s a bummer to even type about these skill players: all of them have to prove they’re cornerstones of the team, even those with pedigree.
The offensive line is reason for some optimism, though that’s a sad state of affairs because real questions exist. Patrick Paul got mediocre reviews after being forced into starts due to the classic injuries to Terron Armstead: he allowed 15 pressures in 229 snaps, which isn’t great, but given how much work he needed on technique, it was a pleasant surprise. Paul is a hulking player who is extremely strong, but plays with odd hand placement. At times in camp, he has been dominant and will need to be consistent to produce in the run game. PFF hated him there because Paul simply did not look like he knew where he was going: Miami likely agrees and got him a ton of training camp snaps, and asked him to lose weight, to make sure he can match the speed of the offense. Rookie Jonah Saviaiinaea (awesome name, but I’m going to write Jonah) was drafted out of Arizona to play guard. A guy with a ton of guard experience, he’s faster than your average guard, compact like a fire hydrant, and has a reputation for health and smarts. The Dolphins made a move up in the draft to get him, demonstrating real conviction. This left side of the OL is young, super strong, and super athletic: if they cave teams in the run and screen game, maybe Miami can get some of the explosives they lacked. Aaron Brewer remains the heady and talented C replacement for Connor Williams. With just 12 pressures, Brewer was tied for the 4th best pressure rate with Steelers talent Zach Frasier. His problem will always be that he is a lineman who struggles to be 300 pounds, which is TINY for the position. He still had the 10th best PFF grade out of centers, and is a truly underrated Miami success story for McDaniel. McDaniel saw a guy getting caved in Tennessee and realized his liabilities could be assets in his system. A good find! James Daniels is the other great mystery aside from Paul: in 4 games with Pittsburgh before an Achilles injury, the 27-year-old looked like the next great Steelers lineman. The transition to Arthur Smith’s zone scheme from the traditional Steelers power attack was GREAT for Daniels, and teams beyond Miami eyed him until Miami was (sigh) the only team to bid high for a guy off injury. Austin Jackson rounds out the list after another year of decent production under McDaniel. The team took a nosedive in the run game after his injury in Week 9, which does speak to how he moves the needle a bit, but the victory lap on Jackson was premature due to the amount of seasons he ended on IR and the relative shrug that he’s gotten from the analytics people. He’s no longer the most embarrassing tackle on tape in football, but he is not exciting either, and he missed training camp with an injury. Again. Overall, as the Dolphins pledged to get more physical, they seem to have achieved it on paper: Jonah and Daniels are far and away the best guard pair Miami has had since Richie Incognito and whoever he was bullying, and Paul may not be as technically sound in his viciousness as Terron Armstead, but at least he’s available. Jackson and Brewer were not the problem in 2024. A new day for the Miami OL is, hopefully, a return to efficiency for the offense, a chance for a healthier Tua, and the catalyst for more explosives.
Defense
Miami’s strength this year, as mentioned above, lies in the defensive front 7, where their two best players of 2024 for my money play. In the defensive interior, Zach Sieler finally got an extension to bring his money to where his play has been: Sieler is a quintessential locker room tough guy, and his unbelievable instinct for just where an OL’s pressure points lie was extremely good for every DL who played with him. When he doesn’t get a sack, he’s the guy running two poor OLs into the ground while his teammate comes free. He is the guy every team loves, and every team needs. His 46 pressures weren’t terribly impressive, but he turned them into his second straight double digit sack season. Give the man his flowers! Now he has a new (and ultimately better, save for Calais Campbell) rotation next to him. Kenneth Grant is a 335 pound monster 1st rounder who can leap 31 inches in the air and took off for the first 10 yards of his 40 at an insane 1.72 seconds. That is a man who fires off the ball. Explosiveness from Grant will be huge this year and, if he can crack the rookie wall, he will be a major piece of 2026 Dolphins previews. Zeke Biggers and the New And Improved Jordan Phillips (a literal different man from the old one) are also in the rotation: Biggers was an honorable mention All-ACC who blocked a shocking amount of kicks and tested well at the combine while Phillips slipped to the 5th round due to the depth in the class, but is just 20-years-old and is freak in the weight room. These guys are strong and young. Good ol’ Benito Jones of no-helmet-INT fame rounds out the list as a 330 pound mentor to the other big guys. On the edges, the Dolphins will FINALLY trot out Chop Robinson, Jaelan Phillips, and Bradley Chubb for the first time since the idea was so exciting in May of 2024. Chubb has been a big name in the league for so long, and had so many injuries, that you forget he won’t even be 30 this year. His 2023 year was the best of his career with 70 pressures before a brutal knee injury shut him down for both 2023 and 2024. Jaelan Phillips hasn’t been truly great since 2022, when he dropped 77 pressures of his own, but the lengthy and twitchy edge rusher is now healthy after an Achilles ended 2023 halfway through and a knee injury from his own player (Jordan Poyer was a sleeper cell agent) took 2024. Phillips has a super cool bag of tricks that makes for a long game for OTs. Now mix in Chop Robinson, who averaged a pressure every 6 snaps. Chop was insanely efficient, a true NASCAR around the edge, contrasting with Phillips’s technique and bend and Chubb’s bull rush. They’re all good at different things, all have peaked as “in the conversation” for a top 10 pass rusher in the NFL. They will be so exciting to watch in Week 1, perhaps the only thing I have more excitement than nerves about. Miami returns their top 2 LBs from last year, Tyrel Dodson and Jordyn Brooks. Both were listed as mediocre by PFF, but the eye test was much kinder. Brooks was tied for 5th in both tackles and run stops and did an excellent job erasing the middle of the field in the pass game. Dotson played less, but missed tackles at a lesser rate and led LBs in picks (they were relatively unspectacular, but still!) Now, interestingly, Dotson and Brooks had a fistfight in joint practices that they are now explaining off, but I’m sure that’s fine! Football! Rabies! Willie Gay Jr. is a wildcard here: after a strong start to his career in Kansas City, the cost-cutting Chiefs let him walk after 2024 and he spent a miserable season with the Saints before signing with Miami. He looked great in preseason game 1, moving all over the field. He’s much more of a basic thumper than fluid mover, but as far as the Dolphins not being bullied, you love some of the guys in this front 7.
Now on to the secondary disaster. Here are the candidates, presented in alphabetical order because who the fuck knows who plays corner? I kept the cuts because they are also part of the beautiful tapestry of disaster at the position.
- Cornell Armstrong: Listed as backup nickel, an old Phins practice squad-er from bygone days. Hasn’t played defense since 2022, which was the first time since 2019. He’s a nickel? Okay. CUT
- Ethan Bonner: White guy, very fast, Tyreek said he might have one of the best straight-line speeds on the team. Vanished when the team desperately needed corner help, which the insiders say was injury. ON IR
- JuJu Brents: Claimed by Miami off the waiver wire, Brents was a surprise cut from the Colts after two years into his rookie deal as a second round pick. Brents was the first pick after Anthony Richardson, and played fine for a rookie before the injuries piled up. They are, in order: pulled hamstring for training camp and two games, quad injury for six games, hamstring injury for the season finale, broken nose for training camp 2, torn ligaments in knee for all of last year, and hamstring for most of training camp 3. He was cut, of course, but the 6’3″ player does make nice plays when available. Story of Miami’s life. DEPTH
- Rasul Douglas: Douglas is a fascinating player who took a circuitous journey through the league. Drafted by the Eagles in the top 100, he was always a pesky player in the competitions, but never rose above the great names ahead of him despite playing well in spot starts. He was cut after his third year, catching on with the Panthers and getting his first starting job. With Carolina, he broke up passes well but allowed a lot of completions with a bad team. Drifting through 3 COVID practice squads, Douglas was called up after both Packers CBs went down and was awesome in 2021. With 5 INTs, he allowed an insane 43.7 QB rating, and kept it going the next two years before a trade to Buffalo for a nice pick in the middle of 2022. Buffalo didn’t make it over the hump, but Douglas was AWESOME for them in 2023, with another 5 picks and 9 pass breakups. 2024 was a tough year, allowing a 123.7 rating, recording a career-high 9 penalties, and generally being a weak link. Douglas just turned 30 and was never a speedster, so this may be the end of elite play. At the veteran minimum, and pulled from a competitor, Douglas is still a fine signing. DEPTH
- Storm Duck: Great name, great guy, mid player. He allowed 23 catches on 31 passes last year, including a memorable and terrible 46 yarder in the nightmare against Green Bay. He is so unserious as a physical presser and will likely need to prove himself, though he’s a starter in pen. CB2
- Mike Hilton: Current starting nickel, one of the best at blitzing from that position. He straight thumped in Bengals games all year and is mean in the run game. He also allowed his first 100 passer rating to opposing QBs on the Bengals last year, so they let him walk as they rebuild the worst defensive spine I’ve ever seen. He’s at least an NFL professional. HE IS NOW CUT LOL
- Jack Jones: The opposite of an NFL professional. Arrested for trying to take a gun through security in the airport in BOSTON OF ALL PLACES. He’s a gambler who got a chance to land in Vegas after being cut midway through his second year (despite the hype) due to a missed curfew. This is in addition to having to go to JUCO after being cut from USC for academic reasons. While he flashed with the Raiders with some highlights (pick 6s in back-to-back weeks on Easton Stick and Patrick Mahomes), he also pretended to give a ball to a child and yanked it back like a shitty AAA mascot and people got mad at him. And he allowed 10 TDs. Jack Jones is a major yikes. He also was arrested at a Panda Express for commercial burglary. I, too, would do anything for the Panda. CB1
- Jason Marshall Jr.: After putting forward one of those Twitter high school highlight reels that Miami dudes do and ending up as a 5-star prospect, Marshall was nowhere near his billing at the University of Florida. He had literally 2 INTs in his college career, and ended it with a shoulder injury. Invisible on tape. Now he is the starting nickel, which he did not play in college or high school. CB3
- Kendall Sheffield: Somehow the other starter on paper, after (as mentioned) not having a pass breakup since before the Biden Administration. A mediocre special teams guy who had one shot in Atlanta and allowed a near perfect passer rating. Yeesh. CUT
- Cam Smith: Most famous as a teammate of Grier’s son, a guy who slipped out of the first round and was thought to be a steal but was actually Croneyism’s Newest Bust. Smith can’t stay healthy, which would be somewhat forgivable if he could actually stay anything resembling good. GOOD PRESEASON, THEN IR LOL
So yeah, bad times at corner. Please refer to this guide when a new one of the 8 trots into the game! At safety, Miami flipped Jonnu Smith and Jalen Ramsey for Minkah Fitzpatrick in the biggest move for cap health (Smith) and locker room health (Ramsey). Minkah obviously forced his way out of Miami way back when, after some confrontations with coach Brian Flores over his usage, he was traded to Pittsburgh for a 1st-round pick. Minkah and Flores reunited again when Flores made a stop in Pittsburgh and fences were mended. Fences are mended now, too, as Minkah moves back down to South Florida. He has said all the right things to the media and was the first to intercept Tua in practice. Minkah is the member of the defense who most closely resembles the offensive conversation above: Pittsburgh fans all but ran him out of town after a 134.1 QB rating allowed, with 5 TDs and a big uptick in missed tackles in 2024. He didn’t look like a game-changer, and it cost the team a lot of money. Still just 28 years old, Minkah gets one more chance to live up to the 11th overall pick and the hefty contract that followed. From 2019-2022, Minkah brought in 17 INTs while allowing 8 TDs. That number is 1 to 7 over the last two years. Is Fitzpatrick still a stud? Anthony Weaver is the best to figure it out. Next to him, Ashtyn Davis is listed as the starter after three nice years in coverage in Robert Saleh’s defenses. Davis is a classic last-man-standing safety, rarely allowing big plays in his part-time role. He’s an excellent guy to try on a team with less depth. Ife Melifonwu is the third safety (always a need in a Weaver defense for versatility) and he has more flashes than Davis after a shockingly good 2023 in Detroit, but he has taken an injury every other year. In essence, the Dolphins season comes down to one crucial question: can good pass rush and disciplined run defense elevate their corners or are their corners literal poison for a talented front? Miami 2025 is a lovely place for this thought experiment.
Special Teams
Jason Sanders returned to form in 2024, hitting 37 of 41 of his FGs. He had some iffy kicks, as always, but hit it true when needed. He won the Jacksonville game and didn’t miss a FG after week 7 (he whiffed two extra points in back-to-back weeks somehow). Sanders took a hip injury in preseason, so the team will turn to Riley Patterson, who played for three teams last year due to kicker injuries. He was perfect on XPs, but 1 for 4 on FGs beyond 40 yards so let’s not play anyone close! Jake Bailey also graded well by PFF as the punter, but rarely pinned teams inside the 20. The special teams were the best part of the first preseason game, which was a nice surprise: kick coverage was solid. Malik Washington was PFF’s 5th best returner of 2024, which he deserves: he alone got the Dolphins in position to beat the Jets in an OT thriller with a 67 yard kick return. He is a fine punt returner too, but Dolphins had awful blocking last year in return game. New special teams coordinator Craig Aukerman was Vrabel’s guy in Tennessee, but lost his job to large gaffes there: early returns are good.
