With our BYE Week upon us, it’s time for Miami Dolphins Head Coach to take a look at what the team has done over the last 5 weeks. The most obvious thing resides in the loss column, and that would be a perfect 5 of 5, or 0-5. Yes, we know it’s not ALL about wins and losses, but at some point it realistically will be. He needs to take stock of our positives and negatives. This is a good time for evaluation of everything, players and coaches alike. One thing I can tell you from personal experience, since I was at the game as many of our FMU people were as well, is playing at Hard Rock Stadium in 2026 does not equal a “Home Field Advantage”. Other than the heat, which the Florida sun provided plenty of, game time temps were above 90 degrees, the stadium was what looked like to me about 70% Cincinnati Bengals fans compared to just 30% Miami Dolphins fans. It was a sea of Orange and White, but Bengals Orange and White, not Dolphins. I understand that Florida is a huge vacation destination, but despite HC Jeff Hafley repeatedly stating wins and losses don’t matter, they most certainly do at the box office. You want to have Miami Dolphins fans stuffing the seats at Hard Rock, you need to start winning!!!
Besides having the youngest roster in the NFL out of necessity, we’ve already lost our best offensive players, RB De’Von Achane for the entire season with a torn ACL. In addition to the Achane injury, 3rd RD pick WR Caleb Douglas has been OUT since Week 2, so he has missed the last 3 games. Our second 3rd RD pick, WR Chris Bell, has been playing, but has yet to make any kind of real impact. How much of that is the struggles of QB Malik Willis, or the fact that WR Chris Bell who is a rookie is still learning the offense, and is still working his way back from last year’s ACL injury and isn’t fully confident in his reconstructed knee. I’m sure it’s a lot of all of the above. 3rd year veteran WR Malik Washington is the most targeted WR on the team by more than double anyone else on the team. Washington has been targeted 36 times for 23 receptions. There are 2 players with 17 targets, TE Greg Dulcich, and surprisingly, rookie 5th RD pick WR Kevin Coleman also with 17 targets. Dulcich has been far more successful at reeling in those targets with 13 of 17, compared to just 5 of 17 for Coleman.
Being at the game and sitting close enough to actually see the action, as well as using binoculars when I couldn’t when the action was on the other side of the stadium, I was able to see a lot of things you simply can’t see from a TV broadcast. For one thing, you can focus on what YOU want, rather than what the camera man shows you. A couple of observations I believe I share with my fellow Festers. One, QB Malik Willis is absolutely not seeing the field well. He missed guys open all day long, and was late throwing the ball on many occasions. Two, he always rolls out to the right to escape pressure. That just makes it too easy if you’re so predictable, that as soon as you get pressure the QB will move to his right. Of course the other issue is you almost only have to defend one side of the field because of the difficulty of throwing across the body to other side of the field. These are correctable issues, and I truly hope that OC Bobby Slowik goes over this and more with QB Malik Willis. The other issue with going to the right is expecting the weaker of the two bookend OT’s, Austin Jackson, who has struggled, to help you out by occupying his defender.
Looking at QB Malik Willis statistically so far, it’s dreadful. Willis is has complete 73 of 130 pass attempts for 849 yards and a 56.2% completion percentage, with 2 TD’s, and 4 INT’s. That’s good for a passer rating of 68.4. I think we all hoped he’d be. better than this, but so far, he hasn’t shown that he’s a guy you can build a team around. He certainly has the athleticism to escape pressure, unlike his predecessor who was stuck in concrete or chose to curl up in the fetal position and take cover when pressure came (QB Tua Tagovailoa), but it’s not enough. On the other hand, it’s five games, and he will have opportunity to improve upon this. Hopefully during this BYE week, they can clean some of his issues up, or sooner than later, backup QB Kyle McCord will get his chance instead. Signing Malik Willis to a 3 YR contract for $67M isn’t a cap killer, especially in 2028. If the losses continue, however, and we’re choosing in the top 5, it may be difficult to stay away from drafting a top QB in that spot. Or, we could trade out of one of those top spots and get more picks and continue to build the roster around a Qb, one who may be taken later on in the draft. As we’ve seen, 1st RD QB’s are quite hit or miss these days, and many of these QB’s have done better on their 2nd or even 3rd teams.
Another observation from being at the game, but one you can see from the TV broadcast as well, is our ST’s coverage SUCKS!!! I could easily just leave it as our special teams altogether sucks. We have been gashed for huge returns seemingly every week, yet ST’s Coordinator Chris Tabor is still employed. I’d like to think he’s on a short leash, because with such a young roster, having a huge weakness is special teams is just one more deficit to overcome, and there are plenty of other deficits on this team already. Let’s look at a positive. RB Ollie Gordon. I didn’t have this on my Dolphins bingo card, I’ll tell you that. Ollie Gordon has 47 rushes for 236 yards (5.0 YPC) and 3 TD’s. It seems clear that while former 4th RD pick from 2024 RB Jaylen Wright, who we traded a 2025 3rd RD pick to draft, has been a huge disappointment. Anyone here think we should just not draft or sign any player with the first name Jaylen, Jalen, Jaelan etc? Not a one of them has worked out well for us, although WR Jaylen Waddle netted us a 2026 1st RD pick (#30), a 2026 3rd RD pick (#94) and a 2026 4th RD pick (#130) in exchange for Waddle and a 2026 4th RD pick (#111) in the trade with the Denver Broncos. That very same WR Jaylen Waddle has 22 receptions for a whopping 228 yards and 1 TD. So far I’d say we got the better of this deal but there’s plenty more time to reveal the answer to that.
OK, so time to deal with FACTS. We are scoring 14 PPG, good for 31st in the NFL. Only the Tennessee Titans are worse, at 11.6 PPG. On defense, we’re not much better at 24th in the NFL, allowing 26.4 PPG. Add in that our special teams have been below average, it’s no surprise we find ourselves winless after our first 5 games. Now that RB Ollie Gordon is rolling, and thank GOD that Mike McDaniel is not here calling plays, you can say what you want about Bobby Slowik, at least he keeps handing RB Ollie Gordon the rock! To be fair, now that Gordon has established himself as the primary ballcarrier, maybe I’m giving him too much credit. In any case, it’s good to see the run game successful. This makes it even more difficult to accept how poorly the passing game has been. This is where we have to show the most improvement. If Malik Willis isn’t getting it done, maybe take a look at Kyle McCord around game 12 or 13 and see what McCord can do. I would love to see WR Caleb Douglas return to action after the BYE week, we need a spark, and I think a healthy Caleb Douglas can bring that.
I still can’t get the Hard Rock takeover out of my head. We can say winning doesn’t matter, but winning is the only thing that will change this from happening. If you want season ticket holders to stop selling their tickets, give them a reason to do so! We’ve played 5 games, scored 7 TD’s, recorded only 4 sacks, intercepted 3 passes, and forced 3 fumbles and recovered 3, 4 if you include P Bradley Pinion recovering his own fumble. I think the O-line play has been better, with the exception of RT Austin Jackson. Now better doesn’t necessarily mean good, but the bar was pretty low from the hideous O-line play of 2025. LT Patrick Paul has been disappointing, not because he been playing poorly, but he he may be worse this season than last. Rookie LG Kadyn Proctor has played well for a rookie, C Aaron Brewer is always good. RT Jonah Savaiinaea has improved to maybe below average, but he was piss poor last season, so we’ll take that, and hopefully he continues to improve. It seems pretty obvious to me, that LG Kadyn Proctor will be moving to RT next season and we will be looking for an OG to replace him either in the draft, or Free Agency, or both. I understand many of you think Proctor will stay at LG, but I thought as soon as we drafted him he was the eventual replacement for Austin, who will be a Free Agent OT in 2027, and if his play continues the same, that will be a surety.
Let’s hope we see a better product coming out of our BYE Week. Here’s to seeing players come back healthy from injury, and that we see a more competitive team. Last week, despite the score, we were not competitive, we just weren’t in the game. I know we closed to a 7 point deficit, but the Bengals were just cruising to victory. I’d love to see Chop Robinson become a true pass rush threat, our toothless pass rush just sin’t getting it done. Sieler leads the team with 2 sacks and there’s fan talk that we could/should trade him. Fuck that, not trading Sieler for a 5th RD pick, he’s a good player and a leader. Chop has been used sparingly and has only 8 tackles, after missing one game with a concussion. We need a helluva lot more from the former 1st RD pick. My goodness, Chris Grier may have been the absolute worst at identifying a pass rusher in the draft. Oddly enough, his most successful pass rusher drafted is Minnesota Viking OLB Andrew Van Ginkel, who Grier drafted in 2019 in the 5th RD. Van Ginkel has 39.5 sacks in his 8 year career, including 4 this season. We had him, but Grier didn’t keep him. Enough looking back, time to put our eyes forward to better things!
GO DOLPHINS!!!
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