Get ready Dolphins fans! Week 1 of NFL Football is here and we will finally get to see the team so many experts are predicting to have a miserable season. Those same experts most likely also had the Los Angeles Rams going undefeated, but we all know how that turned out. Whatever the win total is for our Miami Dolphins, I want to see a competitive team, a tough team that can play in any conditions, hot or cold, and a team that no team will want to play. Those things can happen and we can still have a losing season. The average age of players on the 2026 Miami Dolphins is 24 years old. We all know why, and how we got here. Those problems have been removed and the cap issues we had are in the process of being corrected. I’m truly excited to see what our team looks like this week against the Las Vegas Raiders. The point spread at the moment of writing is Raiders -3. That’s pretty even up, considering the Raiders are home.

There have been a lot of surprises for our gameday roster, nothing more surprising than rookie WR Chris Bell not only not being on IR/Return but also the fact that he’s in the starting lineup. Both rookie 3rd RD Picks WR Caleb Douglas and WR Chris Bell have been named as starters. You have to be excited about that, even if WR Chris Bell is at about 85% because of his previous injury. The Dolphins aren’t being reckless, they’re just putting their best players out there. Bell would not be out there if he wasn’t ready. The late cut of ILB Tyrel Dodson was the other surprise, which of course thrusts rookie ILB Jacob Rodriguez into the starting lineup as well. This is a young team, and we all know young teams make mistakes. We also know young players bring energy and excitement, and I expect that to the be the case with our Dolphins.

All of us here know very little about what we’re going to see on offense and defense simply because we haven’t yet seen anything. We haven’t seen our starting offense except for the opening drive of PS Game 1. We haven’t seen most of our starting defense either. To highlight this, DT Zeek Biggers has yet to play a snap in 2026, didn’t participate in any of the PS games. I think this can only help us in this first matchup because the Raiders really have no idea what they are facing, besides a young team. Regardless, execution is key, and despite perhaps have a leg up due to the mystery of what we’re doing, we still have execute the gameplan better than our opponent. We’ll see how that turns out on Sunday at 4:25PM.

I think overall the one unit that was letdown early and through most of the season was the O-line. Oddly enough I feel like the O-line might be our better unit. I think Patrick Paul is a solid LT, I believe rookie LG Kadyn Proctor will be a tremendous upgrade over last year’s starter Jonah Savaiinaea. OC Aaron Brewer is close to an All Pro C. At RG, 2nd year man Jonah Savaiinaea has looked more confident and more physical and considerably better than he played last season. At the moment, RT Austin Jackson is healthy, and as long as that continues, he should supply average to a little above average play there. Rookie TE Will Kacmarek is nicked up, so I don’t know how impactful he will be this week. He’s our best run blocking TE by far, but w’ll see early on how much he is used, and that will likely tell us the story of how nicked up he actually is. TE Greg Dulcich is a decent receiver, but he’s not a blocking TE, and the other 2 TE’s on the roster, rookie 5th RD pick Seydou Traore and rookie pickup TE Justin Joly is not know for his blocking skills either. I know we’re looking to be more physical, so FB DJ Herman may see action and supply us with some much needed additional blocking at the LOS.

The other huge Wild Card is our QB. QB Malik Willis is a significantly more athletic Qb than former starter Tua Tagovailoa. He can be dangerous running the football, although I’m sure we won’t be gameplanning to have QB Malik Willis running all day. He may have to be running out of necessity if the O-line is struggling, but I don’t believe he will be tasked to run as part of the offensive gameplan. I can’t wait to see him play, it will be so refreshing to have a guy back there capable of making things happen when the play breaks down. I think our defense is also much maligned because of what is perceived to be a lack of pass rushing prowess. I think that’s a fair assessment. We don’t have any proven pass rushers on our D, but 3rd year pro Chop Robinson has added some muscle, and maybe this is the year he takes off. DT Zach Sieler led the Dolphins that are still on the roster with 5.5 sacks. Chop Robinson added only 4 sacks last year. Who knows what DE/LB Josh Uche will bring to our defense. Supposedly he also bulked up some so we’ll see if pays dividends. We will have a very young DL rotation with the exception of DT Zach Sieler. We’ll see a lot of 2nd year players DT Jordan Phillips and Zeek Biggers, along with 2nd yearDT Keith Cooper, and veteran DE Robert Beal.

The secondary will be a young secondary, and again, a few second year players will be called upon to make an immediate impact. At CB, 4th year CB Juju Brents will line up on one side (Left) with 2nd year CB Jason Marshall on the right side. At safety, once again, it will be another member of the 2025 Draft class with SS Dante Trader starting and then 6th year vet Zayne will be starting at FS, but don’t be surprised if we see a fair amount of two rookies, S Michael Taaffe, and S/LB Kyle Louis is certain situations. What those situations are, however, we have no idea because we haven’t yet seen it happen. At LB we’re about as solid a unit as can be with LB Jordyn Brooks returning. On the inside will be rookie ILB and 2026 2nd RD pick Jacob Rodriguez. At the other outside LB will be returning vet LB Willie Gay. Jordyn Brooks will be on the weak side while Gay will be on the strong side. In nickel situations, we’ll see rookie 1st RD Pick CB Chris Johnson.

Yes, I’ve seen the hubbub about if the Dolphins can’t beat the Raiders this week, they will undoubtedly go winless for the season. I think that’s just plain silly. It’s week 1 for a young team, with a new Head Coach, with a bunch of players that really haven’t played together yet in game action. With all that taken into context, I think you have to give this team a little leeway if things don’t start swimmingly. If somehow it does start well, I’d think you’d have to give HC Jeff Hafley a whole lot of credit for that. Odds are there will be kinks to work out and a fair amount of rookie and young player mistakes. How many of those will have a legitimate impact on our success. You have to think there will be bumps, but I also recall how well we looked on the very first drive of the preseason, the only drives where we had most of our starters, and I thought we looked remarkably well. Let’s hope that’s precisely how we look on Sunday!

GO DOLPHINS!!!