Biggest Offseason Questions Still Looming for Miami Dolphins: What Can We Expect in a 'Tank Season?'
Professional football is now a year-round enterprise, and that continues to be the case even after free agency and the draft are done, and the news cycle begins to die down in a relative sense. Now that April turns to May, it's time for NFL teams to begin their offseason workouts - to get the rookies in the building, and see how everything starts to gel with veterans and free-agent acquisitions.
For the most part, roster construction is what it is at this point, and every NFL team still has questions in that depart. In this series, Athlon Sports endeavors to answer those questions, with an eye toward how close each team is to true contention... or where some teams are in their rebuilding process.
We continue with the Miami Dolphins, who have undergone quite the destruction to reconstruct this offseason. New general manager Jon-Eric Sullivan and new head coach Jeff Hafley, both veterans of the Green Bay Packers' organization, inherited a bit of a disaster from a personnel and salary cap perspective, which led to a ton of releases and trades in which the team offloaded nearly $180 million in dead cap contracts.
And while it's best to take one's medicine all at once in cases like this, as opposed to sailing along at half-mast and pretending that you can row your way through it, how competitive can these Dolphins actually be with a roster as bereft as any in the NFL, and when relying this much on rookies and relative unknowns?
Related: Biggest Offseason Questions Still Looming for Buffalo Bills
Can Malik Willis become a franchise quarterback?
Tua Tagovailoa's release at the beginning of the 2026 league year, which put an astonishing $55.4 million in dead cap on the books ($99.2 million over the next two years!), was a fait accompli for the Dolphins' new administration. Sullivan and Hafley knew how limited Tagovailoa was, and they had their own guy in place - former Packers backup Malik Willis, who the Dolphins signed to a a three-year, $67.5 million deal with $45 million guaranteed.
It's a big swing for a guy who never worked out with the Tennessee Titans, who selected him in the third round of the 2022 draft and traded him to Green Bay in August, 2024. In two seasons as Jordan Love's backup, Willis completed 70 of 89 passes for 972 yards, six touchdowns, no interceptions, and a passer rating of 134.6. Outstanding numbers, but not exactly a teeming sample size.
However, both Sullivan and Hafley saw Willis develop exponentially as a quarterback in those two seasons, so if anybody knows the larger story behind those relatively few snaps, it would be them. And Willis has no problem detailing how he's grown.
"I mean, more than anything, in Tennessee, I kind of got thrown in the fire," Willis said last December. "I wouldn't say I was ready yet. I hadn't seen that much. [It was) my first time being under center pretty much every single play almost - I didn't do that in college - and just understanding the different type of defenses that you'll see in the league versus college. Obviously it's going to be more 11 and 12 [personnel] in college, and we get into all these different personnel in Tennessee, and now you're seeing base, now you're seeing sub, now you're seeing dime, and understanding what comes with that.
"I just wasn't ready at the time, and even on some of our [the Packers'] plays, I was still trying to absorb it all. But you kind of get thrown out there and for what it is, that's who you are. That's how the league works. Whatever you put on tape, that's who you are, regardless if it's a good showing or not."
Having an actual franchise quarterback will obviously help the rebuild, and maybe Willis can be that now.
How long will Jeff Hafley's defensive rebuild take?
Hafley first made his bones in a national sense as Boston College's highly-respected head coach and defensive shot-caller from 2020-2023, which led to the Packers making him their defensive coordinator in 2024.After two solid seasons in that role, Hafley received the "gift" of the Dolphins to rebuild.
Not much happened in free agency beyond the Willis signing for obvious financial reasons, but Miami was tied with the Baltimore Ravens, New England Patriots, and Jacksonville Jaguars for the second-most picks in this draft with 11, behind only the Pittsburgh Steelers with 12. They did their level best to accentuate Hafley's defense, as first-round cornerback Chris Johnson, second-round linebacker Jacob Rodriguez, and fourth-round linebacker/safety Kyle Louis should vie for impact starting status right away.
Hafley has said that he will absolutely call the plays on defense, which will split his responsibilities in some interesting ways to start this process off in 2026, but he has also made it clear what kind of defense he wants over time.
"When you play football, I think it's our job to maximize our players' talents," Hafley said in early April, as the Dolphins' offseason practice program got underway. "If we get good press corners, we should press, right? If we get guys that are better corners at playing off or playing zone coverage, and I just decide we're going to press all the time, I think that's bad coaching. That never made any sense to me. I mean, people have said, ‘I thought you were a big press guy.' Yeah, I am. I mean, when I was in Cleveland [defensive backs coach in 2014-2015], I think we pressed all the time. We had pretty much a Pro Bowl corner, a Pro Bowl nickel and two Pro Bowl safeties – I mean, it's what do you have, right? Other places I've been, I've had really good corners that can play zone – that's our job.
"And now, adapting sayings and logos, I also want there to be some ownership within the team. I mean, each team is going to be different, right? I think it's a shared vision that I lead and I want guys to take a lot of pride in it, and I think you do that by building it the right way through who you have and what your team becomes and who is your team. I can tell you right now what I want the identity of our team to be. I'll tell you when training camp is done who we really are, or else it's just a bunch of coach talk and I'm full of it up here. I'm not just going to throw out a bunch of phrases and lingo; that's just not me. I want to find out who this team is, and I want to match that with who we become so it's real, and I'm not saying one thing and we're playing like another thing."
Sounds good in theory; we'll see what it looks like when the proverbial rubber meets the road.
Under what circumstances could the 2026 Dolphins be more than a cautionary tale?
Like any organization going through a rebuild, the Dolphins do not refer to this as a rebuild. We get that. But is there any way that this team can be better than the NFL's worst in 2026?
Obviously, the rest of the AFC East would have to help out. Maybe Mike Vrabel's tumultuous offseason puts the New England Patriots at an odd angle. Maybe the Buffalo Bills don't have the horses they hoped they did. Maybe the New York Jets are... well, the New York Jets.
Beyond that, just about everybody would have to play beyond their previous stations. The receiver group is especially rough after the trade that gave Miami their second first-round pick, but also sent Jaylen Waddle to the Denver Broncos. But the offensive line should be decent enough, especially if 11th overall pick Kadyn Proctor can adapt to his new guard responsibilities, and there's more than enough explosive potential in the run game with De'Von Achane.
The defense, especially with Hafley's involvement and the new draft picks, could be surprisingly feisty when everybody gets on the same page. One never knows how long that will take.
The 2025 Dolphins were a mirage with their 7-10 record; they finished 24th in DVOA, started 1-6, and dropped three of their last four games after clawing back to a 6-7 mark. Now they're taking their medicine in one fell swoop, which is the smart way to do it.
Success for the 2026 Dolphins could well be a 4-13 or 5-12 record, but a raised profile in terms of talent and cohesion, and a franchise that is ready for the 2027 league year when they're estimated to have more than $148 million in cap space. Get things in order now, build for the future as much as you can with the resources you have, and bank on future prosperity. That's the Dolphins' ideal path to better days.
Whether 2026 is a "waste pitch" or not is almost beside the point.
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This story was originally published May 5, 2026 at 3:55 AM.