The NFL season kicks off in Australia on Wednesday, but the Miami Dolphins will have to wait a few more days beyond that. They will open the season on the road against the Raiders and the 49ers for two consecutive West Coast trips.
Most fans know that the expectations are not very high entering the 2026 campaign. Miami is trying to remain confident despite its own internal knowledge of the roster's youth and inexperience, but there is a reality that some fans don't want to grasp, and one many fans expect. On Friday, ESPN's Adam Schefter made it clear which side he is on.
“I think everybody knows what’s coming in Miami this season. A lot of losses. And the Dolphins, right now, going into this season, are the team to beat, for the number one overall draft pick in the 2027 NFL Draft. That is the coveted NFL Draft that everybody’s anticipating.” -…
— Joe Schad (@schadjoe) September 4, 2026
Miami Dolphins success must be measured by anything other than wins
The Dolphins are in a unique position that most fans and media forget. They are eating more than $180 million in dead money, but will enter the 2027 offseason with more than $100 million in cap space.
Many forget that the Dolphins are giving up the first round of this rebuild fight. They will take the punches this year, but it is how they develop this season that will give fans hope for the future.
The Dolphins are in a win/win situation heading into the 2026 season. If they win football games, fans will be incredibly excited for the future, but if they lose, as expected, they will have a top-three draft pick in next year's draft.
Schefter's comments are spot on, but the Dolphins are not the favorite in the clubhouse for the first overall pick. The Arizona Cardinals could be worse. In fact, the Cardinals may not get their first win until well into the second half of the season.
Fans don't care about draft picks, at least not yet. That's a second-half-of-the-season follow-up, but the fact that so many are seeing Miami as a team likely to finish last in the league means that many teams may look over them as well.
Jeff Hafley is not going to settle for poor play. He doesn't expect wins, but he expects development. That is what the Dolphins will look at internally when they begin assessing their successes and failures.
When the head coach publicly states that his own expectations are not high, it's a good indication that there is a reality inside the building that no one is sugarcoating.
Miami may very well land in the top spot of the draft next year, but that doesn't mean they will keep it. A deep class of quarterbacks could give Jon-Eric Sullivan an opportunity to pad his draft cache for the next two years and still land a coveted QB.
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