How bad will the Miami Dolphins be in 2026? If 2023 provided the fans with a "Greatest Show on Surf," this year's offense may give us a "bury your head in the sand." We want to be positive, but what exactly are we hanging our hopes on?
Fans want to believe, but when your head coach drops the hammer on those expectations, we have to take a step back and realize this season is going to be ugly, and that isn't a bad thing. Head coach Jeff Hafley spoke with Stephen A. Smith and made it clear what will make this a winning season.
"Success is not gonna be measured in wins and losses this year," Hafley told Smith, "And I know nobody wants to hear that. I want to see where we end up and how far we can take this thing, and how much we develop these players"
Miami Dolphins could be historically bad despite having solid talent
There have been some bad seasons in Dolphins history, but this one could be one of the worst. In 1982, the Dolphins scored their lowest number of points in a single season. Just 198 all season long. That was a strike-shortened year that only had 9 games. Miami lost in the Super Bowl.
Point differential can tell a different story. It's the number of points a team scores compared to what opposing teams score against them. The Dolphins have had six seasons where they were outscored by more than 100 points. In 2019, the last time they tried to "rebuild" the roster, they gave up 188 more points than their offense produced. That's 18 more than Cam Cameron's 1-15 team.
The 2026 Dolphins could be just as bad. There is a lot of inexperience on the defensive side of the ball, which could lead to a lot of points. The Dolphins' offense has struggled against that very defense in practices; it's going to be tough to get points. Miami could look at an NFL season with more than a negative 200-point differential.
Historically speaking, Cam Cameron and Brian Flores took the longest to win their first games of their head coaching career. Cameron went 13 weeks, while Flores went 7. Both teams were in rebuilds to some degree. Hafley has a challenge ahead of him.
Hafley knows he doesn't have a lot of top-tier talent to work with. He is reshaping a roster that was gutted for salary cap and performance issues, and will rely on a lot of inexperience on both sides of the ball. The head coach sees success as something else, clearly knowing that wins won't be the barometer.
"Success for me is gonna be we go on that field, and we play so hard that even you turn it on and say, 'man, those guys are flying around.'"
The coach said that he sees this year not as a rebuild or a makeover, but as about developing the young talent and finding out who they are as a team. The Dolphins are building more than a roster; they are trying to undo 20 years of degrading culture and focus.
Hopefully, things will settle down once the final roster cuts are made. There will be a larger focus on first-team reps and smaller groups of players at each position. That leads to more reps, more experience, and more team-oriented work.
The Dolphins may not win a lot of games this year, but the offense should be good enough to at least give them a chance, and fans need to know this season may not be pretty. Hafley knows it too.
Since Don Shula retired from coaching, the Dolphins have had two profoundly bad seasons: the 1-15 2007 season and the Brian Flores-led 2019 season. 2026's roster isn't as bad as either of those teams, but it has a lot less overall experience.
The over/under on Miami's 2026 win total still hovers between 4.5 and 5 games, but right now, fans may want to take the under.
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