Things are not going well for Miami Dolphins quarterback Malik Willis. It likely won't change for much of the year, maybe not at all. Willis has a lot of talent, but through the first five weeks of the season, his growth has been nonexistent.
On Monday, Dolphins head coach Jeff Hafley was asked if he had any plans to make a quarterback change as they head into their bye week. More specifically, he was asked whether they were considering starting Kyle McCord. Hafley was quick and direct with his reply.
"No," Hafley said. "We've played 5 games, and Malik (Willis) is our quarterback."
Miami Dolphins head coach admits that Malik Willis has to play better, but so does everyone else
Hafley sees the mistakes and acknowledges that the quarterback needs to play better, but with a caveat. According to Hafley, everyone needs to play better. He isn't wrong.
Some media members and fans see Willis as a lesser problem than the offensive line or the wide receivers. To an extent, some of that is accurate.
According to NFL metrics, Willis has the third-highest time to throw, averaging 3.16 seconds. By this measure, we can rule out some offensive line protection problems. That leaves the wide receivers.
Willis has a QB rating of just 68.4, third worst in the league, just in front of Chicago's Tyson Bagent and Atlanta's Cooper Rush, who played in just two games. Those numbers are not good. While the WRs may very well be young and inexperienced, and Caleb Douglas may not be playing, Willis isn't putting the balls in high-percentage, catchable positions.
Greg Dulcich leads the team in separation, with 6.1 yards of cushion between him and the defender. He has 13 receptions on 17 targets. Kevin Coleman and Malik Washington follow with 5.5 and 5.6 yards of cushion, respectively.
The numbers don't debunk the play of the WRs, but Willis is missing opportunities.
Hafley shouldn't, however, be looking to bench Willis. Despite pointing out obvious negatives in some of my articles, Willis is still learning the system just as much as anyone else. Replacing him not only sends the wrong message, but it will not serve any purpose in helping Willis get better.
The entire team, as Hafley stated, needs to get better. That means the line has to do better; they need to improve their play-calling and execution. The WRs need to do better and run the right routes; it's all, as they say, doing their 1/11th.
From the outside looking in, it isn't pretty, and Willis will bear the brunt of the criticism, but a change isn't warranted. Even if he is still playing like this at the end of the year, I would be reluctant to make a change.
This year is as much of an evaluation period as there can be. The Dolphins are hoping that Willis can become a franchise QB, but he wasn't brought in specifically for that. He was brought in to be a bridge to their next QB. He may not be showing franchise-level play, but the Dolphins needed to see if he could be. That will be an ongoing evaluation long after 2026 ends.
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