It's difficult not to relish the moment and be imprisoned by it if you're a Miami Dolphins fan. After a 1-6 start and the team parting ways with GM Chris Grier, all indications were that this team would pack it in for 2025. Roll over. More or less give up.
But no! The Fins are back and rolling, baby! A 3-1 stretch and two straight wins have Miami clinging to playoff life at 4-7 entering the Week 12 bye.
All those good vibes aside, though, this idle time offers a time to reflect on the bigger picture. Whatever happens post-bye down the stretch, there's a lot of uncertainty beyond this season, personnel-wise.
Almost half of Band-Aid-heavy Dolphins roster due to hit free agency
If I've counted right, Miami has a grand total of 31 free agents hitting the open market, including 25 of the unrestricted variety. Last I checked, the roster was only 53 men.
We're talking about the wrong aquatic creatures here, aren't we? This band of misfit Miami players has too many potential lame ducks to count. Oh, and per OverTheCap.com, the Dolphins will enter the new league year over $11 million in the red.
So it's not as if whoever takes over Grier's post full-time can retain all the key players hitting the open market. For as impressive as Miami's collective resilience is of late — starting at the top with the head coach, Mike "Allegedly Can't Be A Leader Of Men" McDaniel — this is a team hurtling toward a massive, hopefully on-the-fly rebuild.
Veteran cornerback Rasul Douglas headlines the critical free agents Miami will most likely like to keep. Douglas' experience at a position of dire need is such an asset, and even on the doorstep of his age-32 season in 2026, he's still playing at a high level.
Now that JuJu Brents' future is clouded by another injury (the same goes for Kader Kohou for missing the entire season), Douglas' stock is even higher. At least the team has a lot of control over RFA Jack Jones, who made the game-changing interception in overtime versus the Commanders in Madrid.
How Dolphins can turn over the roster & save themselves from punting on 2026 season
All but three offensive linemen on the current roster are free agents. One of them is rookie left guard Jonah Savaiinaea, aka the NFL's worst player at his position. No offense. That's just what the numbers say.
Whoever takes the GM seat needs to start in the offensive trenches and make real upgrades there. Too long, Grier got by with minimalist solutions that frequently backfired.
That will mean letting Cole Strange and Larry Borom walk to rebuild the right side of the line, unless Strange makes some drastic improvement through the end of the season. I'm saying that more for depth, as James Daniels will eventually be back from injury to take Strange's spot at right guard. The same goes for Austin Jackson at right tackle, or so the hope should be.
To create some cap space to pursue roster improvements at cornerback and along the o-line, Miami must restructure Tua Tagovailoa's mega deal and release star receiver Tyreek Hill. Those moves, per OverTheCap.com, save the Fins a little over $54 million, and net them still $92.2 million in cap room to work with in 2027.
The Dolphins also have strongly contributing safeties in Ashtyn Davis and Ifeatu Melifonwu on expiring contracts. At least Minkah Fitzpatrick can line up basically anywhere on the back end to make up for that, or create an enticing playing situation for a prospective free-agent upgrade.
There's a lot of uncertainty on the roster going forward. Perhaps the most pressing question is, how much can Tua elevate this team?
And the truth is, Tua has his work cut out to live up to how much Miami paid for him to be its franchise QB. It should be mighty interesting to see how the new GM balances keeping some of the core intact, but the temptation will be there to blow this thing up. That's the likeliest outcome. Given that Grier was just fired for the roster he built, it's probably for the best. It just leaves this suddenly-ascending 2025 team in an awkward limbo of sorts.
Good thing McDaniel is around to provide comic relief, courtesy of his apropos personality for such seemingly troubled situations that have somehow improved more often than not during his tenure.