Many have dissected the Miami Dolphins' 2026 schedule, including identifying the quirks and advantages afforded to other teams that were withheld from the Dolphins. Alas, it appears the NFL darling Buffalo Bills will duck an afternoon game in South Florida before November yet again, as the league continues to yield to the table-smashing hissy fit the organization threw four years ago. We get it, buffalo melt in the sun. They need all the help they can get, especially considering they couldn't beat a 2–7 Miami team in November of last season.
In any case, there is a different game in the early-season slate that should have fans' attention. In Week 4, the Dolphins will travel to Minnesota for a matchup with the Vikings. Minnesota has boasted top-7 defenses in each of the last two seasons, due in large part to their chaos-causing defensive coordinator, Brian Flores, the very same coach who was fired by the Dolphins following the 2021 season, and subsequently sued the team for racial discrimination.
Not only that, but he's also the same Brian Flores who former Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa called "a terrible person" in an offseason podcast in 2024, a development that garnered considerable traction and consequently damaged the coach's reputation. Tagovailoa has since crashed and burned, leaving (an admittedly small amount of) his former teammates to bear the brunt of Flores' fiercest game plan — a beef they had no part of.
Brian Flores' scheme is particularly problematic for a team as young and inexperienced as the Miami Dolphins
Anyone who reveled in the victories Flores led when he was with the Miami remembers how he particularly tormented rookie and inexperienced quarterbacks. Since he first coordinated a defense of his own, Flores' teams have gone 13–1 against rookies with a whopping 46 sacks to show for it. While Malik Willis may not be a rookie in practice, he is a tremendously inexperienced player. In his career, he's attempted 155 passes. For context, Tagovailoa threw 384 passes just last season, in a year where he didn't play in all the games due to a well-deserved benching, no less.
Despite playing in the NFC North for the last two seasons, Willis has thrown exactly one pass (a seven-yard completion) against the Vikings. Even if Willis can weather the mental strain that a Flores-orchestrated defense poses, he'll have to do it alongside rookies and fellow newcomers in only their fourth game together. That's a lot to ask from anyone in any environment. When the opposing coach's likely goal is not only victory, but also embarrassment, the task becomes taller.
The Vikings blitzed a league-high 48% of the time in 2025. The unit, spearheaded by former Dolphins fan favorite Andrew Van Ginkel, parlayed its leader's aggression into a tie for the league's fourth-most sacks. Nothing about the matchup spells a walk in the park for offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik and Malik Willis.
The Dolphins under Jeff Hafley will face their first 'toughness test' in Week 4 in a buzzsaw matchup with the Vikings
In the first three weeks of the season, the Dolphins aren't likely to be favored in any of their games. That doesn't make them any less important, though. Jeff Hafley was hired under the premise that he would reverse this franchise's fortunes by returning discipline, toughness, and grit to the menu at Dolphins HQ. Starting with the Raiders, 49ers, and Chiefs, none of those teams boasts particularly notable ruggedness. The math changes in Week 4.
This won't be Flores' first time facing Miami in any capacity since his ouster. He did coach the linebackers for the Steelers in 2022 when they played the Dolphins — a game Miami won 16–10. His impact was obviously muted by his role. This contest will represent the first time he can truly get back at the team he surely believes fired him for the wrong reasons.
If Jeff Hafley and his crew are on the right path, the Dolphins will put up a fight. They won't fold under early adversity. More than that, the defense won't be bullied and pushed around by Minnesota's offensive attack. If Flores wants a backyard brawl, fans need to see an emphatic response from the boys in aqua and orange. The days of being a pushover should be in the rearview mirror, and the Vikings game could very well prove it.
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