Some call it the forbidden word in NFL circles: "tanking." Others came up with a more sophisticated term — "rebuilding" — that was just tanking wearing a comically large suit. Now, even that word has become taboo, so football suits utter the company line: "building it from the ground up." Call it what you want, the result is the same. The expectations for the 2026 Miami Dolphins are so low that they exceed the deepest depths of the known ocean.
If the team is able to suit up 11 players on each side of the ball who recognize what team they're on, fill out the home schedule, and generally appear to know what they're doing, owner Stephen Ross will be whelmed. The Dolphins' moves as they embark on this odyssey have drawn criticism from an interesting place — the very teams they compete against.
The Athletic's Mike Sando pens an annual piece with fascinating insight from anonymous NFL executives who opine on other franchises' offseason to that point. The Dolphins were chided by their contemporaries, who said, in part:
"To me, this is 2019 all over again. They should not have signed Malik Willis. They should have taken the full Tua cap charge in one season. They should have gone with Quinn Ewers and just played out the season."
Anonymous NFL executives think the Miami Dolphins screwed up their tank, just like in 2019
Quinn Ewers may read that and think: "Hey, thanks a lot, pal!" But to put ourselves in this person's shoes, it's clear to see the logic. Just like Ryan Fitzpatrick was too effective as a quarterback to earn the Dolphins the No. 1 selection in 2020, Malik Willis is perceived as a bar raiser. Not a good one, but the kind that takes you just out of range to draft a meaningful signal-caller in 2027.
The ignored reality, however, is that it's extremely difficult to get the first overall pick. Few expected the Las Vegas Raiders to hold that dubious spot before this season, and even they had to (shamefully) rest their starters to ensure the New York Giants, a team without a logical need at quarterback, wouldn't wrangle it from them.
As far as taking the entire Tua cap charge in one season, it seems like an easy decision to make from a rival building. Depriving your team of $99 million of cap space, with $123.8 million already down the drain, makes fielding a roster borderline impossible. I didn't study mathematics, but that $222.8 million equals roughly 74% of the $301.2 million salary cap (I checked).
Fielding a 53-man roster with a measly $78.4 million would take Harry Potter levels of cap wizardry. Most of that "cap magic" involves sending that money to future years, which would bring the Dolphins back to square one, anyway.
Even the "experts" are not on the same page as it relates to Miami
Sando quotes a different executive who didn't like the Malik Willis acquisition either, but for the opposite reason. They also thought the Dolphins should've gotten more for their most valuable trade chip, Jaylen Waddle.
"You should know enough about Willis to know many of his throws were flareouts and simple stuff. So, unless you plan on running an offense like that, what are you doing? And then I don’t think they got enough for (Jaylen) Waddle. They got the equivalent of the 25th pick in the draft. It should have been a lot more."
There's not much anyone can say about Malik Willis at this point that hasn't already been said. Dolphins fans have been inundated with his career pass attempts (155) so many times that it's been seared into memory. The one thing everyone outside of Green Bay didn't have, that Jeff Hafley and Jon-Eric Sullivan did, was eyes on Malik Willis through thousands of practice reps.
Is it hard to forecast where Willis' career will go from here? Sure. There's not much precedent. That doesn't make them inherently wrong. They're betting the owner's couch change that they can get a franchise QB, bypassing the draft altogether. If it doesn't work out, it conceivably will have a favorable outcome, putting them in position to draft someone high in 2027.
The question of whether the Dolphins got fleeced in the Waddle trade is complicated
Albert Breer's post-mortem on the Waddle–Dolphins marriage had a troubling detail buried in it that made the Dolphins' new leadership appear like amateurs.
"Trust was a foundational element to the train staying on the tracks through the process, and Paton felt good that Sullivan, without another serious suitor, wouldn’t start shopping his offer around. Paton actually worked with Sullivan’s father, Jerry, the longtime NFL receivers coach, two decades ago in Miami. And the two were on opposite sides of the Packers-Vikings rivalry for 14 years (2007 to ’20), so there was a high level of mutual respect, even if the two didn’t know each other all that well beforehand."
I'm all for trust and respect, though I may value it a little differently as it relates to teams I am directly competing with. The concept that Sullivan did not shop the Broncos' offer seems like malpractice. What "seller" of a valuable "product" doesn't canvass other options before ultimately pulling the trigger? An inept one, or perhaps an inexperienced one.
The Ravens proved with the Maxx Crosby debacle that their relationship with the Raiders was only as important as a doctor's examination. While folks will argue that Baltimore got one over on Las Vegas, it would have been the same story with any other team. Being the nice guy at a table full of sharks just makes you a mark.
The Broncos got their guy, and the Dolphins got their picks. Whether that was enough is something only time will tell.