Five prominent players gone in three months. A dead cap burden approaching nine figures. A first-time NFL head coach replacing a fired one. The national football press has looked at what Miami did this offseason and arrived at a verdict: the Dolphins are destined to collapse in 2026, and the football odds on their 2026 win total already back that verdict up.
Whether that verdict is earned, or whether it misreads a deliberate teardown as organizational chaos, is the more useful question.
Newsweek published the case against Miami on June 29, cataloguing the departures, the cap damage, and the roster gaps that now define the franchise entering the season.
The Full Scope of Miami’s Offseason Losses
The dismantling was thorough. Over the past three months, Miami released All-Pro wide receiver Tyreek Hill, Pro Bowl linebacker Bradley Chubb, and starting quarterback Tua Tagovailoa. The team also traded former No. 6 overall pick Jaylen Waddle and All-Pro safety Minkah Fitzpatrick.
Tagovailoa’s cut carried the most financial pain. A former No. 5 overall pick, he had signed a four-year, $212.4 million extension in 2024, only to be released just two years into that deal.
Miami now carries a dead cap hit of $99.2 million for a quarterback no longer on its roster, a figure spread across two years. Tagovailoa could now wind up as the starter in Atlanta, where Newsweek describes the Falcons as already fielding one of the league’s better offenses and potentially positioning for the 2026 playoffs.
The coaching staff was overhauled alongside the roster. Mike McDaniel was fired in January and has since taken the offensive coordinator role with the Los Angeles Chargers.
In his place, Miami hired Jeff Hafley, who served as the Green Bay Packers’ defensive coordinator and has never held an NFL head coaching position. ESPN’s Bill Barnwell assessed the on-field product that remains and ranked Miami’s skill position group dead last in the entire NFL.
What the Sportsbook Market Says About the Doom Forecast
The editorial team at Live Sports Odds, which tracks how sportsbooks price NFL seasons, reads Miami’s number as a direct market judgment on the collapse narrative. The Dolphins’ projected 2026 win total sits at approximately 4.5, a figure that does not so much undercut Newsweek’s framing as confirm it. That number implies the sportsbooks have already absorbed the losses, the coaching change, and the dead cap reality and priced in a season well below Miami’s 7-10 record from a year ago.
“The market isn’t hedging on Miami. A win total around 4.5 tells you the books see this as a bottom-tier season, not a bounce-back one.”
The implied probability of a playoff appearance at those odds is remote. The sportsbook consensus, in other words, lands closer to Mike Jones of The Athletic, who called Miami “destined to exceed last year’s loss total in 2026,” than to any contrarian view.
A Quarterback With Six Career Starts and a Receiving Corps to Match
The roster Miami is actually putting on the field gives the market little reason to price things differently. The team signed Malik Willis to a three-year, $67.5 million deal as its starting quarterback for 2026.
Willis has six career NFL starts. That contract represents a significant financial commitment to a player who has had almost no opportunity to demonstrate sustained competence at the position.
The pass catchers around him are Malik Washington, Jalen Tolbert, and Tutu Atwell. Barnwell’s dead-last ranking of the skill group was built around that combination. With no viable passing game to anchor the offense, the team is expected to lean on De’Von Achane, who stands 5-foot-9 and weighs 190 pounds and has dealt with injuries across his career.
Asking an undersized, injury-prone running back to carry an offense quarterbacked by someone with six starts is a structure that invites exactly the kind of collapse the national press is predicting.
The 2027 Draft Bet Hidden Inside the Rebuild
None of that, however, necessarily means the organization is in free fall. There is a logic to this construction, even if it is punishing in the short term.
A roster built to lose positions Miami for a high pick in the 2027 NFL Draft. The names circulating as potential targets include Arch Manning, Dante Moore, and Darian Mensah.
Whether any of them declare, and where Miami ultimately drafts, depends on a season not yet played. What the organizational calculus appears to accept is that 2026 is the price of acquiring the capital to pursue a franchise quarterback on favorable terms.
Jones’s assessment that Miami is destined to exceed last year’s loss total is probably right on the numbers. A team going from 7-10 to somewhere near a 4.5-win projection is a dramatic regression.
The distinction worth holding onto, though, is whether that regression represents unplanned collapse or the deliberate cost of positioning for 2027. The two can look identical from the outside for most of a season. The difference shows up in what Miami does with its draft pick when February arrives.
