Miami Dolphins Are Bad – Stop the Farcical Theatre
The last forty-eight hours in Dolphin Land have been right up there with some of the most bizarre I’ve seen in a generation. Perhaps it’s the advent of social media that has turned people into such performative beings. The woe-is-me pearl-clutching and the farcical theatre for clicks, generating anger and rage across the landscape of the internet, has been in full force.
Of course, Twitter – as I shall forever call it – isn’t the forum it once was. Nobody is happy on there anymore, nothing can be celebrated, and in an era where vague-posting, indignation and all-out hostility rule, it’s almost unusable as a tool for anything other than trying to keep up with the world. And look, I’m no paragon of virtue. Some of my replies to people over the years have left a lot to be desired. Stuff I would never say in real life because I’m actually a nice person.
But I digress.
I worked with an FBI agent recently who had been seconded to a CIA unit and had been in Russia and across Eastern Europe investigating terror cells. It was her estimate, based on her in-depth analysis, that between 60 and 70% of all Twitter users are now bots: from China, Qatar, Iran, and via Russia’s AI Disinformation Network.
And that, in a roundabout way, can be the only explanation for what has been happening on that forum in the last two days. That so many people, disillusioned with Musk’s hell-site, decided to simply log off from all social media, news, talk radio and television around about March of 2026, and suddenly switched back on on Sunday night, only to discover that this year’s Miami Dolphins, having cut down their roster to 53, weren’t actually very good.
Next week sees the 25th anniversary of 9/11, so it would seem in rather bad taste if I were to wonder whether people had been living in Tora Bora – the rugged White Mountain network of caves and tunnels that runs from Eastern Afghanistan into Pakistan, where Osama bin Laden escaped in late 2001 – rather than keeping abreast of the new regime in Miami.
But you get the drift.
And look, I get that this very article is, in many ways, grossly performative. But my issue is that I simply can’t understand how people woke up on Monday morning, saw Miami’s 53-man roster and thought:
“Holy shit, this team is bad.”
Because the evidence has been there since the start of the Jon-Eric Sullivan/Jeff Hafley regime. This, of course, makes me sound like I’m very anti the new front office and coaching staff, when actually nothing could be further from the truth. I am in complete lockstep with the pair of them and almost every single move they’ve made since they took over. Yes, I would have stayed at 11 and taken Caleb Downs or Reuben Bain over Kaydn Proctor, and I thought Caleb Douglas was a reach at the time, but they’re at least deserving of a couple of seasons of performance to show me up for the fool I am.
But since Monday, I have seen some astonishing comments and accusations from people about how this team is suddenly “tanking”; how they’ve not done enough with the resources they had; and how it was foolish of them to cut Tua, trade Waddle, cut Chubb, trade Fitzpatrick, etc. I even saw one wag say, “I think they still don’t know what they need.”
What are we doing?
And this isn’t just the fans. Some of the most popular Dolphins reporters have been showering the team and the front office with venom in the last 48 hours, as if suddenly the realization that this franchise is going to be really bad in 2026 has just dawned upon them too.
Where have you been?
What’s worse is that if you’d been paying even a modicum of attention during the eight months since Sullivan and Hafley took over, you would have heard them tell you what the issues are, why they’re doing what they’re doing, and what the long-term plan is.
Because yes, for the first time in a very, very long time, this team has a plan. One that has been spelled out by the General Manager and the Head Coach consistently.
People complain today that we live in a society where concentration levels are at an all-time low. Where we can barely go to the movie theatre without picking up our phones, and where writers of television shows are having to recap the plot every fifteen minutes so that scrollers can catch up. There will never be another show with the depth and density of The Wire because people simply can’t keep up.
But not keeping up with your own sports team when the decision makers talk?
Take the Jaylen Waddle trade. I’ve seen tens of tweets over the last couple of days from fans and media alike bemoaning why he was dealt to Denver. And yet, Sullivan made it completely clear when he spoke to Albert Breer of The MMQB about it. If you missed it, here is what Breer wrote at the time. Pay attention if you’ve gone back to scrolling, because this part is pretty important:
“Upon their hire, one thing was clear: Sullivan and Hafley would be focused on turning around the Dolphins’ recent luck in the draft. They had fewer picks over the past four years than any team in football and just two guys left, total, from the classes of 2022 and ’23 (De’Von Achane and special teamer Cameron Goode). As such, volume was going to be important, and part of building that up would be listening to teams inquiring on their current players. While Sullivan was open to listening to anyone, guys on bigger second contracts would be more likely to move, both for economic reasons (given their dead-money issue) and since the timelines of such players might not match up with the team’s rebuild. At the combine, as the Dolphins made a last-ditch effort to construct some sort of Tua Tagovailoa trade before cutting him, teams did start to sniff around others on Miami’s roster.”
Now, this is the really important part. Like when Sydnor recognizes Avon Barksdale from an old boxing photo at the annual East-West basketball game in season one of The Wire.
“For Miami, the operative question on giving up Waddle, a player they very much valued and one beloved in the organization, related back to timelines. If, say, Sullivan and Hafley had the program rolling going into 2028, it would be with Waddle at 30 years old and likely in search of a new contract. Conversely, the first-and third-round picks they bring onto their roster would be going into Year 3, still a year away from even being able to negotiate a new deal. That’s a better timeline match than Waddle would be.”
You see?
That’s why Miami traded Jaylen Waddle.
In search of a new contract aged 30, with his body likely slowing down at the time when Miami were finally going to be relevant as a team. (See, I’m even recapping the plot).
And how do we know they’re going to be relevant in 2028?
BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT THEY SAID!!
If you’re angry that Miami didn’t keep Tua and therefore didn’t find themselves in a situation where they’re carrying an NFL record for dead cap – this represents money that has already been paid to players in the past but hasn’t had to be expensed until now, as some people still don’t understand this – then perhaps you’d be better served directing your attention to the people who gave Tagovailoa that ridiculous deal in the first place, rather than having him play out the fifth year of his contract.
Miami are where they are now because the last time they found themselves in this situation, the people driving the bus crashed it into the sea and it sunk without a trace. The so-called transformative drafts of 2020 and 2021, which were going to turn around the fortunes of this franchise forever, garnered us eighteen total picks, including five in the first round.
One player from those two drafts is still on the roster.
ONE!!
Not a franchise saver either. A mediocre right tackle who was recently voted the 32nd-best at his position in the league by the excellent offensive line analyst Brandon Thorn.
(For those at the back still scrolling, there are 32 starting right tackles in the league.)
Across FOUR drafts from 2020 to 2023, only TWO of the players Miami selected are still on the team.
TWO!!
If you want to be angry at the situation the team finds itself in, be angry at what came before. Slamming the new GM for not keeping a QB earning $50+ million a year who couldn’t even beat out Michael Penix for a starting job is, frankly, grotesque.
People were even angry at Sullivan for signing seven waiver-wire claimants after cutdown day, as if a team that finished training camp with maybe 32 or 33 rosterable players shouldn’t look to upgrade. Sure, to claim seven players, you have to cut seven players who were good enough to make your initial 53-man roster. But that isn’t anyone’s fault. We’re literally bemoaning the fact that the team did what they could with the hand they were dealt and are trying to improve. But if you think signing 32-year-old Stefon Diggs, coming off felony charges of strangulation and a misdemeanor charge of assault, was the way forward, then I’m sorry, but you’re doing this all wrong.
Miami doesn’t need the 11th pick in the draft. They don’t need to constantly windmill between 5-12 and 9-8.
That is, in fact, the very last thing they need.
They need the #1 overall pick, which they can either use to take a quarterback should Malik Willis struggle – beyond the fact that he has no skill-position talent – or sell it for a King’s ransom and fill the roster with blue-chip draft picks at non-QB positions. Which, by the way, is what they would very much like to do.
Miami wasn’t setting a precedent by signing seven waiver-wire players on Monday either. Back in 2013, the Kansas City Chiefs signed CB Ron Parker, TE Sean McGrath, DT Jaye Howard, LB James-Michael Johnson, CB Marcus Cooper, WR Chad Hall, and LB Dezman Moses the day after announcing their 53-man roster.
That was the first year of Andy Reid as head coach and the first year that Brett Veach was in the organization.
This 2026 Miami Dolphins team is very, very weak. It has been weak since it became clear what would happen in January. It was weak throughout camp and in preseason.
And, I’m afraid to say, it will be weak during the season. It will be painful and disheartening. I can see the opportunity for just three wins, and realistically, I can probably see only two: Week 1 against the Raiders and Week 12 at home against the Jets. Frankly, I don’t actually think they’ll win a single game. They might surprise Las Vegas, but they’re a much better team than they were, and it’s on the road.
Turnarounds happen very quickly in the modern NFL. In 2023 and 2024, the New England Patriots went 4-13 in consecutive seasons. Last year they went to the Super Bowl. The Dolphins are planning on a quick turnaround with some short-term discomfort.
If you aren’t alive to the fact that Miami are likely only going to win a very small number of games, if they win any at all – Jeff Hafley told you last week that 2026 wouldn’t be judged on wins and losses – then I can only hope you enjoyed your news and social media blackout.
But it’s time to wake up.
