The Dolphins gave Mike McDaniel an extension just before last season, but the team’s progress has stalled. Although McDaniel is the only Dolphins coach to engineer back-to-back playoff berths since Dave Wannstedt in the early 2000s, the team’s disappointing 8-9 record last season — as relationships with Jalen Ramsey and Tyreek Hill deteriorated — brought signs of trouble for the three-year Miami HC.
Entering his fourth season, McDaniel is a respectable 28-23. He played the lead role in revitalizing Tua Tagovailoa, while the QB’s concussion issues have been the chief factor in limiting McDaniel’s offense, which fell from second in 2023 (when Tagovailoa started 17 games) to 22nd in 2024 (11 Tua starts). Regardless of how this situation has reached this point, some execs around the league view McDaniel as a candidate to be the first coach fired this year, the Washington Post’s Jason La Canfora notes.
The atypical HC personality is responsible for numerous memorable quotes during his tenure, but his style is among the reasons Ramsey wanted out. One anonymous GM described the Miami situation to La Canfora as a “ticking time bomb” and referred to the Dolphins letting Ramsey and Hill “walk all over them.”
That may be more on GM Chris Grier than McDaniel, as the veteran exec handed both lucrative contracts — Ramsey’s an extension, Hill’s a reworking — despite multiple seasons remaining on each’s previous deal. Neither contract thus far has worked out. Hill slogged through an injury-plagued season that ended turbulently — via the mercurial wideout’s trade request he eventually took back — while Ramsey maneuvered his way out after not justifying Grier’s extension. The Dolphins are eating a non-QB-record $35.86MM in dead money — spread across this year and next — from the Ramsey trade.
McDaniel’s extension runs through the 2028 season, but teams — as the Cardinals and Titans showed in the not-too-distant past — have shown they will pull the plug and eat coaching guarantees if the operation is flailing. In seeing the Dolphins as too player-friendly — a topic we covered in a Trade Rumors Front Office post earlier this year, as Grier also gave in to Xavien Howard‘s contract demands with multiple years left on his deal back in 2021 — many (via La Canfora) compared this Dolphins situation to Robert Saleh‘s Jets setup last year.
Like Woody Johnson, Stephen Ross has seen his influence — via the Tom Brady/Sean Payton tampering penalty and Brian Flores‘ tanking allegation — cause issues. And the Ramsey trade has accompanied a number of Hill offseason comments. McDaniel admonished Hill in April but indicated he still wanted the wideout back. That is a situation to monitor, but the Dolphins may need to start fast in order for McDaniel — and possibly Grier — to justify remaining at the helm.
Like Ramsey, the Dolphins have not seen Bradley Chubb justify a trade investment. Ramsey only cost the team a third-round pick and tight end Hunter Long, but Chubb brought first- and fourth-round picks to the Broncos. The 2018 first-rounder missed all of last season with the ACL tear he sustained in Week 17 of the 2023 campaign. While Chubb is ready to return this season, the Dolphins gave the talented edge rusher a pay cut. Chubb will probably need to take another “massive” cut in 2026 if he is to avoid cap-casualty status, per the Miami Herald’s Omar Kelly.
Chubb, 29, is now on a three-year, $54.49MM deal — one carrying only $8.7MM guaranteed. Chubb is due a $19.45MM 2026 base salary. The Dolphins would take on $23.86MM in dead money by cutting Chubb in 2026; that could be spread over two years via a post-June 1 designation. Grier used a post-June 1 cut to drop Howard and Byron Jones recently; the Dolphins also waited until after June 1 to trade Ramsey for cap purposes.
Elsewhere on Miami’s defense, a team with already-questionable cornerback talent lost Kader Kohou and Artie Burns for the season. Storm Duck and Kendall Sheffield started Miami’s first preseason game, and while the Herald’s Barry Jackson labels Duck as safe to make the 53-man roster, Sheffield could go from preseason starter to cut. Seemingly standing as a 50-50 proposition, Sheffield would be a wildly unusual Week 1 starter since he has not started a game since 2020. The Dolphins signed him to a one-year, $1.17MM deal in May.
The Dolphins also signed Jack Jones as a boundary option, though the former Patriots and Raiders starter has been waived twice in three years. Jones joined second-year UDFA Ethan Bonner as the second-teamers in Miami’s preseason opener. Cam Smith also factors in here, but he has barely played since being a 2023 second-round pick.
On offense, the Dolphins still have trade acquisition Darren Waller on the active/PUP list as he works his way back into shape following a 2024 retirement. Julian Hill, a former UDFA who started 11 games last season, had still been viewed as the frontrunner to start at tight end, per Jackson, but low-cost addition Pharaoh Brown is pushing him for that status. Julian Hill caught 12 passes for 100 yards last season. Brown, an eight-year vet, has never topped 210 yards in a season. Without Waller, the Dolphins — who traded Jonnu Smith to the Steelers in the Ramsey/Minkah Fitzpatrick swap — have a bleak-looking TE situation.