The Dolphins tore it down to the studs. Now they have to play the season.
No Tua, no Tyreek, no Waddle, no McDaniel. Jeff Hafley inherits a roster with almost nothing left from the team that got him hired.
It is worth stating plainly how much of the Miami Dolphins is gone.
Tua Tagovailoa, the starting quarterback for five-plus seasons, was released and signed with Atlanta. Tyreek Hill was released. Jaylen Waddle was traded to Denver. Mike McDaniel was fired on January 8 after four seasons. Jason Sanders, the team’s longest-tenured player before February, is now a New York Giant. This will be the first Dolphins season since 2019 without Tagovailoa, the first since 2020 without Waddle and the first since 2021 without Hill.
That is not a retool. That is a demolition, and the people who ordered it now have to live inside the building.
Jeff Hafley and a defense that has to carry it
Hafley arrives from Green Bay, where he ran the defense, and he will call Miami’s as well. The unit he takes over finished in the bottom third of the league in both yards and points allowed a year ago. That is the gap the entire season depends on closing.
It is a reasonable place to put your faith. Defense is Hafley’s actual expertise, defensive turnarounds happen faster than offensive ones, and Miami’s roster is younger and cheaper than it has been in years — which matters when the alternative was continuing to pay a nucleus that had stopped producing January football.
Malik Willis gets the job
Willis spent the past two seasons backing up in Green Bay and now gets his first extended run as a starter. The Dolphins saw enough of him from the sideline to hand him an offense, which is either a shrewd read on a quarterback who never got a fair look in Tennessee or a placeholder while the front office figures out what it actually wants. Both readings are live.
What Willis has going for him: no expectations, a coach who knows him, and a schedule that opens at Las Vegas rather than against a contender. What he does not have: Hill, Waddle, or any established receiver defenses have to plan around.
What a good season looks like
Not the playoffs. A good 2026 for the Dolphins is a defense that climbs into the league’s top half, a clear answer at quarterback one way or the other, and a young roster that looks like it is going somewhere by December.
Miami has spent four years being interesting in September and irrelevant in January. There is something almost clarifying about a season where nobody expects the first part.