Miami Dolphins Face Grim Forecast for Upcoming 2026 Season
South Florida reporters foresee a tough season for the Miami Dolphins, highlighting defensive woes, shallow depth, a rookie head coach, and budget issues.
Video Transcript
I'm in the South Florida area, and I can tell you I can't find one beat reporter that is excited about the Dolphins season.
I mean, not one.
They think the Dolphins are going to be epically bad on a whole lot of levels.
And can I tell you something?
I think a lot of it's gonna have to do with the defensive side.
I think they're gonna get lit up a lot.
I love A-Chan.
I, I don't know if you think he's a guy worthy if, If you haven't built out your fantasy teams yet or haven't gone through the drafts, I, I think A-Chan is, is tier one as far as a running back goes.
But I, I- Mm-hmm.
How many times are we using him, really, here if you're down three touchdowns all the time?
It's a, it's a great question.
And when it comes to looking at markets for the Dolphins, the one that comes to mind for everybody is who's gonna have the worst record in the NFL?
It's not, you know, will the Dolphins make the playoffs.
It's like, oh, div- No, it's not a division thing.
It's, it's will they have the worst record in the NFL?
They have a four-and-a-half win total.
It's tied for the lowest in the NFL, along with the Arizona Cardinals.
And, you know, frankly, the Dolphins, we just gotta call it what it is.
They're not even coming until, into the season with a full, with a full deck just because they have so much dead cap space that they have to deal with.
Yep.
Now, the Cardinals systemically, I think, have immense risk just because they're so bad.
The Dolphins, like they I, I almost see them like they're gonna try to be good.
I don't think the Cardinals are even trying to be good with how mu- with how, how much they have going on.
The Dolphins, though, they just don't have the depth that other teams do because they can't even sign backups for like, "Hey, we'll give you $3 million to play.
We'll give you $4 million for backside."
They have to sign these backups for the minimum just because they're not dealing with the full salary cap.
So what the Dolphins give from us this season, I think is going to be very, very low in terms of our expectations, and to your point, they should be.
But for A-Chan, this is a player that has been absolutely fantastic over the last few years, but they're gonna be playing from behind every game.
How can we afford to look to get him the ball 20 times if they have to be in a passing game script?
Listen, I think Malik Willis is I, I, I thought he made great strides there.
He's come a long way since he was, you know, drafted by Tennessee, when nobody wanted him.
Yeah.
And then, of course, you know, he's, he li- Maybe- It's amazing how much coaching matters when you get to this point, right?
And he gets with LaFleur in there, and, that game against Baltimore still what blows me away how good he was against that Ravens team when he came in.
He was so good, Tom, that it actually gave him a three-year and a multimillion-dollar contract to be a franchise quarterback with the Miami Dolphins.
Now, having said that, he's gonna probably light up, the, the stat sheet.
Why?
'Cause like you just said, what else are they gonna do besides trail most of these games and have to throw the ball?
But it's interesting because as bad as the Dolphins, I think, are going to be, and I still wanna try to figure out a way with Devin A-Chan each week to figure out ways to back him, what do you do with Trey McBride, who is, let's face it- one of the best tight ends in the Kyler Murray couldn't figure out how to get him in the end zone, couldn't figure out how to, to utilize him in the red zone his entire time there.
I don't Jacoby Brissett did.
I don't e- at the very least, could, could Trey McBride be the guy we're focusing on each week with Arizona?
I, I wanna say yes, but just based on natural regression, the Cardinals- are in a spot to see Trey McBride have a, I'm not gonna say significantly worse year, but because the Cardinals dropped back in so many passing game scripts so much last year, they're actually due for some just natural regression that they can't drop back 600 times year after year.
If that comes down by 15% or 10%, Trey McBride's not gonna have a whole lot of upside because he's just not gonna have the ball as much, and I think the Cardinals wanna keep it away from passing game scripts 'cause that's what Nathaniel Hackett wants to do, their OC.
126 receptions last year, the most by a tight end in any single season, Trey McBride a year ago.
