Seven games into a season that began with head coach Mike McDaniel and general manager Chris Grier being mentioned as candidates for dismissal if the team failed to win a playoff game, the Miami Dolphins look more like the characters from Lord of the Flies at this point and the only question left is who will be left holding the conch.

Where the 1-6 Dolphins currently sit isn’t just five wins short of .500, the bottom of their division and near the top of the 2026 draft – they sit mired in dysfunction, wallowing in confusion and seemingly without cohesion.

But it didn’t take seven games to get here. A reminder of how this whole thing started is notable.

From this vantage point though, this team was done after Week 1, if not sooner. Hear me out.

TAKIN’ IT BACK TO THE START

As preseason camp got under way in Miami, a sense of optimism lingered as does every new year. But what also hung around were questions from the year before and specifically Tyreek Hill’s late game and postgame “performance” in the 2024 finale.

At this point it’s easy to forget, but the Dolphins started struggling last year. The games they won were not decisive. The once high-flying offense bogged down when faced with two-high safeties and deeper drops. It was a season of frustration that led to Hill’s locker room gaff as the final word.

But on July 23rd is when it all started going wrong for the 2025 team.

A quick sidebar — the first thing that should be preached to any team and each individual on that team in terms of communications and public relations is simple: talk only about yourself. Don’t talk about your teammates. Don’t talk about your coaches. Don’t talk about the opponents, except in complimentary terms, even if you feel like it’s hogwash.

As a person who was in the profession at the collegiate level, I was given the opportunity to say just that in a full team meeting at the start of each year, putting it out there for players and coaches so that they understood the collective expectation. My saying it was reinforced by the head coach and that was that. We didn’t have these kind of problems.

But on that day in late July, Miami’s team captain and self-described leader violated any such understanding or policy when he was asked about where his relationship was with Hill after what happened the season previous, where he let his teammates down.

“I would say we’re still continuing to (work on it),” said Tua Tagavailoa. “But it’s not just with me, it’s with a lot of the guys. I’m not the only one that heard that. You guys aren’t the only people who heard that. … So, when you say something like that, you don’t just come back from that with ‘Hey, my bad.’ You’ve got to work that relationship up. You’ve got to build everything up again. It’s still a work in progress. Not just for me, but for everybody.”

In one soundbite, the team captain brought in not only his opinions and his relationship with another player, he also dragged in the rest of the team. It was not done out of malice, but players have to know that the choice exists to keep relationships private regardless of whether you are asked about it or not.

Either way, this team hadn’t hit August and was already having its internals questioned nationally. And we would later learn, things were not going to change.

“Because Tua Tagavailoa threw the entire team under the bus, recanted and then walked that back, the entire nation is now paying attention to the Miami Dolphins.” – Ian Rappaport, October 22, 2025

HEARING ALL THE TALK

Despite it all, the preseason read on this team was that it had possibly secured its offensive line with a healthy Austin Jackson returning, the addition of James Daniels and an aggressive draft-day move for G Jonah Savaiinaea.. It got younger on the defensive line, but did so with its first round pick, a player whose power could seemingly continue to unlock recently-extended ’24 MVP Zach Sieler on the defensive interior, while the triumvirate dubbed “The Big Three” created chaos on the outside.

The defensive backfield was easily the biggest question mark but people held out hope for young players like Jason Marshall Jr. and Storm Duck and ultimately the addition of Minkah Fitzpatrick.

But keep in mind why the backfield was such a question mark in the first place. It existed because Miami – this time per its head coach and general manager – had too many players showing up late for meetings and fines weren’t working, so it moved on from Jalen Ramsey, its most talented and disgruntled corner.

Problem solved, right?

“The NFL is a league of development and growth and teams start out doing – the first four weeks are generally wild because people are figuring out who they are. You know on paper who you think you’re going to be, but in actual execution who you are and then molding themselves to that and you have to continue to get better, I would say the good news and the positive is I don’t see how it could be worse and I also believe in the coaches and players to get it fixed because it’s just a shame. You work behind the scenes for months on end and you don’t show any of it.” – Mike McDaniel, Sept. 8, 2025

BETTER WHEN WE’RE ALONE

Actual football problems started arising in what was deemed the most critical part of the late preseason, joint practices with the Lions and Jaguars.

This time it was other teams breaking the PR rules. Their players calling Miami soft.

“I don’t know if they’re ready,” said Lions’ Grant Studdard. “I’m gonna keep it a stack — joint practiced against that team twice when I was in Tampa. I don’t know if they practice how we practice.”

The noise started and it really never stopped for the Dolphins. In any sport of consequence, however, the only way to stop said noise is by winning.

So, after spending its entire offseason being questioned, whether it be about the heart of a player and how his teammates choose to accept or deny him grace for a mistake last year; or whether it be players on other teams calling them out in preseason of this year; Miami opened the season at Indianapolis as just one-point underdogs.

Time has shown that, yes, the Colts are a better team than anyone expected so we’ll lay that out there first. But even today, it’s questionable if player-for-player they had a better roster than Miami that day and even if the Colts did, 33-8 is shameful. And particularly disgraceful after been called out as having perceived internal problems and soft players.

It was as early as this point of the season where I started thinking this team had no way out of it. Because it wasn’t just one game. It was a sub-par 2024 season followed by internal strife made public, external voices calling the team and its coaching style – once the talk of the league – into question.

WHAT THE DOLPHINS LACK

All that external talk builds up inside a team that’s wired right. It makes them nuts. It has them at meetings early and leaving the building not only late, but not until things are figured out. It has them fighting with each other in practices at times because they are pissed.

All the noise coming at them maybe doesn’t result in a win, but it HAS to result in hearing their pads slam into the opponent on gameday and each yard against them hard fought.

The world’s doubt should have turned Miami into ‘what could have been’ this season – a candidate for a weekly shootout where the offense is one of the more potent units in the league and the defense scrapes and claws to either hold on for a win or not, with each week being a thrill regardless of outcome.

But there was no scraping, no clawing, no shoulder pads cracking against a Colts player in anger. Six months of frustration never came out of their pores. In fact, the only time it did was when Jordyn Brooks and Tyrel Dodson had to be separated because the former believed the latter was not going hard enough in a joint practice.

They got punched in the mouth with words, then with fists to the tune of a 25-point season-opening loss. They never got better. Nothing changed except a lot of the things that had fans excited – like an actual five-man NFL-caliber offensive line, a potent defensive front featuring “The Big Three” (which now sounds almost comical) or an offense that can roll up points on any team — never came to fruition.

COMPOUNDED PROBLEMS WITH NO ANSWERS

As each week has progressed, McDaniel’s weekly responses to what the answer is have failed. Not only have the Dolphins not gotten much better, they have seemingly been figured out, continued the public conversation about internals and performed no better on field.

Nevermind attacking this team’s weak defensive backfield — opponents are ramming it right down Miami’s throats. The team knows what’s coming and has no answers. Things are there offensively at times, but the truth is Tagavailoa when forced to hold the ball and make decisions makes more bad ones than he did when playing on time and with anticipation, something opponents have thwarted by shutting down the middle of the field for him, among other things.

The talk now is whether to blow it all up. It’s a hard thing to want when it’s your team, but what choice do the Dolphins have? What would holding onto a few guys actually do, other than age them and hold them back in their own careers?

The quarterback is overpaid and trending down. Your best player, Devon Achane, is in the last year of his deal. You have one receiver who would start for any team in the NFL, but beyond that not much in terms of something that would threaten an opponent. The offensive line, which started the season looking like a full set of teeth, now looks like what you’d imagine out of someone living deep in Appalachia as T Patrick Paul stands alone as the bright spot of Miami’s future.

The rookies have struggled, including the first round pick Kenneth Grant (though he has shown some progress). The ends, save Bradley Chubb, leave much to be desired and the player being touted as the next big thing – Chop Robinson – has proven one-dimensional and unable to find the field every down while also being relatively ineffective when he does. The linebackers lead the world in tackles because nobody in front of them is stopping anybody and the defensive backfield likely hasn’t even been tested the way a team would if it was forced to. Either way, this is the worst defense in the league.

The lone win was against the league’s worst team and the most recent loss came to the Browns, who may be the next worse, save the Dolphins.

And with the possibility that Miami could lose twice in the next 7 days and finish the month of October a rare 0-5 – again, how can the talk be about anything other than a complete overhaul?

Things got ugly early in 2025 for this Miami Dolphins team, and unfortunately it feels like it’s going to stay that way, no matter what they say.