Dolphins Open Preseason With Malik Willis Under Center and a Rebuilt Roster

The Miami Dolphins broke training camp and traveled to Washington for their preseason opener carrying a roster and a coaching staff that bear little resemblance to the team that finished 7-10 last season. Jeff Hafley has replaced Mike McDaniel as head coach, Jon-Eric Sullivan has taken over as general manager, and Malik Willis is the projected starting quarterback after the franchise moved on from Tua Tagovailoa.

The changes were comprehensive by design. Hafley and Sullivan both arrived from Green Bay, where Hafley served as defensive coordinator and Sullivan worked in player personnel, and the roster construction since March has reflected a shared evaluation history. Willis, who revived his career during his stint with the Packers, signed a three-year deal reported at $67.5 million with $45 million fully guaranteed.

Miami has also continued reshaping the roster through camp. The team signed cornerback Nick McCloud, placed kicker Zane Gonzalez on injured reserve, waived running back Anthony Hankerson, and agreed to terms on a trade with New England to acquire tackle Caedan Wallace along with a 2029 seventh-round pick in exchange for a 2028 sixth-round selection, pending a physical.

The quarterback question

Willis takes over a position Tagovailoa held since 2020. The Dolphins informed Tagovailoa they would release him following last season, closing a tenure defined by high-efficiency passing when he was healthy and by repeated concerns about availability when he was not.

Willis arrives with a different profile entirely. Drafted in the third round by Tennessee in 2022, he struggled early in his career before finding a role in Green Bay, where his mobility and arm strength played well within a structured offense and limited sample. The contract Miami gave him is a starter's contract, and the guarantee structure indicates the organization intends to give him a full runway.

Camp observations have highlighted Willis's ability to extend plays outside structure. Wide receiver Tutu Atwell described the value of a mobile quarterback who can scramble while receivers work back to the ball, a dynamic that changes route timing and defensive coverage rules compared to a pocket passer.

Rookie Quinn Ewers has also taken snaps in team drills during camp, giving the Dolphins a developmental option behind Willis. Second-year receiver A.J. Henning has been among the camp standouts, catching passes on all four reps in one-on-one drills in one practice, including a deep touchdown from Willis, and adding a contested deep catch from Ewers in team work.

What Hafley brings

Hafley's background is on defense. He coordinated Green Bay's defense before taking the Miami job, and before that he was head coach at Boston College and defensive coordinator at Ohio State. His hiring signals an organizational bet that the Dolphins' path back to competitiveness runs through the defensive side of the ball rather than through offensive innovation.

That is a meaningful departure. McDaniel's Miami teams were built around offensive speed, motion, and a scheme designed to create explosive plays, an approach that produced spectacular results against some opponents and stalled badly against others, particularly in cold weather and against physical defenses.

Hafley's defensive systems have generally emphasized simplicity of assignment with variation in presentation, allowing players to play fast rather than diagnose. Whether Miami's personnel fits that approach is one of the season's open questions, since the roster was assembled under a different set of priorities.

Sullivan's approach in personnel has been visible in the volume of roster churn through camp. Trades for depth pieces, waiver claims, and low-cost additions are the mechanics of a rebuild rather than a reload.

Expectations for 2026

National expectations for Miami are low. Most projections place the Dolphins near the bottom of the league, and analysts have openly discussed the possibility that the franchise ends the season positioned to select a quarterback early in the 2027 draft.

Willis's own contract, at $22.5 million per year in average annual value, faces its first real test in camp and preseason. A quarterback signed on the strength of a limited body of work carries risk, and Miami's guarantee structure means the team is committed for at least two seasons regardless of outcome.

The AFC East offers no easy path. The division has been competitive at the top for several years, and Miami's schedule includes the usual complement of cold-weather road games that have historically been difficult for the franchise.

What a successful 2026 looks like for Miami is therefore not measured primarily in wins. It is measured in whether Willis establishes himself as a viable long-term answer, whether the young players Sullivan has accumulated develop, and whether Hafley's defense shows a coherent identity by December.

Preseason as evaluation

The preseason opener in Washington is primarily a roster evaluation exercise. Starters typically play limited snaps or sit entirely, and the bulk of the game is used to sort the bottom third of the roster before cuts.

For Miami, the evaluation stakes are higher than usual because so much of the roster is new. Players competing for jobs at cornerback, along the offensive line, and in the receiving corps behind the established options will get meaningful reps.

The Caedan Wallace acquisition addresses offensive line depth, an area where Miami has had persistent problems. Wallace, a tackle, arrives from New England with the trade contingent on a physical, and the seventh-round pick coming back in 2029 makes the transaction close to a pure depth add at minimal cost.

Kicker is now an open competition following Zane Gonzalez's placement on injured reserve. Miami will need to resolve that position before the regular season, and preseason games are where the evaluation happens.

What South Florida fans should watch

The most important thing to watch is not the score. It is how Willis handles a live pass rush, which is the one element of quarterback evaluation that camp practices cannot simulate. Willis's ability to extend plays is the strength Miami paid for, and whether that translates against a defense trying to hit him is the question preseason exists to answer.

Second is the offensive line. Miami's ability to protect any quarterback has been a limiting factor for several years, and the group's composition remains unsettled. Watching how the line holds up in pass protection and whether the running game generates anything without scheme trickery will indicate a great deal about the season ahead.

Third is the secondary under Hafley. Miami has invested in defensive backs, and a defensive-minded head coach will want to see coverage discipline and communication in a live setting.

Fourth is simply health. The Dolphins have lost seasons to injury attrition before, and a preseason that ends with the roster intact is worth more to this team than a preseason that ends with an unbeaten record and a depleted depth chart.

The salary cap reality

Roster teardowns of this scale carry accounting consequences that shape a team's flexibility for years, and Miami's situation illustrates the mechanics well.

When a team releases a player with guaranteed money remaining, the unamortized portion of his signing bonus accelerates onto the salary cap immediately, or across two years if the release is designated post-June 1. That charge counts against the cap for a player who is no longer on the roster, a figure the league refers to as dead money.

Miami's decision to move on from an established starting quarterback and to reshape the roster broadly means the team is carrying charges for players who will not appear in a game this season. Those charges reduce what is available to sign and extend the players the new regime does want.

The offsetting factor is that dead money is finite and expires. A front office executing a rebuild absorbs the concentrated pain early precisely so that the cap situation improves as the young roster develops. That is the timeline Sullivan and Hafley are working against, and it explains why the organization is willing to accept a difficult 2026.

It also explains the pattern of low-cost transactions through camp. Trades involving late-round picks, waiver claims, and one-year contracts for veterans are how a team with constrained cap space fills a roster without mortgaging future flexibility.

How the franchise got here

The Dolphins' reset did not come out of nowhere. The McDaniel era began with genuine promise, producing an offense that at its best was among the most explosive in the league and reaching the postseason twice, but it ended with a 7-10 season and a set of structural problems the organization concluded it could not fix incrementally.

The recurring criticism was situational. Miami's offense generated spectacular numbers against certain opponents and disappeared against physical defenses and in cold weather, a pattern that persisted long enough that it stopped looking like variance. Playoff games amplified the issue.

Tagovailoa's availability was the other unresolved question. When healthy, he posted efficiency numbers that ranked among the league's best, and the offense functioned as designed. The concussion history that shadowed his career raised questions the organization ultimately answered by moving on.

The franchise has not won a playoff game since the 2000 season, the longest such drought in the NFL. That number is the context for every decision the new regime makes, and it explains why ownership chose comprehensive change over another round of adjustment.

What's next

Miami's preseason continues after the Washington trip, including joint practice work with the New York Giants that the team scheduled as part of its camp plan. Joint practices have become the more valuable evaluation setting for starters, since teams can control the environment while getting live work against unfamiliar opponents.

Roster cuts follow the preseason schedule, with the league requiring teams to reach the regular season limit before the opener. Miami's churn through camp suggests the final roster will look different from the group that reported in July.

The regular season will answer the questions the preseason only raises. For a franchise that has not won a playoff game since the 2000 season, the 2026 campaign is explicitly a foundation year rather than a contention year.

The Florida Press will cover the Dolphins through the preseason and into the regular season at Hard Rock Stadium.