Some people are fans of the Dolphins. But many, many more people are NOT fans of the Dolphins. This 2024 Defector NFL team preview is for those in the latter group. Read all the previews so far here.
Your team: Miami Dolphins
Your 2024 record: 8–9. No NFL franchise lies to itself and its fans as consistently as the Miami Dolphins. If you don’t believe it, just ask them.
The Dolphins produced a helium-filled 11-6 record against a squishy schedule in 2023, losing to bona fide contenders (the Ravens and Bills) in their final two games by a combined score of 77-33 before getting laughed out of Arrowhead Stadium in the playoffs. Defensive caporegime Vic Fangio defected to Philly after that season, claiming he wanted to work closer to home when he not-so-secretly wanted to escape the Dolphins’ stoned-on-South Beach locker room culture. Whispers of a hotbox atmosphere made their way to the media – outgoing safety DeShon Elliott would later call the 2023 Dolphins “soft as fuck”—prompting assurances that the team would play tougher in 2024.
"I'm going to say last year, we were lying, honestly," edge rusher Bradley Chubb said in June of all the 2024 no-nonsense rhetoric. Indeed, the Dolphins fell to 8–9, going 1–4 against playoff-bound opponents. A season-long injury to Chubb, Tua Tagovailoa’s latest brush with a Mortal Kombat finishing move and other setbacks can be blamed for the disappointing results. But folding like a beach chair the moment the quarterback gets hurt and losing to opponents like the Seahawks and Titans by a combined score of 55-15 is no way to prove soft-as-fuck allegations wrong.
Chubb claims that the Dolphins are “going the extra mile” this year, and this time they mean it. Owner Stephen Ross claims to be committed to GM Chris Grier and head coach Mike McDaniel. Grier bristles at the notion that the team is in low-key rebuilding mode. McDaniel responded to offseason questions about his job security with his trademark MBA-washout-running-a-vape-shop sophistry. Everyone sounds 100 percent invested in Tua. Well, maybe 60-70 percent invested.
It’s all a heap of lies, honestly. The Dolphins are gearing up for another of their regularly-scheduled aqua-and-orange Red Weddings.
Your coach: Mike McDaniel is one part techbro, one part podcast know-it-all, and two parts that guy you know who refuses to purchase cannabis from legal dispensaries because he would rather smoke something adulterated with embalming fluid and Domino’s pizza crust seasoning than pay sales tax like some acquiescent sheep.
McDaniel orchestrates the most innovative and electrifying offense in the NFL so long as the Dolphins are operating within a vacuum-sealed, laboratory-optimized environment. When facing a sandbox-mode opponent like the Jets or Patriots on a sunny day with a blank injury report, McDaniel’s highly-choreographed scheme looks like Cantonese opera. But if the Dolphins are facing playoff-caliber competition, they turn into the Bayonne Bleeders. If it’s cold or rainy, they steer straight into a culvert. If any of their offensive stars are injured, they forfeit for a month so he can recover. McDaniel’s system is the tactical equivalent of a sleek new smartphone which has dozens of dazzling video-editing features but doesn’t actually send or receive calls, and also explodes if too much dust gets on the screen.
McDaniel started his coaching tenure in Miami as a point-of-entry Mary Sue character for the NFL Internet’s tastemaker community: finally, a coach who rolls out of bed, doesn’t bother changing out of his sweatpants and spouts X-and-O gobbledygook, just like we do! The podcast intelligentsia has since soured on McDaniel, perhaps because we have all become a little wary of guys who look and sound like mushroom-tea swilling DOGE functionaries likely to give away the nuclear codes when bragging to Tinder dates.
Ross issued a January proclamation giving his “full support” to McDaniel and Grier but ominously adding: “continuity in leadership is not to be confused with an acceptance that the status quo is good enough.” Grier, who learned NFL mafiosa language from Bill Parcells and knows the Dolphins have zero hope of competing with the Bills/Ravens/Chiefs with Jeff Spicoli as his coach and Forky from Toy Story as his quarterback, began purging the roster of big-name veterans in a galactic-chess gambit to make McDaniel his fall guy. McDaniel, meanwhile, spent the offseason muttering Dr. Manhattan-esque existentialist claptrap.
"If we won two more games, does that make me a different coach?" McDaniel asked rhetorically during the league’s winter meetings. Yes, you insufferable poser. It does. That’s literally the point of your fucking job.
When things go wrong in Miami this year, McDaniel will stop slouching and shrugging like some barista who is too focused on composing his spoken-word poetry to toast your damn croissant and start blaming Tua.
Your quarterback: Tua Tagovailoa is the hatchling turtle in a nature documentary. You cannot help but root for him as you watch him scuttle awkwardly across the beach to the safety of the sea. Yet he is so much slower and clumsier than the other turtles. Also, he appears to be going the wrong way. Oh, and you are watching a documentary about the endangered Turtle-Munching Pelican, so you know he’s probably breakfast, and that it’s therefore best not to get too emotionally attached.
Tagovailoa has suffered four documented concussions, which should make us all extremely angry at the people who keep putting him in harm’s way. Unfortunately, the most misguided of those people is Tua himself, who rushes back from injuries as if he has burnt all of his sick days and navigates the pocket like a self-driving taxi trying to merge onto the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway during a rush-hour thunderstorm.
Tagovailoa probably should have taken the rest of the 2024 season off after the grade three concussion he suffered in September. Instead he returned after four weeks and played like his usual junkballing-southpaw self until suffering a December hip injury. When watching Tua, you end up rooting for hip injuries because they aren’t concussions.
At least no one questions Tagovailoa’s leadership, dedication and toughness. No wait, scratch that: the Dolphins go out of their way to question Tua’s leadership, dedication and toughness at every opportunity.
Grier, the man who signed Tagovailoa to a reported four-year, $212-million contract in 2023, was asked to name the team’s locker room leaders before April’s draft. Grier rattled off several veterans, including FB Alec Ingold and Gotham-supervillain-in-training Tyreek Hill, but omitted the quarterback who submits to an annual Aztec sacrifice on the field for him.
Grier also indulged in a little bit of victim blaming when asked about Tagovailoa. “He needs to be available," Grier said. "He needs to know how to protect himself.” Dude, if he knew how to protect himself he’d spend the rest of his life lounging like a lazy dragon atop the pile of money you handed him. h
In a ham-handed attempt to transition away from Tagovailoa, the Dolphins signed the legendary Mormon Milfhunter. QB Zach Wilson spent his first three seasons marinating in Jets putrescence—one of them as Aaron Rodgers’s dork apprentice—but is now fully rehabilitated after hiding behind Bo Nix for a year on the Broncos bench. Wilson is trying to reinvent himself by following Sam Darnold’s career path. Please bask for a moment in how pathetic the previous sentence sounds.
McDaniel could not stop gushing about Wilson in the offseason: rehabilitating Wilson would solidify the coach’s shaky genius cred and could provide an extra year or two of job security. As for Wilson, joining the Dolphins gives him a chance to both challenge Tagovailoa and get closer to Fergie.
What's new that sucks: Tyreek Hill is such a great receiver and breathtaking athlete that much of the football world ties its psyche in knots to frame him as a misunderstood character instead of as someone who is always one mood swing away from driving his McLeran 720S into an orphanage.
Hill took time out from his busy offseason schedule of no-charges-filed domestic incidents to leave Tagovailoa off his “top five NFL quarterbacks” list, substituting Baker Mayfield (!?) in the plausible No. 5 spot. Hill later publicly apologized to Tagovailoa, which at least is more than Grier will ever do for leaving him off the locker-room leaders list. Hill clearly wants out of Miami but decided that he didn’t want to wait behind Jalen Ramsey in the trade-demand deli line.
Ramsey, the All-Pro cornerback the Dolphins traded for when they deluded themselves into thinking they were serious contenders entering the 2023 season, demanded more money this offseason in an obvious attempt to Fangio his way out of Miami. Ramsey spent months on the trading block before the Dolphins sent him to the Steelers along with TE Jonnu Smith (who somehow led the team in receptions in 2024) in exchange for S Minkah Fitzpatrick and a swap of some Chuck E. Cheese-token draft picks. It was a deal that made the Dolphins weaker without making them significantly younger or cheaper.
Budget-friendly incumbents like CBs Kader Kohou and Storm Duck (not to be confused with that cute little guy with the rocket launcher from Pearls Before Swine) will replace Ramsey. TE Darren Waller, who retired last year to escape codependent relationships with both the New York Giants and ex-wife Kelsey Plum, returns to replace Smith as the guy who only gets open because half the defense is chasing Hill through the stadium tunnel. Waller turns 33 at the start of the season and hasn’t had a truly productive season since 2020.
These moves, coupled with the Dolphins’ failure to replace retiring LT Terron Armstead and the departures of starters like DEs Emmanuel Ogbah and Calais Campbell, and S Jevon Holland, only make sense when you realize that Grier is sabotaging McDaniel.
What has always sucked: The Dolphins front office operates a retirement home for Bill Parcells flunkies who were too inept to get hired by Bill Belichick. That includes Grier, who rose to power during Parcells’s brief late-aughts tenure as the Dolphins’ showrunner, survived the Big Tuna’s departure and became general manager in 2016. McDaniel is Grier’s third head coach, Tua his second hand-picked quarterback. (Grier was Director of Scouting when the Dolphins drafted Ryan Tannehill.) Grier is a mediocre hamster-wheel jogger when it comes to building a roster, but few NFL executives are better than him at winning backroom Highlander battles.
Ross the Boss is an 85-year old real estate vampire who spent the 2010s selling minority shares in the organization to Wimbledon and Latin Grammy winners in a sweaty attempt to appear culturally relevant and non-racist. Ross recently abandoned both pretenses and sold 10 percent of the team to a private-equity parasite called Ares Management. If comic books have taught us anything, it’s that you should never do business with shady multinational conglomerates that are literally named after the Greek God of War. But then, you probably shouldn’t do business with octogenarian Florida real-estate ghouls, either.
Speaking of racism, the discrimination lawsuit filed by outgoing head coach Brian Flores in 2022 is still seeping through the legal system. Ross is probably guilty of something: he tried to circumvent a zillion NFL bylaws by making Tom Brady a co-owner/quarterback on at least one occasion. But it’s worth noting that: A) While Flores is a true defensive mastermind, he also treated Tagovailoa the way Moe treated Larry, and was therefore fired with considerable merit; and B) Ross’s minority hiring practices are downright laudable by NFL standards.
What might not suck: Watching Hill remains a guilty pleasure, like listening to an early Kanye album. WR Jayden Waddle and RB De’Von Achane are also a blast to watch. As noted earlier, the Dolphins can look like the Harlem Globetrotters on their best days.
An early-season schedule full of Panthers, Browns and Jets could keep the Dolphins in the playoff chase and their braintrust feigning mutual respect/satisfaction until they are walloped by a Bills/Ravens/Commanders triple haymaker in late-October and November, which will be followed by a reenactment of the French Revolution. Heads will roll. Hopefully not literally.
HEAR IT FROM DOLPHINS FANS!
Patrick:
We're essentially South Florida's answer to the Pittsburgh Steelers: fine enough to scratch out the most thoroughly average number of wins possible, but no hope of beating anyone of any consequence if there are any actual stakes. I feel like Urban Dictionary could just list their offseason transactions each year for the definition of the "reshuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic" metaphor.
As for what might not suck? We get the NFC South this year, so like the Chargers and the Broncos last year, we have a great shot to accidentally make the playoffs as a wild card.
Brock:
The team is a constantly underachieving pile of shit. Big free agents go to Miami to cash checks, do blow, and get laid; not to play football. The front office has been a jumbled mess since Joe Robbie died 30 fucking years ago. GM Chris Grier spins these incredible trades, then uses the picks he acquires to either draft a 20-year-old corner with two gimpy legs or to trade for a veteran that wants to cash checks, do blow, and get laid. It's a terrific setup we have going.
Worse, the fanbase is convinced we're a temporarily embarrassed elite franchise that will return to greatness any minute now. Never mind that the Super Bowls happened more than 50 years ago. Never mind that a playoff victory has not occurred this century. We dunk on the Bills for having no Super Bowls even though nearly every Miami fan alive has never seen our team win one and definitely will never see them win one until every member of the 1972 team is dead. We are the most brainless, uninformed morons in America, which is really saying something these days.
I could see us winning 12 games this year.
Epicus Doomus:
My Dolphins, the NFL's perennial threat to maybe, if everything breaks just right, backdoor their way into that final wildcard spot, where Buffalo or KC or Baltimore will kick the daylights out of them. Sometimes they slip into the tournament, sometimes they fall short, but the uncertain, tedious malaise remains a rock-solid constant. Will they have a brand new GM/HC/QB trio next season? Probably! Or, maybe not! No one really knows, nor will anyone know even after they've made a decision. And the Dolphins cycle of life goes on.
Steven:
My Miami Dolphins suck because of the organization's relentless commitment to mediocrity. It's been long enough that we've now lived to see the Florida Panthers win two straight Stanley Cup championships in a place where it never gets below 50 degrees, while the Dolphins haven't even won a single playoff game in 25 years. Our QB made more money last year than Marino made in his entire career, and all he's done is show us just enough to make us ask ourselves "wait, is he good?" only to then immediately get concussed. Also, our head coach wears capri pants.
Pablo:
Their stadium is halfway through its Animorphs book cover transition to becoming a circus tent.
Jim:
This team is a monument to mediocrity. Death, taxes and the Dolphins going 8-9. It's been this way since roughly the 1984 Super Bowl. Oh, we love to talk history. Only undefeated team in NFL history! Csonka could still run for a thousand yards! Nevermind that only two regular season opponents had winning records, at 8-6 each. Nevermind that it was 53 years ago. The old-time fans (and this ownership group) would strap a headset on Don Shula's fucking coffin and let it wheel around the sidelines for 17 games a year. The rest of the fans are meatheads who are mostly focused on avoiding taxes in states they would rather live in or selling condos to Venezuelans looking for a place to launder money in the states. Also, we are actively trying to kill our quarterback. Maybe we should reconsider that Shula idea.
Eric:
The Miami Dolphins made it to the Super Bowl in 1984, and the AFC championship game the next season. I was in middle school, and the Dolphins were Miami's only major professional sports team at the time.
Forty years later, bupkis. You'd think the best players would be falling over themselves to play in Miami, but shitholes like Green Bay, Cincinnati, even Buffalo have had a lot more fun over those decades.
I think people don't realize how shitty this franchise has always been at drafting and developing players not named Dan Marino. When people would dump on Marino for never winning the championship, I'd challenge them to name a single guy who played defense on any Marino team. Blank stares. Every year they'd try to fix the defense by drafting another guy who wasn't even on any other team's radar. The only thing people remember about John Bosa was siring an all-pro MAGA POS. Eric Kumerow couldn't even get on the field.
Oh yeah, and when Ricky Williams said "fuck this, I'm going to quit football and heal myself," the team sued him and forced him into indentured servitude.
Fuck Wayne Huizenga.
Kevin:
I have a Masters in Data Analytics and professionally promote analytics pretty heavily to help make decisions and recommendations... and yet every time I see some article about how the stats show that, well, actually, Tua is easily one of the best quarterbacks in the league I immediately turn into a drunken uncle, screaming about how stats are for nerds and you need to watch the tape.
In other words, this team not only disappoints, but also lets me know that everything is have invested in professionally is also a lie.
Ezra:
All the games are unwatchable, the only question is whether it will be bc you are getting the QB2 experience (total ineptitude) or the QB1 experience (genuine fear the man may die every time he drops back).
This offseason saw what I genuinely suspect will be looked back on as the best move of the Chris Greer era, and it was trading away last year's leading receiver.
Geoffrey:
I moved to Norway 8 years ago and hadn't been to a Dolphins game until the Fins came to Frankfurt. So I flew down and met up with my dad so we could go to a game together for the first time in a decade. It was a beautiful moment. So it was, of course, fitting to sit in the stands with my old man and watch the Dolphins shit all over themselves for an entire half, then get enough of their shit together in the second half to get within a touchdown and give us some semblance of hope, only to lose the game on a walk-off fumbled snap.
We're doing it again for the game in Madrid this year. Go Fins.
Albert:
If I heard anyone talking about how their team's seventh round pick has them feeling optimistic, I'd be conducting wellness checks on them. And yet, the Dolphins had me doing exactly that about Quinn Ewers and now I'm questioning friendships because no one checked in on me.
Prediction for the season: Tua plays two games before getting another concussion, Zach Wilson somehow manages to tear his ACL in the process of putting his helmet on to sub in for him. Brett Gabbert will start multiple games.
Joe:
They suck so hard that they made the people of South Florida, who live on a scorching anal fissure of the sun, care about a Hockey team more than this bunch of losers.
I will be filled with jealousy when the Jaguars eventually move to London instead of this team.
What sort of heinous photos does Chris Grier have of Stephen Ross to still have his job? FUCK CHRIS GRIER.
Zach:
I can't do this anymore. I know they can't say they are tanking for the second time in 6 years, but that's gotta be what's going on. Since the last playoff win they will have had two deliberate tanks and two accidental tanks. In a league where most teams can stumble into a playoff win. I almost can't blame them for tanking, because they're not smart enough to have a second idea. What are they gonna build through scouting? Finding value in low cost veterans? Not this brain trust. That's like expecting the mob to save a struggling restaurant with a popular new dish and reimagined hospitality. The kitchen fire is coming. All they know is kitchen fire.
I don't like rooting for the team with a QB situation so dire that ESPN has to get serious when they talk about it. In 2025, all that company wants to do is air 6 hours of Pat McAfee farting into a microphone but then Tua shows up in the news cycle and forces them to send an intern deep into the basement to clear the cobwebs off some Outside The Lines paraphernalia. I've never seen a Great Dolphins Team, and rarely a Good Dolphins team, but sometimes Scrappy Dolphins teams and many Bad Dolphins teams, but ranked well below all of them is this Bummer Dolphins team.
Also since the algorithm learned I'm a Dolphins fan it consistently wants to give me videos of this same guy. All Dolphins fans know who I'm talking about. He wears a Dolphins branded beanie and is always doing "Uber Driver Sucked Me Off" Face. As far as I can tell he makes his money off of the interactions he gets from Pats and Bills fans pointing out how pathetic and delusional he is. It's borderline humiliation fetish content. I hate him. I hate him like I hate all other Dolphins fans. Why are you rooting for a loser team in the most fascist city in the most fascist state? That's stupid. Only I am allowed to be this stupid.
Dave:
This team hasn’t won a playoff game since Slick Willie was in office. I have to pray every game that my QB, who has an actual concussion highlight reel and is no doubt the best QB we’ve had since Marino, won’t die on the field or have so much CTE damage that it’ll make the opening scene of The Last Boy Scout look like The Little Giants.
My consolation prize of being a devoted fan of this team for 30 years is that when the Dolphins dropped a historic 70 points on the Broncos, it was the day of my father’s funeral and I never saw a second of it.
At least we’re not the Jets.
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