The Miami Dolphins may not get a realistic crack at their first win for a while.
After opening Week 1 against the Raiders, Miami is headed right back to the West Coast for a Week 2 matchup in San Francisco, and that one could be an even tougher assignment. The Dolphins are still in the early stages of sorting things out, but the margin for error is already thin.
Sunday’s loss to Las Vegas came with plenty of self-inflicted damage. Untimely penalties, turnovers and missed chances all showed up in a game Miami could have had with a little more experience. The encouraging part, at least, is that those are the kinds of mistakes that can be cleaned up.
What comes next is a brutal stretch. The Dolphins’ next four games are all against playoff-caliber opponents, split between two road games and two home games.
After the trip to San Francisco, Miami still has the Chiefs, Vikings and Bengals waiting over the next three weeks. That leaves little room for a turnaround.
Could the Dolphins be staring at a winless start through their Week 6 bye? That’s not just possible - it’s a real outcome on the table. And the most favorable opening may not arrive until they face the New York Jets.
That game comes after Miami gets two weeks to prepare, and the Jets’ own schedule is no picnic. New York beat the Titans in Week 1, then draws the Packers, Lions and Bears, followed by a home game against the Browns and then the Patriots in Week 6. By the time the Jets meet the Dolphins in Week 7, New York could have two wins, while Miami could still be sitting at 0-5.
Jeff Hafley has to manage that reality carefully. He needs to keep the team locked in without chasing wins in ways that pull it off course, all while continuing to develop the roster and clean up the mistakes that showed up against the Raiders.
The young makeup of the Dolphins’ roster should help. There are enough rookies and second-year players in the room that this doesn’t look like a situation where veterans will start pushing back. Still, losing makes every part of the process harder, and Miami is about to find out just how hard.
In Other News...
Dolphins Keep Making Roster Moves For A Bigger 2026 Plan
The Dolphins have been busy carving out breathing room on the books, with a series of salary cap conversions involving Zach Sieler, Greg Dulcich, Austin Jackson and JuJu Brents creating roughly $2.5 million in extra space. Miami now sits at about $8.8 million in cap room, a modest cushion on paper but one that comes with the weight of more than $180 million in dead cap already sitting on the ledger, including Tua Tagovailoas $55 million figure.
Tyrel Dodsons release added another layer to the picture, saving about $3 million and reinforcing that every move right now is being made with both the roster and the future in mind. General manager Jon-Eric Sullivan pointed to financial and roster considerations in the decision, which fits a broader approach that looks less like a short-term patch job and more like a team trying to keep its options open well beyond this season. [Read more 🡒]
Fitzpatrick Just Doubled Down On A Brutal Dolphins Warning
Ryan Fitzpatrick has never been shy about his opinions, and he brought the same bluntness back to the Dolphins this week. The former Miami quarterback, now an Amazon Prime analyst, stood by the preseason warning he made about the 2026 season, pointing to a roster he believes still has major hurdles in front of it. He framed the discussion around the kind of difficult year that can snowball early, especially when a team is trying to navigate a schedule that offers little room for error.
Fitzpatrick drew a line back to the 2019 Dolphins, a group that opened 0-7 before finding enough answers to win five games, and he used that season as a reminder that even a rocky start does not always define the finish. But he also noted the burden of dead cap space left behind by former core players, which only adds to the challenge ahead. For all the doom in his outlook, Fitzpatrick still left a sliver of optimism, hoping the coaches and players can keep the season from ever reaching the bleak outcome he floated. [Read more 🡒]
Dolphins Are Catching A 49ers Team Far From Full Strength
The 49ers are still sorting through the fallout from their season opener, and the injury list has already started to reshape the depth chart. Tight end Jake Tonges landed on injured reserve after hurting his knee in the opener, while San Francisco also added wide receiver KhaDarel Hodge to the active roster and brought tight end Jack Stoll onto the practice squad as it tries to keep enough bodies available at key spots.
For Miami, that matters because the Dolphins are catching a San Francisco team that is already dealing with more than one hole before the matchup fully gets into gear. Rookie wideout DeZhaun Stribling was also placed on injured reserve with a deltoid sprain, joining Ricky Pearsall and Alfred Collins among the names the 49ers are trying to work around, leaving the roster thinner and the margin for error smaller. [Read more 🡒]