MIAMI GARDENS ― The Miami Dolphins are 0-2, and the early shape of this season is already clear: this is going to take patience.
That reality was easy to see after last Sunday’s loss at San Francisco, when veteran defensive lineman Zach Sieler was the final player dressed and the last to meet with reporters. Sieler, who came aboard at the tail end of the 2019 teardown, knows the territory. He’s been around long enough to understand what a young team looks like when things start going sideways.
When a reporter asked, “How much patience do you have to have to go through this?” Sieler answered with a grin: “I have two kids, man. I'm doing all right,”
It was one of the few smiles in that locker room after the defeat. Losing clearly bothers Sieler, who has built himself into a reliable veteran and a respected presence. But he is also surrounded by players still learning how to handle the league.
Not his actual children. His teammates.
There’s no guarantee Sieler finishes the year in Miami. He could be moved before the deadline to a contender. For now, though, the Dolphins need him, and they need the rest of their captains to keep steadying the room.
Coach Jeff Hafley made that point again on Wednesday, when he revisited the subject late in his news conference:
“Let me say this, we've got really good, if you just look at our six captains, they're really good players, and they're really good leaders and they've done a really good job. I mean, because what you're saying is true.
When you're in the huddle and I'm in the huddle with those guys and the game's out of reach and I'm looking them in the eye and they are so intent and they're playing as hard as they did the first snap of the game, that's important to me. And it shows that those are the right guys.
And it isn't like that everywhere.”
That effort shows up on film, Hafley said. The problem isn’t that the team is quitting. It’s that too many young players are getting tripped up by the details - alignment, assignment and execution.
The biggest number through two games tells the story. Miami is the only NFL team without a sack.
Hafley, who is also calling the defense, said he knows how to attack a problem like that without getting lost in the frustration of it.
“I've been through it,” Hafley said. “You know, I look back to my first year in Green Bay, and early on, we weren't generating any pressure.
So we had to change and we had to evolve, and we had to put guys in different positions. And it took a lot of work, and we developed a lot of new stuff and a lot of new calls.”
In other words, the focus stays on fixing, not fuming.
“I don't have time to get frustrated,” Hafley added.
That approach may matter even more as the season goes on. Miami’s youth isn’t a talking point - it’s the reality of the roster. Aaron Brewer, Jordyn Brooks, De'Von Achane, Malik Willis and Patrick Paul are all under contract for next season, and all but Willis are signed beyond that.
So Hafley’s job isn’t just to coach the current game. It’s to keep showing a young group how to fight, how to compete and how to keep going when the scoreboard starts to tilt the wrong way.
That’s the part Dolphins fans may have to buy into, too. Week 3 brings the home opener against the Kansas City Chiefs, and Miami enters as a two-touchdown underdog.
The fan base can see what this is. This is one of the youngest teams in modern NFL history. And if this season is going to mean anything, the measuring stick has to be bigger than wins and losses.
It’s about development.
And, yes, it’s about patience.
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For Miami, the number matters because it reflects more than just an early stumble. A point differential that ugly puts the Dolphins in the same conversation as the leagues worst teams and leaves them with little room to argue they have been more competitive than the standings suggest, even with a long season still ahead. The AFC has already begun to separate into teams building a cushion and teams scrambling to avoid an early hole, and Miami has work to do before the gap turns into something harder to dig out of. [Read more 🡒]