Miami Dolphins head coach Jeff Hafley didn’t leave much room for speculation Monday when asked whether the team should consider a change at quarterback after the bye. After five games, he made it plain: Malik Willis remains the starter.
“We've played five games, and Malik is our quarterback.”
The question came on the heels of the Dolphins’ Week 5 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals, a game that only added to the noise around Willis’ uneven start. Through five games, he has been near the bottom of the league in passer rating and completion percentage among qualifying quarterbacks, with just two touchdown passes and four interceptions before the Monday night matchup.
That production is nowhere close to what the Dolphins need. But Hafley pointed to a wider problem than just the quarterback, and that’s part of why a benching after five games would be such a leap.
“I think you guys are going to get tired of my answers however the questions are phrased, it's everything," Hafley said. "It's a detail of the route running.
It starts with the protection. It's going through the progression.
It's everybody being on the same page, and everybody being more efficient in their 1/11.”
The supporting cast around Willis has not made life easy. The Dolphins have spent much of the season without their best player, De'Von Achane, for almost three games, and without their most dynamic wide receiver at the moment, Caleb Douglas, for three-plus games. The receiver group has long been viewed as a work in progress, built more on long-term potential than immediate polish, and that potential still hasn’t been reached.
Pass protection has been another problem. Pressure has been arriving quickly and often, and while that doesn’t excuse every mistake Willis has made, it helps explain why the numbers look the way they do.
Still, the quarterback is the one under the brightest light. He’s also the Dolphins’ lone external free-agent addition this year who got anything beyond the minimum or near-minimum salary, and Hafley and GM Jon-Eric Sullivan spoke about him as the player they planned to build around.
That’s why the notion of turning to Kyle McCord now feels so far out over the skis. McCord has become the name some fans are circling, but his path to Miami tells its own story. The Eagles took him in the sixth round of the 2025 draft, then waived him and later let him leave their practice squad for Green Bay this year before the Packers dealt him to the Dolphins for a 2028 sixth-round pick.
Again, a 2028 sixth-round pick.
McCord may eventually turn into something more at the NFL level, but right now that’s a long shot. And unlike McCord, Willis has already played in an NFL regular-season game and showed well during his time with the Packers, where Hafley and Sullivan both saw him up close every day.
None of that changes the fact that the Dolphins’ offense has been off across the board through five games. But with 12 games left in the 2026 regular season, there is still time for Willis, the passing game and the offense as a whole to settle in.
Right now, the results aren’t good enough. That much is clear.
But there’s no reason to treat five games like a final verdict, and there’s even less reason to act as if the Dolphins owe anyone a quarterback decision for 2027 today. For now, they owe Willis a real chance to show what he can do.
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