Week 2 ended the same way Week 1 did for the Dolphins: with Miami getting run off the field on the West Coast.
The 49ers hammered the Dolphins 35-13 at Levi’s Stadium, and the final margin only tells part of the story. Miami’s offense and defense both got buried in the third quarter for the second straight week, and by the end of the afternoon, the list of bright spots was awfully thin.
Still, there were a few. Not many, but a few.
The clearest offensive positive was De’Von Achane, who finished with 74 yards on 28 carries. That’s not a headline-grabbing line, but it was at least steady production in a game where too many other Dolphins weapons disappeared. Achane handled 17 touches in the first half alone - two more than his total from last week against the Raiders - before the offense faded as Miami fell behind by multiple scores.
The workload was the point. Offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik promised to get Achane more involved, and Miami did feed him the ball more. The run blocking was better, too, against a San Francisco run defense that had its own issues in the win over the Rams.
There was one other offensive play worth remembering, and it came from a player most people probably didn’t have circled. Willie Miller, claimed off waivers by Miami on August 25 after spending a season with the New York Giants, caught the first touchdown pass of Malik Willis’ Dolphins career.
It was a 77-yard strike, with Miller blowing past Upton Stout. It won’t automatically mean a bigger role, but it was one of the rare clean wins Miami got all day.
The rookie tight end Joshua Kacmarek also deserves a mention. His job is mostly to block, and he handled that role well.
He had some solid battles with Nick Bosa and helped in the run game, including serving as a main blocker for Achane at times. He also caught his lone target from Willis for a 4-yard gain in the third quarter.
On the defensive side, safety Taaffe was one of the few players who brought any consistent energy. Miami’s pass rush barely existed, but Taaffe kept showing up.
He finished with nine total tackles, five of them solo, and came closest to sacking Brock Purdy. He also forced an intentional grounding penalty that led to the Dolphins’ first defensive stop of the game - in the fourth quarter.
That kind of effort stood out because so little else did. The future core of the defense may have something in players like Taaffe and Jacob Rodriguez, but that was about as encouraging as it got.
The rest of the night was a slog, and some of the lowlights were hard to miss. Patrick Paul struggled badly again, and the issues were obvious from the start.
He spent much of the game lined up across from Nick Bosa, and Bosa consistently pushed him around. Even Upton Stout, a 181-pound cornerback, was able to drive him backward into Willis near the goal line and help force the quarterback out of the pocket.
The reaction time, footwork and physicality just weren’t there.
The Dolphins can probably live with that from a rookie. They can’t feel great about it from a player in his seventh NFL season. Once Paul reaches unrestricted free agency in 2027, the case for keeping him around looks thinner by the week.
The same sort of disappointment showed up in the pass rush. Zach Sieler, who signed a three-year, $64 million extension in 2025, was held to one total tackle and never came close to bothering Purdy.
San Francisco’s quarterback was never seriously threatened, and he finished with three touchdown passes and only two incompletions. Sieler spent plenty of the game dealing with double teams and was largely erased.
There wasn’t much help behind him, either. Anyone connected to Miami’s pass rush could have landed on the wrong side of this one.
Running back Gordon also had a forgettable afternoon. With Achane handling most of the work, he only got a handful of snaps and managed just 7 yards on three carries.
One run went for 5 yards; the others barely moved the ball. He also had a quiet day on special teams, though he did draw a running into the kicker penalty in the fourth quarter that wiped out a San Francisco holding call on the same punt.
That matters a little more because Jaylen Wright’s injury status remains unclear. Jeff Hafley didn’t offer an update after the game, and if Wright is out next week or longer, Miami’s depth at running back suddenly looks shaky. Gordon’s showing in San Francisco didn’t do much to ease that concern.
Special teams, as a whole, had a rough day. Patterson missed an early 51-yard field goal wide right after a good snap and hold, though he did make kicks from 24 and 28 yards. Even so, that gives him two misses in two games, and he’s already matched his total missed field goals from all of last season.
Then came the play that will live on in the lowlight reel. Pinion dropped the ball as he started his punting motion in the third quarter.
He recovered it, but the damage was done: San Francisco took over at the 28-yard line and needed only two plays to cash in. It was the kind of mistake that can define a bad day in a hurry.
For a team that came in with low expectations, the Dolphins still managed to sink below them. And while the final score was ugly, the list of actual winners was even shorter.
In Other News...
Dolphins Just Added An Edge Rusher With Bigger Roster Implications
The Dolphins added some edge depth by signing Andre Jones Jr. off the Buffalo Bills practice squad, a move that brings in a fourth-year NFL veteran with 19 games of experience over three seasons. Jones also has a familiar face in Miamis building, having been coached in Buffalo by special teams coordinator Chris Tabor, which gives the pickup a little more context than a routine late-season transaction.
The bigger part of the deal is what comes next for Miamis roster. Jones has to be carried on the active roster for at least three weeks, so the Dolphins will need to clear a spot to make the signing official in practice and on game days, a small move on paper that can still ripple through the back end of the roster. [Read more 🡒]
Falcons QB Situation Suddenly Looks Worse Than Fans Feared
Through the first two weeks of the 2026 season, the quarterback conversation has already split cleanly between the usual stars and the passers trying to keep jobs from slipping away. Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen are doing what they normally do, while the early struggles from players like Cooper Rush and Malik Willis have helped define the other end of the rankings. Injuries to Caleb Williams and Jayden Daniels have only added to the sense that the league is sorting out its QB hierarchy fast, and not always cleanly.
For Miami, the larger takeaway is less about the top of the list than how teams are handling their own quarterbacks in the margins. The Dolphins have already come under scrutiny for not leaning enough into Malik Williss running ability, which is the kind of detail that can matter in a season when every advantage counts. With the quarterback picture still shifting this early, decisions like that can end up looking bigger as the weeks go on. [Read more 🡒]
Dolphins Already Have A Veteran Trust Problem After Two Weeks
Two weeks into the season, the Dolphins are already dealing with a familiar kind of roster audit: which veterans can be counted on, and which ones are making the coaching staff hesitate. The trust report around Miamis Week 2 performance does not read like a simple snap judgment so much as a snapshot of a team still sorting through reliability, with penalties, physicality and consistency all showing up as the dividing lines.
The evaluation also reaches beyond the obvious names on offense and defense, because special teams and the coaching staff are part of the equation too. For a team trying to settle into the season, the concern is not just who is earning more trust, but how quickly that trust can disappear when execution slips and the people in charge of the details are drawing scrutiny as well. [Read more 🡒]