The Dolphins took a gut punch on Monday when De’Von Achane was diagnosed with a torn ACL after the Week 3 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs. For a Miami offense still trying to find its footing, losing the Pro Bowl running back is a brutal blow. But even with the bad news hanging over the week, there was still something real to pull from Sunday’s performance: the Dolphins are getting better.
That may not show up in the record - Miami is 0-3 and the losses are going to keep stacking up - but the team has clearly improved from one week to the next. For this season, that progression is the point.
Achane’s absence will make that climb tougher, especially on offense. The Dolphins had been leaning on him, and without that kind of centerpiece, the challenge only gets steeper for a group already struggling to put points on the board.
Still, second-year back Ollie Gordon II answered the call against Kansas City. He was already handling work with Jaylen Wright sidelined, and after Achane went down, Gordon took on the bulk of the load. The production wasn’t pretty - he averaged 2.4 yards per carry - but he ran with force all game, briefly left in the second half with cramps, and still managed to score on Miami’s opening drive.
There were signs of growth elsewhere too. Kansas City moved the ball early, but Miami’s defense settled in and made enough stops to keep things competitive for much of the afternoon. It wasn’t perfect, but it was the Dolphins’ best all-around showing so far.
That fits the bigger trend. Against San Francisco, Miami looked better than it did the week before against the Raiders, even if the 49ers eventually pulled away in the second half. The results are still ugly, but the weekly improvement is there.
The defense remains the biggest issue, just as expected before the season began. The offense has managed only one touchdown per game, but quarterback Malik Willis has shown progress.
On the other side, the lack of a real pass rush and a thinned-out cornerback group have made life miserable. Special teams hasn’t helped either.
Even so, Miami found some needed sparks against the Chiefs. The Dolphins still don’t have a sack this season, but rookie linebacker Jacob Rodriguez has been everything the team hoped for.
He picked off his first career pass on Sunday and continued to show he can be all over the field. His presence has started to rub off on the rest of the defense, too.
The rookies on both sides of the ball are beginning to make their mark, and that’s a positive for a team that’s clearly building toward something bigger. The run defense has been fairly solid, and it should only improve once Kenneth Grant comes back from injured reserve.
The schedule isn’t doing Miami any favors. Week 1 in Las Vegas looked like one of the team’s better chances to get a win, but the Raiders handled that game and now sit at 3-0. The Chiefs and 49ers were always going to be tough, and the stretch ahead is even less forgiving with the Vikings, Bengals, Patriots, and Lions in four of Miami’s next five games.
That’s a problem in the standings, but maybe not for the long-term development of this roster. Playing elite teams should accelerate the growth of the Dolphins’ young players, even if it means more losses now. Anything above three wins would be a surprise, and a winless season still doesn’t feel likely.
Losing Achane makes the path harder, especially for a team that didn’t have many obvious bright spots to begin with. But Willis posted his best game as a Dolphin without him, and he can keep growing despite the thin receiving options around him. The defense should improve over time, too, and eventually Miami will probably steal a game nobody expects it to win.
For now, the Dolphins need to clean up the penalties, which are still piling up too often for a roster this young. Special teams has to get better as well. The defense has its issues, but that phase hasn’t done the team any favors either.
Even with all that, the biggest takeaway is the one that matters most: Miami is still fighting. Three games in, down by multiple scores in most of them, the easy thing would be to fold.
Instead, the Dolphins are competing for four quarters. At this stage, that counts for a lot.
In Other News...
Dolphins Secondary Shakeup Reveals Who Jeff Hafley Trusts Right Now
The first three weeks of Miamis 2026 season have already brought a noticeable reshaping of the roster and the snap counts, and the defensive secondary is one of the clearest places to see it. Head coach Jeff Hafley has started sorting out who he trusts in the back end, with safeties Dante Trader Jr. and Michael Taaffe handling every defensive snap in Week 3 while Zayne Anderson was reduced to special teams duty.
Julius Woods role was also worth watching, since he got on the field in a nickel/corner look for the first time. For a team in rebuild mode, those kinds of usage shifts matter because they can quickly reveal which young defenders are moving up the depth chart and which combinations Hafley wants to keep testing as the season unfolds. [Read more 🡒]
Dolphins Just Made A Quarterback Bet That Could Define This Rebuild
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What makes this bet notable is the runway attached to it. Miami is giving Willis at least two seasons to show he can be more than a stopgap, banking on his physical tools and mental toughness to help steady an offense that needs direction. If he can settle in and deliver, the Dolphins may have found a foundation piece for this next phase, and if not, the reset clock on the rebuild could start ticking all over again. [Read more 🡒]
Chargers Already Have A Problem Fans Will Put On Harbaugh
Early-season 0-3 starts always force a hard look at where things have gone sideways, and the Dolphins are part of a strange little group already feeling that pressure alongside Houston, the Chargers, Tampa Bay and Tennessee. In Miamis case, the conversation is less about a single bad quarter than the broader mix of injuries, offensive issues and defensive inconsistency that can turn a promising team into one chasing answers before the calendar has really settled.
For the Dolphins, the concern is not just the record but how quickly a season can start to feel like it is slipping away when so many pieces are not quite holding together. The same theme runs through the leagues other winless starts, with different teams blamed for different reasons, but Miamis challenge is more familiar than dramatic: getting healthy, getting cleaner and finding a level of play that keeps the losses from piling up any further. [Read more 🡒]