The Miami Dolphins’ passing game has gone nowhere fast through five weeks, and the mess reaches well beyond one player or one mistake. The offense is tied for last in EPA per pass, while Malik Willis has the lowest completion rate in the NFL among qualified quarterbacks.
That kind of production doesn’t happen by accident, and it certainly doesn’t come from just one source. Miami has piled up enough self-inflicted problems to spread the blame around.
A big part of the issue starts with Bobby Slowik’s approach. Miami’s offensive coordinator is using concepts that look a lot like the ones from the previous regime, which makes sense given that Slowik was the senior passing game coordinator under Mike McDaniel.
But familiarity hasn’t translated into fit. The system, so far, hasn’t matched the players on hand or the way the defense is being played.
Jeff Hafley’s defense has been conservative, leaning on deep safeties and linebackers to cut down explosives and slow the game down. That should point an offense toward ball control, but Miami has done the opposite.
Slowik has kept swinging deep instead. Through Week 5, the Dolphins rank fourth in pass attempts of 20-plus yards, yet they are fourth-worst in EPA per dropback on those throws, according to NextGenStats.
The structure of the passing game is also asking too much of a receiving group that is young and lacking top-end talent. Miami’s routes still resemble the kind of passing menu built for Tyreek Hill and Jaylen Waddle, but this group is not built the same way.
The two-man concepts have been especially harmless with rookies Chris Bell and Kevin Coleman Jr. running them, and the run game hasn’t forced defenses to respect play action either. Miami ranks second-to-last in rushing success rate on first down, which means opponents don’t have to lean forward against the run.
The Dolphins also haven’t made things easy on Willis early in downs. Instead of stacking easy completions, they’ve gone with touchdown-to-checkdown for a quarterback who hasn’t been willing to take the latter. Slowik has pushed early, Miami has ended up behind the sticks, and Willis has been left in bad spots for long stretches of games.
Some of the damage is simple inexperience. The receiver group has been late or wrong in the details that matter, especially on crucial downs.
Chris Bell, the third-round rookie who missed most of the offseason while recovering from an ACL tear, has been the main culprit. On multiple occasions, receivers have lined up incorrectly, forcing Willis to redirect traffic late in the play clock instead of being able to read the defense before the snap.
The mistakes have shown up in route-running too. On Willis’ first pass against Cincinnati, a deep shot to Malik Washington, both Washington and coach Jeff Hafley said the receiver broke the route the wrong way, sending it toward the sideline instead of vertically up the numbers.
That wasn’t the only timing issue in that game. Later, three Miami eligible receivers lined up in a bunch and ran into each other, wrecking the rhythm of the concept.
The Miami Dolphins passing game is BROKEN.Sure, Malik Willis bears some of the blame, but there have been countless errors out of his control that have contributed to poor results. pic.twitter.com/xDFvnHPT8U
Even the scramble drill has been a problem. Miami’s spacing has gotten cramped late in plays, and the receivers haven’t seemed certain where to go. On Willis’ second interception in Week 5, Malik Washington stayed put, which brought his defender right into the throwing lane when Willis tried to hit Kevin Coleman Jr.
There’s no hiding the fact that Miami’s top four receivers, including injured Caleb Douglas, are all in their third year or younger. That group has to mature quickly if the offense is going to start making enough plays to win.
Willis, though, is far from blameless. The quarterback is carrying his share of the mess, even if he’s not responsible for all of it. On that interception intended for Coleman Jr., he couldn’t make Washington run the scramble drill correctly, but he had enough time to see the traffic and move on to another play.
And while Willis has faced pressure, he has also turned a lot of it into sacks. Despite having the sixth-best time-to-pressure in the league, he ranks 23rd in pressure-to-sack rate, per PFF. Some of those sacks have come in painful spots, including a second-down snap inside the 5-yard line in Week 5, when he had enough time to throw the ball away and instead held onto it.
At the center of it all is the need for Willis to speed up his process. He has to work through reads faster, know when to leave the pocket, and understand when a play is dead. Right now, he looks like a quarterback with only eleven career starts, and this version of the Dolphins needs much more than that.
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Malik Willis Keeps Ignoring One Dolphins Fix They Clearly Need
Through five games of the 2026 season, Malik Willis has given the Dolphins enough to work with at quarterback, but his decision-making has also left a clear opening in the offense. One of the easiest ways to clean that up should be right in front of him. Miamis tight ends have been involved in the game plan, and Greg Dulcich and Will Kacmarek have both helped the unit in different ways, yet the passing game has not leaned on that group nearly enough.
That matters because the Dolphins have a position room that can help open things up if Willis and offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik are willing to use it more consistently. Dulcich has flashed as a receiver, while Kacmarek has mostly been asked to do the dirty work, and the balance there suggests Miami has more room to grow on offense than it has shown so far. The question is whether Willis will start trusting the middle of the field more often, or keep leaving one of the teams clearest fixes on the table. [Read more 🡒]
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Malik Willis Pushes Back On What Dolphins Fans Saw Sunday
Before Miamis Week 5 matchup, Bengals safety Jordan Battle pointed to something he thought he saw from Malik Willis, suggesting the quarterback was tapping the ball before he threw it and that the habit helped lead to two interceptions. It was the kind of pregame remark that can stick with a player, especially when it sounds like a clean explanation for a turnover-heavy day.
Willis pushed back on that version of events, saying the interceptions came down to tipped passes and a scramble-drill mistake rather than any tell in his delivery. For Dolphins fans who had already noticed the playmaking swings around those turnovers, the dispute adds another layer to the debate over what really happened and whether the issue was habit, execution, or just a couple of bad breaks. [Read more 🡒]