The Miami Dolphins’ latest quarterback move has raised more eyebrows than excitement.
After trading for Kyle McCord, Miami also brought in former New York Jets backup Brady Cook on waivers and is set to elevate him to the 53-man roster. On paper, it looks like another shuffle at the back end of the quarterback room. In practice, it looks a lot more like a familiarity play.
The connection runs through Dolphins quarterbacks coach Bush Hamdan, who spent 2020 through 2022 as Missouri’s quarterbacks coach. Cook took over as Missouri’s starter in 2022, right when Hamdan was running the position room. That overlap is hard to ignore, especially when the move itself doesn’t scream upside.
Cook’s college résumé wasn’t exactly loud, and his 2024 season didn’t do much to change that. His conservative approach was part of the reason Luther Burden III slid from a first-round lock to the top of the second round, while former Dolphin Theo Wease went from a player with tools to an undrafted one. That’s not the kind of production that usually makes a team rush to claim a roster spot.
The NFL is full of relationships and handshakes behind the scenes, particularly when teams are filling out the lower rungs of the roster. But this one feels like Miami leaned a little too hard into the comfort of a known name.
Cook’s recent NFL work also didn’t create much of a case for him. In parts of five games last season, he threw just two touchdown passes against seven interceptions and lost all of his starts. Even if those Jets teams were operating with draft positioning in mind, the results still pointed to a quarterback who struggled to keep things moving.
Miami had other options with more obvious intrigue. Former Dallas Cowboys quarterback Joe Milton has one of the strongest arms in the league, and former Tennessee Titans second-round pick Will Levis is still the kind of player worth developing. Both were available, and both were passed over for Cook, who had to battle just to beat Bailey Zappe in the Jets’ final preseason games.
This also wasn’t a move designed to steal a peek at a division rival. The Jets and Dolphins don’t meet until late October, so there’s no early-season intel angle here. It looks much more like Hamdan wanted “his guy” on the roster, even if that meant passing on someone who might have offered a bit more if called into action.
And that’s the real issue. If a team is down to its third quarterback, things are already ugly. Brady Cook is just another practice squad-level passer in a league full of them, but Miami could have found one with a slightly higher ceiling instead of one that feels like a favor from a top assistant.
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