As the Dolphins keep piecing together their rebuild, the quarterback question is going to dominate the conversation. But the cleanest lesson may not come from the usual model everyone reaches for. It may come from the team that visits Hard Rock Stadium on Sunday: the Kansas City Chiefs.
Kansas City’s example is less about chasing the next superstar right away and more about building the conditions that let one thrive. That’s the real blueprint here. The Chiefs didn’t just land Patrick Mahomes; they set the stage first, putting a workable structure around the position before swinging big on the franchise guy.
Mahomes is obviously a special talent, and he may have been great anywhere. But he also walked into a stable setup.
When he became the full-time starter in 2018, the Chiefs were coming off five straight winning seasons, and four of those ended in the playoffs. That mattered.
It’s easy to forget now, but Kansas City spent a lot of the early 2000s as a pretty dull franchise. The turnaround started when Andy Reid arrived in 2013 and the team brought in Alex Smith to run the offense.
Smith was a solid NFL quarterback, just not an elite one. Still, he was good enough to get Kansas City to the playoffs, the same way he had done with the San Francisco 49ers.
Eventually, both teams reached the same conclusion: good wasn’t quite enough. San Francisco made its move with Colin Kaepernick in 2012, and Kansas City followed the same path with Mahomes. The point is that the Chiefs didn’t force the issue before they were ready.
That’s why the Dolphins may not need Willis to be a full-blown franchise quarterback immediately. Over the next two years, being good enough while the rest of the roster matures could be the more realistic target.
The best version of this story still has Willis developing into a true front-line quarterback who can eventually lead a deep playoff run. But nobody should pretend Miami is already there, either with Willis or with the pieces around him.
That reality should also cool the idea that the Dolphins have to draft a quarterback if they wind up with a very high pick in 2027. Maybe the smarter move is to keep building the infrastructure first and let the quarterback come later.
There are plenty of counterexamples people can point to, and Josh Allen always comes up in those debates. But there’s another side to that argument too: the Seattle Seahawks won the Super Bowl with a quarterback on his fifth team, and the Philadelphia Eagles won with a quarterback who has taken his share of criticism.
And then there’s the value of a quarterback on a rookie deal. That’s one of the biggest advantages in the league, which is exactly why it makes little sense to rush into drafting one if the rest of the team still isn’t close to contending.
There are exceptions to every rule. Still, the Chiefs’ path - from Alex Smith to Mahomes - might be the one the Dolphins should be studying most closely.
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