The Miami Dolphins just wrapped up a preseason they’d probably like to forget. The loss to the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday night capped a summer in which they never won a game, and outside of the opening drive of the first matchup - with the starting offense on the field - Miami never found the end zone.
That’s not the kind of August anyone wants, and it comes as the Dolphins enter a season where expectations are already low. FanDuel Sportsbook has Miami at +50000 to win the Super Bowl, with only the +100000 Arizona Cardinals carrying longer odds.
All of that puts a spotlight on what comes next for a roster in transition. Miami is the youngest team in the league as it resets from the Mike McDaniel era to new head coach Jeff Hafley’s vision, and that means the back end of the roster could be in constant motion. Waiver claims figure to be one of the Dolphins’ most useful tools as they look for hidden value.
The timing matters, too. The 6 p.m.
Eastern deadline on Sunday, August 30, for roster cuts is approaching, and once players are waived, teams have a 24-hour window to claim them. The league processes those claims at the same time each day, usually 4 p.m.
Eastern, with this year’s claims set to be processed at 1 p.m. Eastern on Monday.
Here’s how the system works: when a player is waived, his contract becomes available for any team to claim. If a claim is awarded, the player joins the new team under his current deal, essentially like a trade without compensation going back to the original club.
Not every cut player goes through that process. Players with four accrued seasons are “released” instead of “waived,” which means they become free agents right away. A player earns an accrued season by being on a team’s active roster for six games in a season, and time on injured reserve or the physically unable to perform list still counts toward service time.
If a team wins a claim, there’s a catch: rosters are capped at 53 players. So if a club is already at the limit, it has to make room by waiving or releasing someone else.
The practice squad also has to wait its turn. Teams can’t begin building those groups until the waiver process runs on Monday.
Once a player clears waivers, he can sign with any team, including the one that cut him, either on the 53-man roster or the 16-man practice squad. But a player already on a roster can’t be sent straight to the practice squad; he has to be waived first, and only after he clears can the team bring him back there.
The waiver order is set by inverse league standings. For the first three weeks of the season, the NFL uses the previous year’s standings, which makes the order basically line up with the draft order, without trades factored in.
That order matters when multiple teams go after the same player. The team higher in the waiver order gets him. So if both the Las Vegas Raiders and the Miami Dolphins claim a player, the Raiders would land him because they sit ahead of Miami.
For Monday’s claims, the order starts with the Raiders and runs through the Seattle Seahawks, with Miami sitting 11th. That gives the Dolphins a decent shot at getting involved, but several needy teams are still ahead of them and can easily jump the line.
As for Miami’s own cuts, the team has to trim 38 players over the next couple of days, and anyone removed from the roster will be subject to waivers rather than becoming an immediate free agent. The list includes rookies Coleman Bennett, DJ Campbell, Kevin Cline, Ethan Conner, Stephen Dix, Jr., Jeremiah Franklin, Mark Gronowski, DJ Herman, Max Llewellyn, Donaven McCulley, Rodney McGraw, Jai’Onte’ McMillan, Louis Moore, Cam Rice, Seydou Traore and Carlos Washington, Jr.
Also in the group with 0 accrued seasons are Tucker Addington, Gottlieb Ayedze, Miles Battle, Major Burns, Seth Coleman-Lyles, Keith Cooper, Jr., Marques Cox, Donovan Edwards, AJ Henning, Alex Huntley, Cam Miller, Fatorma Mulbah, Josh Priebe, Cam Riley, Jaheim Thomas, Theo Wease, Jr. and Jackson Woodard.
Among players with more experience, Quinn Ewers and Jarquez Hunter have 1 accrued season, Ethan Bonner, Andrew Meyer and Ryan Miller have 2 accrued seasons, and Alex Austin, Robert Beal, Jr., Matthew Butler, Cameron Goode, A.J. Green III and Ben Sims have 3 accrued seasons.
In Other News...
Dolphins Backfield Suddenly Has One Trade Question Fans Should Watch
The Dolphins have already made one backfield move this week, shipping Tutu Atwell to the Rams in exchange for running back Jarquez Hunter, and it was the kind of swap that naturally invites a little roster-watching in Miami. Any time a team adds a young runner, it stirs up the same question about how the depth chart might shift, especially for a club that has spent a lot of time trying to get the right mix behind its top options.
Josh Jacobs legal situation in Green Bay only adds another layer to the conversation around running back movement around the league, even if there is nothing official on Miamis side yet. For the Dolphins, the intrigue is less about a completed deal than about whether the market could keep opening up and make one of their own players a candidate to move if the right opportunity comes along. [Read more 🡒]
Dolphins Just Made A Cut That Says A Lot About Their Priorities
With roster cutdown day closing in, the Dolphins made one of the more revealing moves of their late-summer cleanup by releasing linebacker Tyrel Dodson along with eight other players. The decision is believed to be tied to finances, with Miami creating about $3 million in salary cap space as it trims the roster and reshapes the back end of the team.
The timing adds another layer to a day that already included a trade of quarterback Quinn Ewers to the Jacksonville Jaguars for a 2028 sixth-round pick. Between the cap move and the draft-pick shuffle, Miami is clearly treating this stretch as more than a simple numbers exercise, with every transaction hinting at how the front office is sorting priorities before the season starts. [Read more 🡒]
Dolphins Just Raised A Bigger Question About Their Quarterback Plan
The Dolphins used the cutdown deadline to reshape a few corners of the roster, and the moves were more revealing than routine. Miami sent wideout Tutu Atwell to the Rams for running back Jarquez Hunter, then dealt quarterback Quinn Ewers to Jacksonville for a 2028 sixth-round pick pending a physical, while also waiving more than a dozen players and claiming two others. On paper, it was a busy churn of fringe roster business. In practice, it also nudged the conversation back toward how Miami wants to build out the back end of the depth chart and where it stands with its quarterback room.
Ewers was never going to be the headliner here, but moving him anyway is the kind of decision that gets attention because it touches the one position teams almost never stop managing. The financial angle matters too, since these kinds of trades can help shape the books while clearing space for other players, and Miami clearly chose flexibility over keeping a developmental arm in house. The bigger question now is what this says about the Dolphins broader quarterback plan, especially with the deadline pressure easing and the roster nearly set. [Read more 🡒]