The Miami Dolphins made a quarterback move on Sunday that looked, on paper, like a clean piece of business: they landed second-year QB Kyle McCord from the Green Bay Packers for a 2028 sixth-round pick. That was the same pick the Dolphins had just picked up from the Jacksonville Jaguars in the Quinn Ewers deal on Saturday.
So, in practical terms, Miami turned Quinn Ewers into Kyle McCord.
That’s the kind of swap that immediately grabs your attention, especially with McCord coming off a preseason that turned heads. He threw four touchdown passes against the Arizona Cardinals on Thursday night, and overall he finished first in the NFL with four TD passes and second with 446 passing yards in the preseason.
That said, the bigger question is whether this actually settles Miami’s backup quarterback situation. And the answer there is not so simple.
From a cost standpoint, the Dolphins hardly paid anything. A 2028 sixth-round pick is a tiny price, and McCord is set to make under $885,000, which is the minimum for players without an accrued NFL season. In other words, this was a no-cost swing for Miami.
But the fact that the Packers were willing to move on from McCord raises its own set of questions. Green Bay’s 2026 backup is 37-year-old Tyrod Taylor, and if the Packers truly believed McCord was a future answer, they could have kept three quarterbacks on the 53-man roster. Teams do that when they think a quarterback is worth protecting.
McCord’s path also matters here. He’s now headed to his third team in two years after originally joining the Philadelphia Eagles as a sixth-round pick in 2025.
The Eagles didn’t keep him on the 53-man roster as a rookie, and the Packers clearly didn’t see him as a must-keep piece either. That same kind of situation played out with Cam Miller, another 2025 sixth-round pick who failed to make the Raiders’ 53-man roster and later landed with the Dolphins.
The difference, of course, is that McCord flashed in a big way this summer. Still, preseason production can be a tricky thing to trust too much.
Recent preseason passing leaders have included Trey Lance, Stetson Bennett, Jack Plummer, Will Grier, Kyle Trask, Trace McSorley, Easton Stick and Anthony Brown. That list alone is a reminder that gaudy August numbers do not automatically translate into a dependable NFL backup.
None of that means McCord can’t become one. It just means Miami shouldn’t treat this as a solved problem yet.
The Dolphins may have gotten a young quarterback with a better long-term profile than Ewers, and that’s fair enough since McCord was drafted earlier in the same draft. But the gap between a sixth-round pick and a seventh-round pick is not exactly massive, unless that sixth-round pick is Tom Brady.
So the trade itself is easy to like from Miami’s perspective. The Dolphins gave up essentially nothing to take a shot on a quarterback who might be an upgrade. That part earns an A.
As for whether McCord is already the answer behind the starter? That’s a different conversation.
Right now, it’s hard to say he’s a clear upgrade over Ewers, if an upgrade at all. The Dolphins may have added a name worth watching, but the backup quarterback question still looks open.
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 🡒]