The Dolphins knew exactly what they were buying when they brought in Malik Willis, and the latest NFL quarterback survey suggests they’re not alone in seeing the upside.
Miami’s move for the Green Bay Packers quarterback was always going to draw attention. Willis has only six career starts and 155 professional pass attempts, so the résumé is thin. But his 2025 stretch was strong enough to make teams take the plunge, and the Dolphins did so on a three-year, $67.5 million deal.
That decision got another layer of validation on Tuesday when The Athletic’s Mike Sando released the annual quarterback tier list. A panel of 50 NFL coaches and executives ranked 35 quarterbacks into five tiers, with Tier 1 reserved for the league’s best and Tier 5 defined as “not a starter, period.” Willis landed 29th overall, two spots behind Tua Tagovailoa, Miami’s 2025 starter.
The number that really stands out is his average ranking: 3.66. That put him somewhere between Tier 3, which Sando defined as a legit starter, and Tier 4, the unproven group. For a player with so little NFL tape, that’s hardly a harsh read.
The anonymous feedback around Willis was even more telling. One executive said: “He’s got some energy, some bounce to him as a passer and runner. Out of this year’s [veteran] QB class, he’s the one guy where you said, OK, if we sign him, we give him a couple years, he could maybe ascend to that [tier] 2 level.”
A general manager offered a similar view, saying: “I love Malik Willis. They are committing to him. I just feel like Year 1 has the potential to be rough just because they are building out the infrastructure around him.”
Sando’s own note may have been the most encouraging line for Miami. He wrote: “Willis is the lowest-ranked QB without a Tier 5 vote. No one is writing him off as a starter at this early stage, in other words.”
That matters because it shows the Dolphins’ bet wasn’t viewed around the league as some wild swing. If the deal had been seen as reckless or inflated, that panel had plenty of room to say so.
The point comes through even more clearly when looking at the reactions to quarterbacks like Shedeur Sanders and J.J. McCarthy.
For Dolphins fans, the long wait now shifts from speculation to actual football. Training camp has kept the conversation going for months, with the same refrain that Willis hasn’t played enough to be fully judged.
Fair enough. But that debate only lasts so long.
Miami opens the preseason on August 14 against the Washington Commanders. Whether Willis plays a major role there is still unclear.
Once the regular season begins on September 13 against the Las Vegas Raiders, though, the guesswork ends. The questions around Willis will start getting answered in real time, and that’s exactly where this story was always headed.
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