Ranking Dolphins Top 25 Players: An Underrated Special Teams Asset

The Miami Dolphins are entering a critical season in 2025. After missing the playoffs last season and not making any blockbuster moves this offseason, the team is under a lot of pressure to finally get over the hump in the playoffs.

With that in mind, it seems like an excellent time to rank the Dolphins’ top 25 players heading into the 2025 season. This list was voted on by site publisher Alain Poupart (@PoupartNFL), deputy editor Dante Collinelli (@DanteCollinelli) and contributor Jake Mendel (@JMendel94).

The rankings were compiled separately based on a points system. That system awarded 25 points to the first player in each writer’s top 25, 24 to the second player, 23 to the third player, and so on.

13. Jason Sanders, Kicker

While it might be surprising to see a kicker finish this high in the rankings, Jason Sanders had an excellent 2024 season and has been a mostly reliable kicker since he joined the Dolphins in 2018.

Sanders’ best season came in 2020 when he was a first-team All-Pro. He made 36 of his 39 total attempts, including going eight-of-nine from beyond 50 yards that season.

After that, Sanders struggled a bit for the next three seasons. He made 74.2%, 81.3%, and 85.7% the next three years, respectively. Those rough seasons were mostly the product of him making just four of his 12 attempts from beyond 50 yards in 2021 and 2022 combined.

However, Sanders bounced back in a big way in 2024. He had an overall make percentage of 90.2 — the second highest of his career — and hit a career high 12 of 14 attempts from beyond 50 yards.

Sanders was fourth in makes from beyond 50, and he was eighth in overall conversion percentage among kickers who had at least 20 field goal attempts.

The New Mexico State product is also quietly climbing his way up the Dolphins’ all-time kicking leaderboards. He’s already the most accurate kicker in team history (among those with more than 17 games with the team), with a career conversion percentage of 84.6.

His 187 total makes are second only to Olindo Mare, who was with the team from 1997 to 2006 and had 245 makes, but his total conversion rate was just 80.4%.

Sanders doesn’t get grouped in with the league’s best kickers often, but he’s been incredibly consistent for most of his career. If he ironed out his long-range accuracy for good last season, he could end up passing Mare for all-time makes sooner rather than later.

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